P.W. Stephens Environmental, Inc

Therma Pure Heat /​PW Stephens Environmental: recently did a huge job at Pathfinder Village Apartments. A project where they bring in canine dogs to each apartment in search of bed bugs. I have to say that the company was so professional, They were very pleasant. They came to my apartment with their cute little dog.
They were not disruptive at all. They also finished the huge job ahead of Schedule.

P.W. Stephens get five stars for their promptness, integrity and quality of service. We would be happy to rehire them and also we strongly recommend them for others.

We just bought a house, which needed a new furnace. Before the old furnace could be replaced we needed to remove asbestos around the unit. The HVAC company we went with recommended P.W. Stephens who were on top of things. We needed to get the furnace in quickly since temperatures were dropping so P.W. fit us in with short notice. They were on time, quick, and very reasonably priced. Hopefully we don’t require their services again in the future, but if we do I would definitely use them.

Let me tell you a story not about the service but about the integrity and safety of this company.
About a week ago~ 11÷13÷15
I was on my daily drive to work on Mission Blvd going towards Campbell (yeah… long commute). Here’s the scene: about 100 feet in front of me is a large truck — those kinds that carry the logs in the back — and directly to my right is a PW Stephens work van with no car in front of it. Well, I did not want to stay behind this truck for too long (think Final Destination 2…) so I sped up to go in front of the van. Once I’ve done this, this work van began speeding up to me and basically tailing me for the next two lights. When we were both stopped at a red, I started seeing what looked like camera flashes coming from the driver’s side. WTF? Freaked out, I bolt once the light turned green, and this van looks like it’s made it a mission to catch me? At this point I’m going about 60−70+ mph, weaving in and out of traffic (terrible, yes I know) trying to get away from dude, but to no avail. This van is right behind me. As this chase is happening, I still see camera flashes coming from the driver’s side, so of course I’m panicking at this point. What did I do?! This chase goes on for a while and I believe I finally was able to lose him around the Mowry area.
Obviously still shaken, I made a call to the company on my lunch break to tell them what happened. I spoke with a really nice receptionist, and I wish I had gotten her name. After my story, she had transferred me to someone named Steve MacFarlane, the VP of the company, who I reiterated my story to. He definitely wanted to get to the bottom of this (sounded like it in his tone) and made it a mission to get the story from both sides. He even told me he had a translator on hand as I guess the person driving the van doesn’t speak English. Great, sounds like a plan. He told me I would be getting a follow up call regarding this issue by Wednesday 11÷18÷15 at the latest as he would be busy Monday and Tuesday with meetings. Completely understandable I say and I agree to wait for his call Wednesday.
Wednesday comes, and still no call. Okay, maybe Thursday. Nothing. I called them myself today 11÷20÷15, and was told to call back again at 2PM as Steve was in a corporate meeting.
UPDATE: Called around 2:50PM to find out Steve had left the building. I was able to leave my number with the receptionist (again) who told me she would forward the number to Steve.
UPDATE 2.0: Steve called around 3PM in which I asked him for an update on the incident. Basically he outright defended his employee telling me all this stuff about how great an employee he is. Apparently from his employee’s eyes, the reason he started chasing me was because I cut him off??? Even if I did, does that warrant the employee’s actions to drive clearly 30 mph OVER the speed limit to catch up to me so he could take pictures of me for what seemed like the entirety of Union City/​Fremont? Totally unreasonable, unbelievably creepy, and extremely unprofessional. Sir, you have the name of your employer on the side of your van, is this how you want to represent your company?
I thanked Steve for calling me and mentioned what happened to him calling me Wednesday. His excuse was that he has cancer and so does his wife so he had some sort of emergency appointment that day. I don’t know if this is forreal, but the fact that he wedged this detail into his reasoning was totally unnecessary; a «sorry it’s been busy at work» could have sufficed, really. In fact, throughout our whole phone conversation, it seemed that Steve had some sort of excuse for everything that happened (employee is a great worker and has worked here a long time, employee is bi-​lingual and has his «papers» [what does this have to do with anything??], employee is married and because he’s married would not do such a thing [married logic??]) By the end of the call, I could tell Steve was just done with this situation and rushing me to hang up hoping I would brush this under the rug.
This is pulled directly from their company website:
«It’s important that we do our job effectively– not only for our customer’s satisfaction but for their physical well-​being and safety… We are committed to responding to the needs of our customers quickly, while working safely, and providing a healthy environment for our clients, their families and our responding crew members.»
So why was my (among surrounding drivers’) well-​being and safety not a concern?
In the end, the worker just got a «stern talking-​to» and if this matter was so worthy that I should contact the police. Though I did get my answer, it still left a really bad taste in my mouth. There’re just still so many questions, and that makes me worried about what kind of company PW Stephens REALLY is…
TL;DR: PW Stephens work van «Mad Max’d» me because I cut him off. VP of company defends worker with irrelevant excuses.

Easter Sunday night… and my sewer main fails — talk about a nightmare!
Well it was every bit that, but after all these years of having Farmers insurance, and not needing them — MN was I impressed when Brent from PW Stephens sent his crew out. Prompt, clean, and fairly priced, I will use PW 1^st time-​every time.
Thank You
RB Alexander
2714 Via Montezuma, San Clemente, Ca. 92 672
949−492−1912

I am a heating & a/​c contractor that has used P.W. Stephens for many years and have also referred them to my customers. Steve and Bill have been great to work with on pricing and setting up removal. The crews that have been removing the asbestos have been very professional. When unforeseen issues pop up they have always been fair to work it out with me and my customers. I will continue to use them and recommend them to others.

We had a mold and possibly an asbestos problem in our bathroom. Two other mold remediation companies told us we had to replace the ceiling and probably the walls, at great expense. The PW Stephens estimator, Bill, came out and measured the moisture in the ceiling, which wasn’t much. Said we didn’t need to tear everything out. He told us how to get rid of the mold and how to keep it from reoccurring. Really appreciate the advice. Refreshing to find an honest company.

We had to use them after a fire. They weren’t well supervised and had to come back to finish one job which caused a delay. The worse was when they destroyed crown molding and wallpaper in a bathroom instead of removing a ceiling within the molding. They are refusing to pay for replacing the wallpaper.

I had PW Stephens do some abatement work at my house recently and was very impressed from start to finish. They were on time, did more than I had initially contracted them for without additional cost. That is hard to find these days. I would recommend them highly…

Late in 2013, I experienced a boisterous sales estimator who in hindsight seemed more like a p. r. guy trying to spread good will, ahead of a miserable experience to come. He basically just wasted about an hour or more of my time with off the subject small talk. Never saw him again. Very unimpressed with their mostly absentee crew of seemingly very low end workers without much apparent (if any) supervision or abilities. They dragged out what could have been a few days job for closer to a month while they are mostly not even present. They kept failing inspections by an environmental firm that couldn’t sign off their work multiple times for multiple reasons like parts of job weren’t done at all and job not completed per scope of work. When they claimed to have finished the final time, it looks like another remediation company will need to attend to a lot of incomplete work and to damages they caused and left.
p. s. Only after they’d moved in their equipment and taken over the premises, did the environmental firm representative say that this firm is known to use their low bids to get contracts. Environmental firm contact said he really does not like following this firm due to their bad or non-​existent communications and repeated failures to perform like written above. I would have preferred the environmental contact tell me this all up front rather than after the fact. The HOA hired this company, not me. Sure wouldn’t recommend this outfit.

They were OK when I first used them but for some reason they just kept on raising there price job after job after job… I can’t work with a company that does that. I now use alliance eviromental and they are honest and do good affordable work
These people are a ripp RIPPOFF

I was referred by my colleague and I am SO glad she did so. Steve showed up in my house on time, and he is a very professional and honest guy.
I bought my house last year, it was build in 1975, and I just found out that it has asbestos inside the boots. I was very panic and had a lot of questions. He is very patient and knowledgeable. He gave me honest, good, free advice, and save me tons of money.
It isn’t often that someone is willing to be that patient and helpful when they aren’t likely to be making a profit. I really appreciate his help. highly recommend!

These people *never* returned their calls as promised. Most of the time, the call wasn’t returned at all, I had to call back to follow up. They give you their cell phone number. Sounds great, only that they don’t pick up the phone and the mailbox is full, so you can’t even leave a message.
Contacted the company regarding heat treatment of the entire house. After giving details over the phone, such as really small house size (under 500 square feet) the price quote came at $ 5400 — $ 5800. I guess I made a mistake of mentioning that I was in dire need and that another pest control company quoted close to $ 6000 which was ridiculous and prohibitive (and turned out to be a mistake on my part of misreading the quote!). After coming to the house and seeing it, the price dropped to $ 3400 — $ 3800. Thus, what was the first price about? Just suck out as much money from a person as possible?
Due to their lack of responsiveness and price decided to go with another pest control company that gave a quote just below $ 3000. It looked like we had a date for the treatment and all was looking good. Unfortunately the pest control company contracts out to PW Stephens… All of a sudden, 6 days before the scheduled treatment date, the requirements for preparing for the treatment changed! They needed all of our clothing out of the house due to their density and heat absorbing properties. Give me a break. Concrete slab is a heat sink but clothing? The house is tiny and there is hardly any closet space at all, so the clothes are on the shelves in the bedroom. Regardless, changing requirements on a client at the last minute is totally unprofessional. Stay away from these people.