Honke Heating & Air Conditioning

Last summer Honke Heating replaced my old furnace and water heater with new appliances plus air conditioning. All works just fine. It didn’t occur to me to be sure my gas fireplace also would light last summer. Now that it is cold, I really want to use my gas fireplace, but the pilot won’t light. A friend looked at it and suspects air in the gas line. HH wants to charge me a $ 90 service call plus any parts etc. I think that is excessive! I found their installers and salesman very good. I find their office staff lacking in good customer service. I had issues with the initial scheduling. Today’s call about the fireplace was just ‘routine’ for them. They could care less.

Last December just as the 20 degree weather was starting, my electric furnace stopped putting out heat. Honke came out next day. Matt said he had to order parts. About a week later, and one heck of a cold house as cold weather had hit, Matt came to fix furnace. Only problem, Honke ordered wrong parts. We were freezing trying to heat a 3 story house with a gas fireplace. I called around and found the part but Honke told me they only ordered from a certain vendor. They order part again, comes in wrong again. This time, Matt says he could restring the heating coils at his shop and we would have heat. Cost would be an extra $ 240. Bringing total to over $ 700. He did the work, and we had heat for 1 week. I then went and got parts I found and fixed furnace. During all this, I had very unsatisfactory phone conversations with their staff. I got a sinus infection from breathing in cold air continually all day & night for 3 weeks. I did call and complain to the man in charge and got like a third of the bill back, although it took several calls then to get them to mail it. Matt is a very nice person, but as far as everything else? TERRIBLE!!! No stars review!

Had two bad experiences with them quite a long time ago and haven’t used them since. About 20 years ago (I know, a long time, right?) We had them put in a new furnace and central a/​c. That was in late April. They finished installing the furnace and started on the a/​c but never finished hooking it up. They didn’t send the electrician to finish the job until late August. The electrician refused to start or test the A/​C because he wasn’t qualified to service/​test it. Finally in September, after the summer was over, we got our A/​C working.
Then about 5 years later we had them do maintenance work on the furnace and a/​c. The tech just stood there, unsure of what to check or do.
These were incidents from long ago and hopefully the same people are no longer there and things have improved, but we weren’t willing to use them when our furnace went out and needed replacement four years ago.

We got three bids for a huge job, new AC, new gas furnace, new hot water heater, whole house air filtration and whole house steam humidifier. Found them on Angie’s List. They beat the other bids, including Costco during a time of double cash card bonus, and pointed out rebates and incentives the costco installer didn’t for the same units. The customer service has always been exceptional, office ladies are very nice. Rick was great fielding all my ridiculous questions, and the installers got this big job done in a day and a half. I also called them on a Sunday night when my elderly moms AC unit died, and they arrived early for a noon — 3 window, replaced the capacitor and sent me the bill at my request so as not to befuddle her, no questions, no problems. Give them a call!

Well, the work they do seems fine. We initially had them come out just to do yearly cleaning service on the furnace. They then needed to come out to replace a switch on the furnace (not a big deal).
My beef is with the lackadaisical attitude they seem to have about giving an accurate time frame when they plan on showing up, or, at least following up when they know the guy is going to be late. I’m not sure if this is an issue with the office staff or the guy communicating to the office where he is. TWICE now I’ve been told between 10 and 12 and after 12, I have to call the office and find out where the guy is. «oh yeah, was just going to call you… uh…he’s going to be late.» Well, geez, glad I called since I have nothing better to do than wait for you guys all day.
There are plenty of other companies to call. We were trying to keep it really local, but we will be looking for other options in the future. The customer shouldn’t have to keep reminding the business to come provide their service ESPECIALLY when it’s a new customer. Not a great first or second impression.

They did a very nice job removing the old heater and replacing it with a heat pump. I have had them out yearly since then to perform the annual maintenance and checkup. They’re no-​nonsense, show up when they say they will, and do good work.

We foolishy let our oil tank for our furnace run dry. Had we been awake to hear the noise a straw makes in an empty soda glass, we might have also heard the furnace fuel pump choking down mouthfuls of oozy gooey sediment.
We had a repairman out from another company that this review isn’t about and he tried a few things, then informed us our pump is seized up and won’t prime. Furthermore, our 60 year old furnace no longer has parts available. So we’re basically looking at $ 1200 in parts to get up and running. However, this guy has a used part he can hook us up with on the cheap.
The next 4 days are spent trying to track this guy down for his cheap used part.
We gave up… Enter Honke Heating & AC. They were able to schedule an appointment within 24 hours of my call. The service technician showed up a little late after coming off of a difficult call and a long drive. However, he was friendly and knowledgeable. I did my best to stay off of his back even though I wanted to see what he was doing. Within an hour he had essential rebuilt our fuel pump right in our basement. The bill was less than a quarter of what I thought we’d be paying.
Our house is warm. Honke saved the day!
As for «those other guys»… Well when we get bids to switch to NW Natural, Honke will be getting a call… The other guys? notsomuch…