Air Con Installer - Part 5

This should be the last part of my "Air Con Installer" series posting. It would be about the company that we had "re-awarded" our installation job. I would not name the company yet since works have not yet started, so I would just call it HA.

I only started to look into HA seriously after SC disappointed me. A friend introduced it to me much earlier on but I didn't really look into it as I could not find the company name when I googled it previously. When I was researching on the Internet again, I came across a rather familiar name but the company's name was spelt slightly off from the contact that my friend gave to me, with an additional letter "e" in one of the words. Hence, I decided to give it a try and whatsapp the person. I asked him if he's still in the aircon business and still with the same company. Well, he replied yes, so my friend's contact and the one I came across online were actually referring to the same company. 

Therefore, I asked him to give me a quote based on my specifications. When I saw the amount quoted, I could not believe it and asked "are you sure this is the price?" and told him that his quote was the lowest so far. He asked me if most of my quotes where somewhere just slightly under 4k or above 4k, so apparently he knows his competitors' rate, haha... He told me that they are having promotion and that's why they can quote such a price. While I'm aware that All Best or Best Tech could provide a very attractive quote, I didn't approach them to quote as I read many bad reviews about them.

Subsequently, I also asked him if he's able to do three trips at no extra cost, which he replied that it can be arranged but they would have to bring back all the old aircon stuff and I told him that I expected the installer would bring them back. If you're not aware, the old aircon stuff could be sold off for a bit of money. He said that this is to help them to recover the cost for making another trip.

A site survey was arranged to discuss about the piping route, especially we have concerns for the one that's going to be installed in the living room. Well, he may be a sales executive but he knows his stuff. He told us that the best route for the living room unit, is to install the piping through our master bedroom (MBR) toilet. Now, he's the second installer who told us this besides the one from NC. It is the shortest route with minimal bendings, so it can cool down the room faster. When NC told my hubby previously about this route, I was kind of skeptical. Toilet will have moisture and we bathe there, will there be condensation problem??? Hence, after probing this guy from HA, he told us that we have to avoid bathing in MBR toilet when the aircon is on... He explained that when aircon is on, the gas (coolant) pumped through the copper pipes is cold and when we bathe, the hot water would heat up the toilet. It's not good to have hot and cold in the same area at the same time as it would cause condensation. Now, this will pose a great challenge for me!!! Sometimes I bathe after my kids are asleep, don't tell me that I have to bring my toiletries to go to common toilet to bathe. If not, I have to off the aircon and let my kids "suana" in long wears with the fan on but it's not good that they perspire during the "suana" and cool down again in aircon environment, hot and cold don't go well for kids too! 

Well, after much discussion, we decided to install the living room unit on an alternate location. It would take a longer time to cool the room as the copper piping route is longer but still within 15m and it goes through more bendings. However, the drainage pipe is still short as it will be routed to my balcony's floor trap. We're hacking away our sliding doors and convert the balcony as part of the living room with a box up for the drainage pipe that will have a door or open access panel.

My friend told me that her aircons had been installed for coming to 2 years and there is no leaking problem so far. She was recommended to this guy/HA by her neighbour. Well, if there's no leaking problem within the first year of installation, the workmanship should be quite alright. With a real friend's testimony, not gathered from online sources, I decided to try out HA. Also, hubby is comfortable with this guy as he's able to share with us on quite a lot of things regarding aircon installation. Now, we may not know if there's any part that he's "smoking" us based on a commoner's understanding, I think it does make sense for some stuff like hot and cold don't go well together.

To summarise, we decided on HA based on the following considerations.

• They quoted the cheapest so far, which was lower than what CE and SC quoted.
• They provided a free no obligation site survey and we were satisfied with the sales executive's replies to our queries.
• They can do a third trip without any additional charge.
• They could do according to our proposed schedule for all the three trips.
• There is a real friend's testimony.

For now, I pray hard that all will go smoothly for my house renovation. I would share my reviews on HA after the installation works have completed. Hope you have enjoyed reading my blogging about my house renovation and that the 5 parts Air Con Installer series has been a helpful or interesting read for you. I'm not sure if you have counted the number of air con installers that I've approached for quotation but I did... a total of 10! It's even more than the number of IDs I've approached for quotation, which was only 6.

Meanwhile, stay tuned and see what's my next topic...