Ocean Air Heating

Super impressed with their customer service! They weren't able to provide the service we need, but they called me directly and recommended a competitor who could do that kind of work. It was an unnecessary service that really impressed me!

I cannot speak highly enough of my experience with Ocean Air Heating. My house gets really hot in the summer and I was looking to install AC. I called James to discuss the options and ultimately opted for installation of a heat pump system.

James and his crew did an amazing job with the project. They were able to install everything in 2 days. The crew did an incredible job installing the system and left my house spotless afterwards. Now I am able to keep my house a comfortable temperature year round with a highly efficient heat pump!

I keep forgetting to post this review even though these folks built my hvac system (heat pump) over two years ago. So this is in effect a long term review. In summary the HVAC system was built exceedingly well and works really well. I do wish I'd asked them to install a higher end unit with built in dehumidification but that's on me as they definitely sized and chose a unit with the best bang for the buck for my house size and which would fit in the constrained space I had to hide the condenser.

They reused my existing vent work by very carefully building custom venting fitted to it from the much higher stack of the inside heat pump versus the old gas furnace. To do so they had to carefully fabricate and fit an exact fit vent to go between two floor joists and include little angle deflections to avoid other protuberances from the joists.

The electrical contractor they subbed out the electrical work to also did an awesome professional job. All the parts of the electrical system he built to power the indoor unit, outdoor unit, subpanel and an extra 240v outlet for me are so much better than all my other electrical that it's sort of embarrassing. He also moved a bunch of circuits and carefully relabeled them with actually readable labels while the whole time I never even noticed an electrical cut of a single circuit.

Ocean Air Heating replaced my old gas furnace (was in garage) with a new electric heat-pump mini-split system (compressor on the roof). So it was a big job for my San Francisco Edwardian home. They had the lowest price, did excellent work, and were communicative and easy to work with. Both James and Kevin were knowledgeable and friendly, and their whole team were experienced and did a great job. So we also hired them when we had to move another furnace in the building, to accommodate an earthquake retrofit. They did a great job with that project too, moving the furnace to fit the needs of our structural construction team.

I'm tempted to give one star for the lack of responsiveness, but I really hate doing this to a small business.

TLDR; I reached out via the Yelp submission process but ultimately could not get any help.

I reached out to set up service time for a heater that was intermittently working / not working. If first checked if there were any appointments in the coming couple of days. I received a reply indicating appointments were booked then. That's fine, that's a completely reasonable response.

I then asked when the next available appointment time is, and received a reply that no new work was being accepted... as in AT ALL. Okay, I assume you have opted into the Yelp process that allows potential customers to submit service requests. If you are full, then you should probably opt out of that form or turn it off. At a minimum, even if you are unable to, my request was very clear. Why not indicate upfront you are not taking any new appointments. It's really baffling why you would put a potential customer through this, especially for someone who was recommended to you. I have never heard of a business that just indefinitely has no appointments available. I'm fairly certain you'll go out of business if you tell everyone you have no appointments in the future, period.

Fortunately, we found another five-star rated company (Cyclone) that offered to come out that same evening, 8:30pm, and fixed everything on the spot. We did not expect them to come out the same evening, but the responsiveness and service were definitely welcomed after this experience.

James and his technician Kevin were by far the most competent HVAC experts I worked with. My mini split system stopped turning on mid-summer - after months of contractors provided by my home warranty (don't get one of these, they're horrible), nobody had provided me an answer. One technician said the compressor was busted, another said the circuit board. All of them said the whole system had to be replaced. I got tired of this - and reached out to James.

Kevin spent more than two hours looking at every aspect of my setup - in the end, he was able to figure out that the condensate pump indoors (since my condensate drain line is above the fan) had failed, which turns off power to the rest of the system. The system itself worked fine, and he came back to replace the pump and viola, everything worked. He tried two different pumps - the first was one was way too loud, so he installed a different one which is silent.

I appreciated Kevin's thoroughness and honesty - I would trust them for an HVAC job in the future given how many other contractors failed to find the real issue and almost made me get a whole new system.

Was trying to decide how to survive fire season this year. I called James and he helped me figure out options without charging me for a consult fee. His info was incredibly helpful!

Got a quote from one of the big HVAC firms to install heat pump HVAC in my condo in SF. After the sticker shock I shopped around and found James on Yelp. He was super friendly, expedient and his estimate was not only HALF of what the big firms charge, he came in under budget! Work was done in a timely manner (also in half time of the bigger shop), and his crew is super friendly, helpful and knows their stuff. Six stars! Highly recommended.

How great is Ocean Air? Nine years ago James installed our heating system in the attic of our house which was built in 1904. I'm coming here today to praise him because as I'm getting heating/AC bids for my in-laws in Fremont I now appreciate just how knowledgeable & resourceful he was.

He came up with solutions to problems of heating our pre-quake house I didn't even know needed to be solved!
I'm now dealing with duct/heating problems in a house built in the 1960's. I wish I had him down here!

At least now I know what to look for in an expert in HVAC, someone like James!
Steve B
SF
Happy, Satisfied Customer of Ocean Air since 2012

Needed a couple of wall heaters replaced in 2 units. James quoted and sent me an estimate (labor and parts) within 24 hours of my inquiry. His quote turned out to be lower than the going rate for the units I wanted. He was flexible on the installation date. The tenants who received the new heaters were satisfied and taught how to operate the units.