NexGen Air Conditioning and Heating review: Improper installation

NexGen replaced our HVAC and ductwork in August of 2022. The contract price was in excess of $35,000. Because my wife was in chemotherapy and very sensitive to cold, we used the air conditioning very sparingly for the next 3½ years until her death. However, when we did use it during that period, the unit (located in the garage rafters) dripped on our cars and the garage floor. During that first year, a NexGen serviceman inspected the drip, but he could not locate its source. He applied some putty around the drain line where it exited the unit. The dripping continued.

After my wife’s death, I started using the air conditioning more frequently, and the dripping increased tremendously. In August of this year, NexGen sent out another service man, who also was unable to find a leak. He did determined that there was substantial corrosion inside the unit and either the coil pan or the evaporator needed replacement as a result. Estimated repairs were in the neighborhood of $4,000.

I had recently subscribed to a home warranty service, so when the air conditioner shut down completely a few weeks later, I reported that matter to them. They sent out a different service man to make an evaluation. The drain pan had flooded and tripped a sensor that shut down the unit. He drained the pan, dried the sensor, and re-started the unit. It was immediately evident that the unit was not draining at all. Water was collecting inside the unit and seeping through the seams. The water inside the unit had caused the corrosion, and just replacing the coil pan or the evaporator was not going to correct the problem. It would just get worse. He immediately diagnosed that the direct cause for this problem was “improper installation of the unit.” It was not level and had obviously just been wedged into the rafters haphazardly. He attempted to raise one side of the unit to get it to drain properly, but it was wedged too tightly in the rafters to move.

He then tried to re-start the unit. It would start to engage and then stop abruptly. He checked the compressor, and an error code indicated that a rotor was jammed. He attributed this to the unit’s repeated attempts to cycle on and off during these events.

He called the problem a “warranty issue” due to “improper installation,” and told me to contact NexGen to get the situation handled. Since I didn’t have the manager’s name or number, I contact the service man who had come out in August. He was nice enough to pass on the information to his manager. A day later he texted me back with his manager’s reply:
“This issue would have presented itself in the first year if it was an installation issue.”

This reply did not address issues, proper remedies, or even allow for a dialogue. It was insultingly dismissive. It also mis-stated the facts: no one investigated the cause when the drip was first reported. I’m afraid I directed my displeasure in a text to the poor service man, who, after all was only the messenger. He promised someone would be contacting me shortly about the problem. I have heard nothing, and in the meantime the house temperature is a cozy 82º. All I’m asking for is for someone to come out and provide me with a road-map on how my air conditioning function can be restored and how the underlying defect corrected so that I don’t face the same problems a few years down the line. I plan to pay my fair share, but I also expect some accommodation for a installation error that was self-evident from the start, if anyone had taken the trouble to look.