ReplyMaybe you're right, I should take out another loan to give the dealer for my inoperative system. What was I thinking. It's not his fault the company went out of business, he certainly deserves more.
Professional Member*
In 2008 I bought a 2005 e320cdi (diesel automobile). I bought a warranty.
The car had some expensive repairs. $5000 in under 3 years. Warranty excluded everything, then went bankrupt. It was unpleasant but helpful experience. Sometimes lemons get served up, try to avoid going around bitter or you will attract more lemons.
Regular Guest
Maybe you're right, I should take out another loan to give the dealer for my inoperative system. What was I thinking. It's not his fault the company went out of business, he certainly deserves more.
Professional Member*
Certainly he doesn't feel good about the situation. He might do a new system at his cost if he thinks you are a great customer. It would make sense to have him bid.
If he thinks you are a crappy boss, a bottomless pit of self entitlement to free services and time, his price will be high.
Regular Guest
So do you have any actual experience with acadia? Do you have any helpful suggestions?
Professional Member*
Install a Luxaire/ York 2 stage 15 or 18 seer heat pump. The air handler should work fine since it is a York/ Luxaire blower. They have some good pricing on the 15 2 stage unit now. I have a 3 ton 2 stage unit in my home and it works awesome.
Quality and Value Service and Repair
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Does Acadia come with backup elements or can they be easily added to the ah?
Professional Member*
As noted, it is a JCI brand variable speed air handler, so if there are no auxilliary heaters, they can easily be added. In PA, heat pumps are supposed to have auxilliary heaters capable of maintaining the home temperature in case of heat pump failure.Originally Posted by tedkidd
Also as mentioned, any JCI brand heat pump can be used to replace the Acadia. This would be another expense to the HO, but at least they could then proceed with legal action against Hallowell.
This is all really a shame because the Acadia system really is a good system IF PROPERLY INSTALLED. Ones that I sold in a previous lifetime were not properly installed until I got involve to have the contracter insulate both refrigerant lines with 1/2" wall cellular insulation and seal the duct system better. As far as I know, there are no issues with those installs. So, the contractor could still have some liability here.
Training is important!
Practical Training is a must!
Regular Guest
The acadia does have 3 resistance heat strips, I am running on 1 or 2 as needed now but my electric usage is about doubled. So it's not like I'm freezing, I'm just broke.
I'm not sure if you were talking about the acadia air handlier, but mine is a unitary/york unit.
Last edited by cpeters99; 02-13-2011 at 09:26 AM. Reason: addition
Regular Guest
Other than a failed outdoor board, I've been very pleased with my Acadia. The energy efficiency has been outstanding. It's amazing to see it run off the compressors at -4F (the coldest it's gotten here since the install). I really hope they make it through restructuring. There may be reliability issues with their implementation (and with their contractors), but the core technology seems to be sound, and would definitely move the industry forward.
Regular Guest
Does anyone have real experience "fixing" any of these? Are internal compressor failures more common or is motor winding damage. Any ideas on the cause of internal compressor failures or how bad they were? How about any info from Hallowell on previous repairs, before they stopped answering that is?
Chrispitude; how long have you had yours? I'm assuming you haven't needed compressor replacement yet. I was happy too, until it blew.
Regular Guest
I've had mine since the winter of 2008. I agree that it would be nice to know what factors cause hardship on the compressors.
I'm not sure exactly where the charge on my unit stands. I had the indoor coil freeze up once in the summer. This was a somewhat understandable thing - we had all the doors open to move furniture, and it was brutally hot and humid outside. When we finished and turned the A/C back on, the deck was really stacked against the A/C coil. The installer suspected the coil freeze-up could be due to low charge, and added some more refrigerant. I don't know if this means I am now where I should be, or the coil freeze-up would have been inevitable under those conditions and I am now overcharged and taxing the compressor.
I would also love it if someone could find and fix the weak points with this unit.
Regular Guest
If you haven't already, please check out
http://groups.google.com/group/hallowell-acadia
I've posted some Hallowell product service bulletins.
New Guest
Looks more and more like Hallowell is toast. There website has now vanished and the last articles in the Maine newspapers were not very encouraging!
http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/...ws-complaints/
Dan
Professional Member*
I've been talking with managers at the distributor in my area that distribut(ed) Acadia heat pumps and am being told that they are out of business with no options of being bought or in any other way revived. Then one of these managers asked if I wanted to by a 2 ton Acadia cheap for my new house. He only wanted $4,200 for it
I'd be leary of paying $200 for one right now.
Training is important!
Practical Training is a must!
Regular Guest
Wow. I just found this post and in the interest of sharing the other side of the story:
While I was general manager of a branch of Deets Mechanical, our team installed 12 Hallowell systems. All 12 were purchased direct from the local electrical co-op and though we made no profit from these, we warranted them for the first year. We certainly profited from the installation work we did (average $300-$400 net), but as you can imagine lost our asses on warranty repairs from constant failures. I first met this customer after we installed the system. We also sold a Hallowell extended warranty which was backed by Equigard who went through bankruptcy in '09 or '10. Out of the 12 systems installed, we still service 10 (one was destroyed by falling ice and was replaced by another brand heat pump).
As these fail again, which I expect, we will recommend replacement with another brand of 2-stage heat pump.
After thirty years in this business and thousands of satisfied customers, I have never refused a customer service except this single one. I will not go into detail (unless provoked) but I will say that we would have taken care of this issue if not accused of lying and threatened with a lawsuit when we were having trouble getting parts. Not our fault. Norm from Hallowell fanned the flames when after ignoring our (and the local co-op)'s calls and emails, promptly responded to an email from the customer claiming that I never submitted proper warranty forms. I certainly did via the same email used by the customer, and produced a copy proving so.
Last year for totally unrelated reasons, I started my own company. My team has and will continue helping our Hallowell customers, but simply cannot afford to lose money doing so. I registered with the company who assumed Equigard warranties for the sole purpose of being able to file Hallowell warranty claims. I didn't design, manufacture, or even sell these systems, but certainly feel bad for those who bought them. If not for having hot water heat in my home, I would have bought one myself.
Please put your info in your profile, not in post, thank you./ pro members may have links to their businesses in their sig, apply fro pro membership when you have your post count high enough.
Last edited by beenthere; 08-06-2011 at 06:01 PM. Reason: email
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It really is a shame what happened with these systems. It started out with Hallowell selling directly to contractors and things seemed to be going well. So when Hallowell started selling through local distribution, an independant distributor I was working for at the time picked up the line.
They started selling well and the distributor did a great job supporting the product in marketing it as well as training contractors to install the system. Now, a good distributor is in the middle of a bad situation that is even worse for the consumer and certainly no picnic for the contractor.
It just seemed like the decline of the Acadia system could have been handled differently. I don't know if any other manufacturer's were willing to step in and take over, but if there was any interest in the Acadia system, Hallowell should have accepted whatever was offered to keep everyone involved just hanging in the wind.
Training is important!
Practical Training is a must!
Regular Guest
RoBoTeq,
In our area the systems were not sold through normal distribution networks as HVAC equipment normally is. Instead, they shipped from the factory with a nitrogen charge to avoid the need for EPA certification and were sold direct to home owners by our local electric company. My opinion is that they went to market without adequate testing. What we first though were normal "bugs" commonly seen in newly design systems soon revealed themselves to be design flaws. We would have an issue develop in one and soon see the same problem in all the other systems we put in. Months after our last system went in and we had already been back dozens of times for reoccurring problems (all at no charge), we received word that there had been at least a dozen service bulletins available for many months that we never heard about despite numerous calls to Hallowell. These bulletins would have saved us a lot of time and money figuring things out for ourselves.
This kind of crap became normal until 2010 when Hallowell stopped returning calls altogether. One guy there eventually started to become available, but twice made me appear to be lying to my customers by answering their emails literally minutes after they sent them and acting like he wasn't aware of my repeated attempts to contact him. The electric co-op reps could not get responses either. This electric co-op also went way above and beyond the call trying to take care of our customers, by the way.
In 2010 I heard rumours the Hallowell was put up for sale and a "major player" was interested. My hopes were that someone like Carrier, Lennox, or Trane would take them on and not only would we get needed parts and support, but the problems would be engineered out. The units worked well when they worked.
Tim
Professional Member*
Tim, even though I hate to see companies have these types of problems with equipment, it's good to know that some companies continue to stand behind what they install, no matter what.
You are right though, the Acadia system works well when they work. This leads me to believe that the system can be made to hold up as well.
Training is important!
Practical Training is a must!
Professional Member*
Robin and Tim, have you seen the latest on the Acadia? A group believes they have a fix for many of the Acadia problems. savemyacadia dot org.
I'd like to hear your feedback on it.
Regular Guest
Chuck, I discovered savemyacadia.org just today. This also led me to find the discussion on Google group discussion. I haven't been on this site in awhile, but searched it as well, leading to my post.
It will be fantastic if the issues can be resolved.
I will direct my service manager to these sites Monday AM.
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