ProTech HVAC

By ANNMARIE TIMMINS
Monitor staff

A Canterbury couple who bought a house for $377,500 in 2005 to find a faulty driveway, a leaky roof, a dry well and no central air as advertised have won $185,000 from a Merrimack County jury to remedy the deficiencies.

The case, already more than two years old, isn’t quite over. But Hope Ralph said the money and the vindication meant a great deal to her and her husband, Tom.

“It’s a great relief to see that the system works,” Hope said. “To tell the truth, stand your ground and go forward and people will believe you.” (more…)

In August of 2005 I was asked by the buyer of a recently built house to evaluate the heating and cooling systems, which did not seem to be working. I obliged, and my evaluation of the systems turned up many issues. Among them, the furnace in the attic was vented into the sewer pipe; there were wall grilles installed in place of floor grilles, which their 2-year old managed to remove, then crawled into the duct; flexible duct was used in place of more rugged (and expensive) insulated metal duct, driving up fuel and electricity costs; the soft copper gas line was not adequately supported; a hole was chopped out of the inside of the blower compartment to provide air to the blower, given the return air duct was too small (the problem with that is attic air was drawn into the furnace then recirculated about the house); and the “central air” conditioning didn’t include the majority of components necessary for the system to provide cooling. (more…)