Heating and Air San Diego: Selecting a Trustworthy Contractor

If you live in San Diego and need a new heating and air conditioning unit, a fairly easy internet search will deliver a great deal of articles on how to pick the best company. Generally there isn’t much worth reading, however, so we’ve come up with a few of our own ideas. 

It goes without saying that you should always try to use a heating and air conditioning professional who is licensed. The heating and air conditioning market are heavily regulated and all contractors should have a valid license and must provide workers comp coverage for all their technicians. Licenses are supplied by the California State Contractors Licensing Board. Every San Diego contractor will be listed there. If not, then move on. Just go to the ca.gov website and look up the specialist by their license, business name or personal name. Some San Diego HVAC companies are presently working with an expired license. The database will show you whether it is active and if they have applicable insurance coverage.

One of the more reliable places to find a good San Diego heating and air contractor is Yelp. If you don’t know already, Yelp is an internet platform that enables consumers to rate and review businesses they have used. This is a great tool as it gives power back to the customer and forces companies to ply their trade responsibly.

An internet search for terms like San Diego air conditioning or even heating and air conditioning contractor in San Diego will render some favorable Yelp business profiles right within your results. If a company has its Yelp profile on the first page of Google, then they must be an especially good company. You can also search directly within Yelp’s database. Just keep in mind that Yelp has one of the strictest filters of any customer review website so the majority of the opinions you see are actual people, not bogus testimonials. Various other platforms like ShowMeLocal.com, Merchant Circle and the Online Yellow Pages are generally easy for company's to create fake testimonials so I wouldn’t go with them too much. Google is getting better at filtering phony ratings from their system, but they still have some work to do. That doesn’t mean all Google ratings are bogus, but just be cautious if an HVAC company had a five star rating in Google and a three star rating in Yelp.

The Web is your perfect source for finding a heating and air conditioning specialist in San Diego. It will provide you with plenty of options. Online consumer review sites, technician forums, HVAC social networking groups - all are good places to help you find what you need. The most effective resource, however, are the opinions of other consumers who have had firsthand exposure to a given contractor. Word of mouth is your most effective resource and consumers are making their sentiments heard in online consumer review sites. Make sure you check them out.