07/13/2023
Our most recent review
“I cannot recommend Ricardo and The Cool Guys enough. I feel so indebted and grateful to him/them. If I could, I would rate The Cool Guys a 10/5. They’ve earned it! He and his team did a perfect, stellar repair, and delivered 150% on their promises. Ricardo was so easy to work with, competent, and reasonable, that my contractor started subcontracting him for other work. He is truly a master at his craft, and also such a kind, wonderful guy! He is honest, full of integrity, and trustworthy to the core.
Read on if you want the details. This is a long story that started out as an extended nightmare and concluded as a happy ending 9 months later, and it all started with finding Ricardo! It is a story about water damage, mould, stress, and hope. I own my home and live upstairs, with a rental suite downstairs. My tenants informed me that the hardwood floor in the hallway was severely buckling, sending me pictures of a situation that had been building for weeks and months, unbeknownst to me. It turns out that my heat pump in the downstairs utility room had been leaking all summer while we were using the central air.
I contacted my insurance company right away, and things went from bad to worse, as they sent over their “preferred contractor” (i.e., scammer and co-conspirator) to assess and estimate the cost to repair the water damage and remediate the mould. I was naïve and trusting, not realizing that insurance companies have their own interests at heart and not the insured – in other words, providing low-ball settlement offers and assigning unethical contractors to do marginal work instead of a thorough and safe repair. The insurance company wanted to make sure that the cause of the system failure was identified and addressed, to avoid a future water damage claim; so, they proceeded to send utterly unqualified people to diagnose (i.e., a plumber as opposed to a certified HVAC specialist, and a forensic engineer – which sounds fancy but is actually useless). Neither one of these “experts” could figure out the cause. They came up with several different theories, but do I want to spend thousands of dollars to fix something that may or may not be broken, with a chance that it may or may not end up repaired??
Days turned into weeks, which turned into months, as the insurance company employed their stalling tactics to make it look like I was holding up the repairs (which can ultimately be a rationale for denying an insurance claim altogether). I asked them to send another expert to assess, and fast-forward 6 more weeks with lots of follow-up from me and little to no response, and I finally decided to take matters into my own hands. I made some phone calls and did some online research, and ended up discovering The Cool Guys (and Ricardo) on Yelp. I called Ricardo in the evening, and to my shock and surprise, he actually answered the phone! He arranged to come to inspect the next day! I sent him photos and reports from the incompetent “experts” and by the time he showed up at my place, he already had a theory of what caused the system failure (a micro-leak in the coil). Ricardo inspected, and it took him no more than 15 minutes to confirm his suspicion. This was the first sign of hope in several months – someone who is actually competent – someone who actually cares – someone I can trust.
Over the next 3 months, as I continued navigating the insurance claim and strategizing on how to interact with all the crooks involved, Ricardo continued to be responsive and helpful, answering every question I had, and graciously tolerating my chronically stressed-out communication. Ricardo was the first “Team Linda” member, and after meeting him, I discovered other allies who helped me enormously to get through this nightmare. I will forever be indebted to Ricardo. He is the real deal :)”
Linda
