Central Cooling & Heating

Central Cooling & Heating has been in business since 1966, working out of Woburn and covering Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, and Suffolk counties with HVAC installation, repair, and maintenance. It's a BBB-accredited, A+-rated company with thousands of Google reviews, and the reviews read less like isolated compliments than a consistent operating style: technicians who introduce themselves by name, explain what they're doing, and check their work before leaving. Customers keep naming the same handful of techs and asking for them specifically — one review describes a customer who always requests the same tech because he keeps her informed and doesn't disrupt the house, and another has held annual contracts for many years and is consistently pleased with the regular and emergency service. On Reddit, multiple independent posters describe using the company for years (one for nine years, another for three) without complaint, and several specifically credit Central Cooling with handling Mass Save rebate and no-interest-loan paperwork on their behalf — a detail that comes up often enough across separate 2021-2024 threads to be a real distinguishing feature, not a one-off. The recurring knock, also from more than one independent source, is price. Reddit posters comparing quotes in 2024 called the company 'the highest by far' and 'most expensive of the big contractors,' and a 2026 review put their pricing at roughly three times what comparably qualified competitors charge — though that same reviewer noted they respond fast if you need next-day service. A handful of 2026 reviews describe real misses: one customer paid $653 to have two mini-splits serviced and found a unit pouring water into the living room less than an hour after the technician left; a January 2026 review said a promised callback from a technician never came; another felt the technician did only the required maintenance and had to be prompted to do more, calling past techs noticeably better. One more thing worth knowing: the company's Massachusetts HVAC license is currently showing expired in the state registry. For routine maintenance, repair, or a Mass Save-eligible installation, the volume of specific, named-technician praise here is hard to match locally — get an itemized quote given the repeated price complaints, and ask directly about the license status before signing a contract.