The heat pump wasn’t heating or cooling the way it should. Bobby Oakes stopped by the same day the homeowner called. According to the customer’s Google review, Oakes found a slow leak in the condenser and a system running at about half its refrigerant charge. He tracked down a condenser of the right size in the Wake Forest area. The next day he came back with Jacob, who works for him, and they finished the installation, a job of about six hours.
Oakes doesn’t dress that kind of work up, and he doesn’t dress up his company either. “We don’t do gimmicks,” he says.
Oakes AC Services works out of Wake Forest, North Carolina, and covers the towns around it: Louisburg, Raleigh, Rolesville, Wendell, Zebulon, Youngsville and Franklinton. There are five people in all, Oakes included, and he is the only owner. According to the company’s website, he is a former Marine, and the business is family owned.
He did not plan on the trade. “I just kind of fell into it, and it worked,” he says. He has been in HVAC for more than 20 years, he says, and eventually went out on his own.
If he could choose what the shop is known for, he says, it would be commercial maintenance and service. The company also handles residential work, from repairs to full system replacements. According to its website, the residential maintenance plan includes two visits a year, one for heating and one for cooling, each with a 10-point checkup, along with an exterior wash of the condenser coil.
What he talks about most, though, is selling, and a line he won’t cross. “We would never try to sell someone something that we ourselves aren’t even convinced that they have a need for,” he says. Even when a customer could benefit from more work, he says, the shop won’t push it. The crew explains what a service, repair or part involves, then leaves the choice to the customer. “Give them the information and let them make the well-informed decision. And then we respect that.”
The company’s website describes the routine on repair calls: diagnose the problem, outline the solutions and give an estimate before any work begins. One customer, who needed a combined heating and cooling unit replaced after it failed during a cold snap, wrote in a Google review that he gathered three quotes before choosing Oakes and was sold only the equipment he actually needed.
Asked what he is proudest of, Oakes points to small things. “We pay attention to all of the small details that matter with the installation or repairs of an HVAC system,” he says. He won’t claim more than that. “There’s nothing magical about our company,” he says.
On reliability, he keeps it short. “We do what we say we’re going to do,” he says. Where that comes from is personal. “It’s just about my own integrity,” he says, “my own integrity and honor.”
He hopes his crew carries the same standard, and he leans on them. “My guys, I trust,” he says. Customers tell him so. “I get compliments all the time,” he says, and the gist is usually that he has good guys working for him. Technicians show up by first name in the company’s reviews, and Jacob, from the condenser job, is named in several of them.
The company’s motto, posted on its Facebook page, pairs quality craftsmanship with caring people. Oakes says the words on his logo were a deliberate choice. “We’re caring people doing quality work,” he says. Some customers stay in touch long after the last service call. “They develop into long-term friends,” he says, “whether they’re doing any more work with us or not.”
Faith runs through how he talks about the job, and it is part of the company’s public face. The website notes that he is an active member of his church. Oakes describes the work as providing for his family and as “honoring the God that I serve by doing good quality work.”
He is practical about the rest. “It pays the bills,” he says, “and allows me to provide income to other people’s families as they work and something they can be proud about doing.”