Caveat emptor

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replying the story in its archived form does not constitute a re-publiccation of the story.

Caveat emptor is more than Latin for "Let the buyer beware" It’s still the truth in business.

I’ll share with you a story that I experienced with the Home Warranty company, one  we’ve had for the past 14 years.

One the 2nd of October I kicked on my two furnaces for their first “oh Rik’s it’s cold in here” day of the Fall season.  The furnace that heats the family room, my office and the lower level worked like a champ.  However the one for the upstairs, bedrooms, my wife’s office, living room, kitchen etc came on and blew, but the burners would not ignite.  So I did everything a home owners should do, checked all the connections but still no luck.  So I called my Home Warranty Company (which to avoid a lawsuit for slander, I will not name in this blog) and they said a company would contact us and arrange an appointment.

This local HVA company (which will remain nameless) is a 24 hour service,  but it took three days for them to come out to diagnose our problem.  When the service technician arrived he told us we had a cracked heat exchanger and the unit will have to be replaced.  Thank God our home warranty covers the replacement cost of a furnace. He said that was about $2500.  Whew!  However, …..we would have to pay $50 for a building permit, over $400 in electrical and gas upgrades, $1200 for a furnace flue vent and $150 to haul away the old unit.  WHAT?  Something smells fishy in Denmark.  Plus they would need a week to coordinate everything.

Well, since we’re going to incur some costs, I did research and got some other estimates: First, I found my city doesn’t require a building permit, that saves us  $50.   Two of the three other local HVAC companies that gave us estimates said the gas and electrical upgrades would range from $18-$250. The Furnace Flue vent ranged from $399 to $800 installed and none of them charge for the haul away of the old unit.  Now the original assessment was fairly close on the cost of the furnace install (most of the teams we talked with said between $1800 and $2400 for a furnace to be installed) so that’s reasonable.  So $1800-2500 for the install and we’d incur the cost of the upgrades anywhere between $450 and $1000 

So being the nice, “follow the Golden Rule” honest kinda guy I am,  we told our home warranty company.  BTW it’s now the 15th of October and the overnight lows are in the upper 30s. Our warranty company said, wow you’re right we’ll get in touch with the HVAC company assigned to this case and see why there’s such a difference.  After FOUR BUSINESS days of “we’re checking” with the local HVAC company we finally got the answer.  The local HVAC company realizing they weren’t going to get the business, said “oh it will only cost $750 instead of the $2500 they told us for the furnace install”.  So that means, we will only get reimbursed $750 for the cost for a new furnace install and still have to pay for all the additional work.  Our Home Warranty Company basically said “TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT”.   This answer BTW came 20 days after the initial call for the repair.

So gang, if you’re thinking about getting yourself a Home Warranty Company, keep in mind, clogged drains are not covered, they get to choose who does the work (regardless of their criminal record) and more times than not, there will be additional costs beyond the (now) $60 service call.

Also my Home Warranty Company did nothing to honor the 14 years that we’ve been with them and did nothing to ensure we’ll be back with them for a 15th year.   Caveat emptor  my friends.

-Rik (down but not) out