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| - Let me preface this by saying our experience was part of a home warranty service call so it may not reflect how they do business when you contact them as an individual homeowner.
Our water heater originally went out just before the 4th of July weekend (I believe on the Thursday before the weekend). Because of the holiday, the earliest they would come out was the middle of the following week, which left us without hot water for that entire time. Because of the way our showers operate, they apparently need the pressure from the hot water side, so unless the water was hooked up, we couldn't shower at all. To get us by until the following week, I bypassed the water heater and hooked up the cold supply line directly to the hot supply line for the house. When the plumber finally came out to diagnose the situation, he repeatedly complained about how I had altered the piping, even though we explained to him that because they wouldn't come out for nearly a week we needed to have water. We also have a 2-month old baby who didn't have hot water for a bath, but I can't really hold that against them. So he ultimately diagnosed the problem as corroded connecting lines, replaced the lines, and then left. At this point, I had paid the $60 service call for cheap supply lines, but our water heater was fixed, right?
Fast forward a few weeks, and I come home to a flooded garage again. It turns out that his original diagnosis was wrong and that the hot water heater needed to be replaced because it was corroded on the inside. But for some reason, he came to this conclusion immediately even though the problem was exactly the same as last time. Note he didn't recall being at the house in the past so it's not like he remembered what he had done or seen the first time. So what does he do? He bypasses the hot water heater and hooks up the cold supply line to the hot supply line, just like he complained I had done.
Then it gets even better. After speaking to the home warranty company the next day, they inform me that the plumber added a bunch of additional charges that wouldn't be covered by the warranty. Many of them were justified because the codes had apparently changed since the original installation in 2008. After initially thinking I was only going to have to pay the $60 service call, the home warranty company told me I would have to pay the plumber an additional $350. The home warranty company also told me that the additional cost was negotiable with the plumber. They told me, for example, that I could go purchase the supplies myself to save money. So in order to reduce my costs, I decided to purchase the supplies to hook up a pipe to drain the pan to the outside so that the garage wouldn't flood anymore. I also purchased a new gas supply line because the old one was too long. Lastly, I purchased an extra restraint so that it would meet the earthquake code (for some reason it only had 1 restraint at the top). All of these changes were necessary to meet code.
So then my wife and I call Access to make an appointment for the plumber to come back out and inform them that I had hooked up the PVC pipe to the drain pan, attached the new restraint to the wall, and bought a new gas supply line. I was also planning on doing the haul away myself. Each of these items was going to save me somewhere around $50 a piece. I guess the job was no longer attractive to them after they were going to lose these additional services so they called the Home Warrant company, told them I had tampered with the water heater, and that they wouldn't provide the service anymore. Note that none of these changes required me to touch any part of the water heater itself so I had not "tampered" with the water heater in any way. In response, the home warranty company told us that they would have to "cash us out" and send us a check so I could replace the water heater myself (since I "seemed handy")...but that's a different story.
The whole situation would almost be amusing if we didn't have to experience it firsthand...and here we are, still without hot water, waiting for a new plumbing company to come out and finish the job this company wouldn't.
Good luck to anyone that uses this company.
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