09/10/2025
Allow me to tell you a short story about my horrendous personal experience with a home warranty. Years ago, when my wife and I bought our home, we had leftover money from the purchase and decided to take a free one-year home warranty instead of losing the money. The AC unit was over 15 years old, and I knew it was prone to breaking. Sure enough, in the beginning of July, the compressor failed. We called the home warranty, and they sent out a person to look at it. He arrived in cut-off jeans and a white tank top, wearing sandals. You can't make this up. Besides his looks, he took a quick look at it and determined the compressor was in fact bad and said they would get back to me. I verified that the compressor was in stock locally and available for pickup. After one week, I called the home warranty company back, and they said they were still waiting for the part. I let them know that there was one locally available, but they insisted they needed to use their supplier. After six weeks of no AC, the company finally returned to replace the compressor. I played dumb and watched them as they worked. The technician did not replace the filter dryer or use a micron gauge, only pulling a vacuum for about 10 minutes. He recharged the unit without using a scale or thermocouple. Beer can cold right? Then he tried to tell me it was a $300 upcharge to repipe the compressor. That's when I told him I was a long-time HVAC tech, and I saw it was a direct replacement and they did no repiping. He immediately called his boss and then told me he was sorry, and then he left. I checked then charge after he left and it was grossly overcharged, running a 2 degree superheat (piston) with and indoor temperature of 82 degrees, flooding the compressor. I did report that to the home warranty company because they are literally ripping people off. We did have a plumbing issue, which was resolved relatively quickly by a decent contractor, but I was not happy with the HVAC service. Just my two cents; I hope this helps someone else. Have a great day, everyone!
