home warranty , the death of residential HVAC

[wolfstrike]

i guesss i should be thankful , because being a new tech i immidiatly found a job because of home warranty companies.


but the truth is, the reason why i got hired was because the company doesn't care about home owners that produce home warranty calls.


home warranty calls are considered the garbage calls and they hire new techs to handle these while the senior techs go on the cash calls.


like all insurance , a home warranty is a scam, people pay yearly as if their equiptment broke even though it hasn't ,
then the companies fill their legal papers with all kinds of disclaimers so if something does break , they don't have to pay for it.
(such as a dirty filter)


the home warranty companies give the service company a set fee , about $200 per call,
the service company gives their service tech a set fee , usually about $30,for doing ALL the work, NO MATTER WHAT THE PROBLEM IS

wether you switch on a thermostat, replace a compressor , or GET THE CALL DENIED, the service tech's pay is the same.

this creates a quick fix , gas-and-go practice from the technician, and a new HVAC skill known as 'denying claims'.


the service companies tell the techs that they lose money in this deal which is FALSE,
because even if the service company loses money on a compressor they easily make it up in capacitors, switched off thermostats, and other piddily crap.


the only people who are getting screwed are the customer and the service tech.

customers are given low priority and can find themselves waiting for days to have a tech visit their house.

.. and you won't be able to quit and work on your own because customers have been paying for years and are trapped into using the sytem.



the company i worked for had honest techs , when customers asked , we told them home warranties are a bad deal,

unless you want to find yourself changing compressors for $30 , i suggest technicians take some kind of active role


...as as you know , home warranty companies also are involved with "covering" some businesses.

[hillbilly tech]

Warranty work for True was the same way,paid not nearly enuff,so i quit the warranty deal,if ya want to be shady you can make a killing,but heck with it,cant have a bad compressor everytime so i no longer deal with that type of work.Way i look at it the guys that put the unit in should warranty it no questions asked,they knew what they were gettin into when they installed it and BTW somebody has to getem fixed and its mostly good learnen and low pay.

[madhat]

I used to make a ton of money for my company doing that kind of work. Enough that I got Field Service reward from them one year and employee of the year, the next year with cash bonus. You need to get a copy of their contract with the customer and your company. Here's an example of what I did. Compressor change out, $30, trouble shoot and replace capacitor $30, trouble shoot and replace contactor $30, leak check and repair Schrader valve. (new core and cap) $30. I found out the tickets got flagged if they went over a certain dollar amount so I just made a new ticket, and showed a half hour break in the job, which my company paid for. Then it would be trouble shoot and change filter $15, trouble shoot and level, remount loose T-stat $15, clean out drain $15, found hi-head, cleaned outdoor coil. Sometimes I'd have three tickets for one house in a day. PS I always did all the work, as shown on the tickets.

[cool tech 64]

i have never had to experience flat fees from any company, besides, warranty gets the customer familiar with you and your company.If you dont think warranty pays enough tell the customer they owe the difference, they will usually pay it.

[aircooled53]

I have been in the home warranty field most of this year with AHS-THW-Old Republic,there are guidelines that are covered in there contract as is in any warranty service agreement. I see it boosting customer base to company's that have it and all so increase the amount of change-out of systems. Now if you go on a regular pay-call you charge a set flat-rate for repairs, for the exact same problem, how is it different with home warranty.

Dirty condenser= Lack of maintenance H.W.- denied
Dirty condenser= Lack of maintenance=Chemical clean condenser.= Flat-Rate=$$

Same condenser still needs to be cleaned only with H.W. they don't cover maintenance related items.

So, if a customer doesn't care about the condition of his system, and causes a motor to fail because condenser coil are impacted with grass and dirt , then I don't feel any guilt in charging market price for repairs.The only thing I hate is waiting on the phone to be able to talk to AHS rep. that doesn't know the first thing about hvac, and you have to give every letter of Model# serial# like they are in first grade and not doing a service they were hired to do.Not all, but most are not qualified to answer any type of phone message.

That's just my opinon, hope it doesn't reflect others from doing Home Warranty Service.

[acbyj208]

we tried ahs for 6 months, we pissed off a bunch of cust, and when we quit taking there calls, they refused to pay us, they owe us around 5000.00 we dont play that game anymore. our rep is more important than the rep you get fron dening claims. let butcrack ac play that game.

[wolfstrike]

the worst part is you have the collect the deductable first or else you get burned.



i go to this guy's apartment, he's from some African country, he tells me his unit isn't working,
i said OK , money first.

he promptly writes me a check for the deductable, and tells me that ever since they put in the new compressor, the unit has been leaking and no one will fix it,

i said OK , i'll find it and fix it.

like an idiot, i listened to him without checking everything first, i checked all the new joints for leaks , nothing, i finally slapped on some gauges and guess what?
full of refrigerant.

i turn it on , the compressor freezes up.


i told him the problem is inside the apartment,
he immediatly got all pissd off "that's what the other guy said!!!"


they sold him a fancy-dancy electrostatic filter for like $300 that even while clean was choking his system,
i took it out the unit started working,
i told him to buy a cheap filter , he got even more pissed off.


he had a tiny apartment evaporator and i don't know what the hell happened to it.

Home Shield doesn't cover cleaning
Home Shield doesn't cover replacement

i told him he needs a new evaporator coil,
"that's what the other guy said !!!"

i told him AHS doesn't cover it , quoted him a price for a coil, he's not interested,

he said "well, what i'm i paying American home Shield for then?"

i said "i don't know , you tell me"


there had already been serveral techs over there that told him the exact same thing that i did, he didn't like the answer so he kept generating calls and paying the deductables ($35)


he gets on the phone with American Home Shield and starts screaming and yelling at them, so i just walked out.



by the time i got to that place and got out of there , it was almost 3 hours,
and of course , the slickster company i was working for was paying "by job"
so the whole thing was a complete waste of time.









this is going to be the common future of residential AC,
the companies will profit while the techs waste their time.

[wolfstrike]

oh no, it looks like this company that i have the interview with is another home warranty company.




UHHHHhhh


here we go again...

[chaard]

I do AON warranty's.AHS sucks. Tried quitting after one month but boss man raised my pay nearly 50%. Getting better at dealing with customers. First off look around a little bit before asking for the deductible. I will get it before I call AON. Listen to the customer, but don't give them too much info. And if I know it's going to be a denial I let AON call the customer. I don't get in the middle of it anymore. But things may change. AON is losing it's contract with Coldwell Banker/Gundaker. CBG thinks AON is bad? Wait till they try AHS. They'll run back to AON crying. We bill AON by the job, not by some set price from the warranty co. I get paid the same no matter what I'm doing.

[rubberduck]

I am just getting started in the business. I appreciate the info and think I will stay away from home warranty work

[dougfamous]

I used to do warranty work for Scumbag Heating and Cooling (you know him, he's the guy paying $9.50/hr while buying a new Prowler to park at his $750,000 new house). We worked for all of them, HMS, AON, anyone that would send a check.

If we went out on a furnace older than 20 years and didn't condemn it, we were yelled at. All heat exhangers had to be written up as cracked because rusted out wasn't covered. All coils had to be written up as non-repairable leak because if you could fix the coil then guess what?

My boss actually got caught defrauding HMS out of money (he charged them for a pressure regulator on a boiler that he didn't replace, it failed a few weeks later and another company took care of it - OOPS - BUSTED). He actually blamed his tech for not doing what he wrote down.

I finally quit after I saw how many thousands of dollars a month he was pocketing yet we techs had no health care, old sh*tbox trucks, had to pay for all our tools, etc.

He's still in business, still ripping off HMS hand over fist. They can't get rid of him because no one else works so cheap (if they only knew what it was really costing them), and he won't stop doing home warranty because he's making a killing.

[ikey]

ahs is a nightmare. requested info packet couple yrs ago. when i saw their pay rates I laughed. never applied but started getting calls from them. declined the calls, and threw away the packet. they called many times wanting the packet back and got pissed when i told them that i trashed it.

had cust. last week that just bought her house. compressor went out the day after she moved in. ahs declined the warranty because the evap was dirty. how can they sell a warranty then won't honor it, because the previous ho didn't maintain the sys? they suck

companies that work for them have to sell "uncovered" extras to make cash, because ahs pays so far under market value for repairs.

i get calls from hos that ask if i do ahs work, i say no, but tell them to call me when they get the cost of the repair with insurance. also tell them to cash out and they will save money, using a company they choose and trust.

[dougfamous]

Yeah, HMS was like that. They would ask you absolute bullsh*t questions like "Was there water in the trap?". Huh? WTF does that matter? They tried their hardest to blame everything on lack of maintenance. When they would finally give in and order us a furnace, we used to have to make the HO sign a "non-covered" sheet. HMS would give them the furnace, but wouldn't pay for permits (which they make you pull), sheet metal (huh? WTF?), code requirements like 1/4 turn gas ball valves, "disposal" (what a racket - they paid $50 for disposal and then he sent the stuff to the scrap yard for cash). HMS had a $100 deductible, we HAD to collect it every time even though our service call at the time was only $65.

The insurance companies and the scumbag owners are the only ones making out on home warranties. The homeowner gets the absolute cheapest way out, and if they choose a new furnace or A/C their policy gets cancelled.

What a racket!

[wolfstrike]

>>>>>>>>>
I am just getting started in the business. I appreciate the info and think I will stay away from home warranty work
>>>>>>>>>


actually , home warranty is a great place for techs to get started, because no one cares if you screw up someone's system.

(just make sure you know what you are doing when it comes to compressors)

work there until you think your ready to find a real job.


.......................................



home warranty companies charge a monthly or yearly fee,

then the AC company can blackmail customers into buying a PM service plan by showing them that their contract can be voided due to dirty coils, etc

the company i worked for charged 149.00 per year for one system.
(the tech gets less then half of that for doing ALL the work)


naturally , the home warranty company is in cahoots with the realters, so they try to get their contracts sold with every home purchase.



the home warranty collects their monthly/yearly fees,

the AC company collects their yearly fee , plus the deductable, and pays discounted prices for parts because of bulk orders

the only person pushed out of the money loop is the technician who is paid per job.
the technician finds himself burning the day by shopping for some parts ,working major jobs for low wages, and on-hold with the warranty company who demands all the irrelevant unit information,

...then , they argue about past jobs you know nothing about.



the techs can't fight home warranty and AC companies by starting their own businesses , because the homeowners are trapped into this system and have no choice but to pay $40, at the moment, to have their system fixed, instead of ignoring their past payments and pay an expensive price for real service.



when i quit my job , i had 3 compressor jobs lined up (2 on two story rooves), i had a fouth compressor added to my schedule because a tech quit, and i received a weekly paycheck for a 45 hour week, for the amount of $246.


if home warranty companies keep taking over, this will be the future of the residential service technician.

[dougfamous]

when i quit my job , i had 3 compressor jobs lined up (2 on two story rooves), i had a fouth compressor added to my schedule because a tech quit, and i received a weekly paycheck for a 45 hour week, for the amount of $246.

Well, part of the problem is guys willing to work for piece rate. I got offered a job by a guy who paid by the call - he kept all the juicy calls for himself and gave the other tech the BS work that didn't pay. He promised I could make $150K/year easy. My friend worked there a week and quit when he got his check.

Hourly is the only way to work. Not commission, not by the piece, etc. Commission techs are there to sell you any and everything you don't need because they have a family to feed. Piece rate guys rush your call through because they need to produce numbers to make money. More and more owners are paying this way because more and more techs will take it. I work hourly, period. You pay me what it actually takes to do the job correctly, and in return I don't screw around or jimmy my time card.

Stop selling yourselves short - if the owners don't trust you to be honest with their time sheets, then you should be looking elsewhere.

[fishunterhvac]

i heard from other tech that they will find away to blame the h.o for the failure of there unit they make money that way because you still get pay $40 com.and that makes the rest of the company bad.as you know where sub-contract and we have some guideline to follow. e.g i had h.o denied because the filter was extremely dirty and evap is 80% clog with dirt prior to that cond. coil was also dirty called ahs and it was denied told cust. about it and he was very angry at me for telling ahs about the cond. of his unit, i told him that you cant blame me if you dint take care of your unit just because i told h.w that i found your unit had a very dirty filter and both coil is dirty and the unit need maintenace and which you agree that it is dirty and it need maintenance.you make ok money but not if you have leak or anything that are difficult to diagnose because they still pay you $40 per service call no matter how long it take you to finish that call but,they pay you $100 for changing comp.+$200+ for haul and disposal so if your 20% tech thats $140 ther.

[wolfstrike]

you were getting paid WAY more then i was.


when i started it was $35 flat for everything, then the company wanted to give $100 for compressor.
we got nothing out of the disposal fee.

the new techs were getting the junk , time consuming ,calls , the senior techs would get some AHS and the non-warranty CODs.


the average GOOD tech would get 5 AHS calls a day for a 12 hour period. $175
(and there's always none paid call backs)

techs that were artists about denying service would make more.

[dougfamous]

(and there's always none paid call backs)

That was another thing that used to bother me. I used to get docked randomly for "call backs", yet no one could supply me a list of who the callback was for, what I did or didn't do, how it was fixed, etc. They just docked your check whatever they felt like.

[karl k]

Crooked. I'm sure glad that I work for a good outfit and get paid by the hour. I work 7 1/2 hours a day (as per the union agreement) and pull in a descent living. If I want to work more, that is always availiable to me.