June 21, 2019
Dear Everyone:
I now have a nice, new
faucet in my kitchen sink.
Why? Follow…
When I bought my first condominium, it came with a one-year
subscription, paid by the Seller, to a Home Warranty Service (HWS).
After the first year, I declined to continue to pay for the
coverage since the home was completely new and I couldn’t afford the
premium anyway.
When I moved to my second home, the townhouse, it also came with a
one-year subscription to an HWS, as this is common in this part of the
country. This time, I
decided to continue the subscription.
It’s not really a warranty, but rather an
insurance policy that covers
some, but definitely not all, of a home’s bits and pieces that
occasionally require repair and/or replacement.
I paid an annual premium.
When something needed to be fixed, I contacted the HWS and they
assigned the problem to an appropriate service.
At that point, I only paid a small co-payment for the service, even if
it meant replacing whatever the problem was.
Example: One morning, on my
way out to work, I realized that my water heater had sprung a leak.
I contacted the HWS and they send a plumber.
He determined that the heater could not be repaired and would
need to be replaced. In
short order, he put in a new heater and it only cost me the $35
co-payment.
Plus the annual premium, of course.
So the new water heater actually cost me more like $450 total.
But that’s not the only thing that needed fixing that year.
One evening, as I was working at the kitchen sink, water started pouring
out onto the floor, from the cabinet below the sink.
I quickly determined that water was coming out of a pipe and
placed a large bowl under it.
Problem solved, for now.
Again, I contacted the HWS and they assigned it to a local plumber.
As I was placing the service request, I also mentioned a curious
matter concerning the upstairs bathroom.
I had noticed that water sometimes mysteriously appeared on the
bathroom floor, next to the vanity, but only in the winter time.
Two plumbers subsequently arrived and determined that the problem under
the sink was caused by corrosion eating a hole in the main pipe leading
water away from the kitchen.
Replacing the pipe, and showing me the hole by sticking his finger
through it took only a few minutes.
Meanwhile, the question of water appearing on the bathroom floor, but
only in the winter, was intriguing.
The plumbers began by shining their flashlights into all the
upper cupboards in the kitchen, which was located directly below the
bathroom. Nothing.
While one plumber concentrated on the kitchen sink problem, the other
began a quest to find the source of
water-on-the-floor-but-only-in-the-winter.
In a few minutes, we heard, “Found it!”
It turned out that the pipe feeding the hot water tap from under the
bathroom cabinet had also suffered from corrosion.
The water only appeared in the winter because I didn’t use the
hot water much in the warmer months.
The two plumbers quickly fixed that problem as well.
All for the $35 co-payment.
So having a Home Warranty Service had paid off and seemed like a
good idea. However.
In recent years, I had noticed that the annual premium and co-payment
had steadily gone up, while the overall quality of the repair services
was going down.
When the dishwasher started making a horrendous noise, I contacted the
HWS. The repairman decided
that it needed a new motor.
He would order one, get it in a few days, and then contact me.
Then he jerked me around for six weeks.
Every time I called to find out what the status was on the
ordered motor, he would say, “I was just about to call you.”
Exactly one month after he finally finished the job, the dishwasher
began making the exact same noise.
I contacted the HWS which tried to assign the job to the exact
same contractor. That’s when
I decided to buy a new dishwasher instead.
More recently, my clothes dryer stopped working.
It took several weeks to replace the burned-out heating element.
And the co-payment had gone up to $75.
For several months now, the kitchen faucet had been failing in that it
didn’t have much water pressure, even though the water pressure in both
bathrooms was just fine. I
decided to give the HWS one last chance.
The HWS assigned the problem to a plumbing service who never bothered to
call me. When I called them,
they agreed to make an appointment for “9:00 to 11:00” last Monday.
By 11:15 no one had arrived, so I called.
That’s when the plumber said the HWS had “never sent the Work
Order” and that he wouldn’t do the work without one.
Fine.
I used an Internet Search Engine to locate plumbers in my
Zip Code.
I discovered a service in a small shopping center just down the
hill from me. The owner said
that “Cecil” was just finishing a job in
Pleasant Hill and could stop by
my place on his way back for a quick examination.
“Cecil” duly arrived and rapidly took the faucet apart.
We determined that there was nothing wrong with the water
pressure, which I expected.
“Cecil” pronounced that the faucet was frankly on its last legs and
would die very soon. Not
surprising since the developer who converted these 30-year-old
apartments to condominiums was not going to waste money on quality
fixtures.
“Cecil” explained that they didn’t carry an inventory of faucets, since
there is such a large variety on the market.
He recommended that I purchase a faucet that I like, suggesting
some reliable manufacturing names.
Once I had the new faucet, I could call them and they would come
out and install it for me.
The next day, I went to the Big Orange Hardware Warehouse Store and
meandered through the kitchen faucet section until I found what I was
looking for. I picked out a
faucet that has a high, long arch along with various bells-and-whistles.
Then I called the service.
“Cecil” came out the first day that was convenient for me and put the
whole thing together in less time than it would have taken me to get
down on the floor and back up again.
The upshot of it all is: I
will not be renewing the HWS next year.
I will be calling for “Cecil” to help replace the
water
heater, which is officially more than ten years old, in a short while.
Also, I plan to install a walk-in tub in one bathroom and a
walk-in shower in the other.
And I now have a kitchen faucet that pours water over the sink much
closer to the edge than before.
Now when I wash something, I don’t have to stretch my arms all
the way out to reach the water, something that is much better for my
aching back.
As Shakespeare famously said, “All’s Well That Ends Well”.
Love, as always,
Pete
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