Help--A/C Is Not Cooling Efficiently and Warranty Co. Stinks/Nations

Hi S.,
My home warranty company also stinks. American Home Shield. It took 16 days for my evaporator coil to be approved by them for repair. In the meantime I had water leaking from the rusted drain pan down from the attic to my upstairs hallway. I finally had to make a hole myself in the ceiling for drainage and to stop the water damage. The warranty company of course doesn't pay for secondary damage A.K.A. my water damage. We won't be renewing. I think I will be better off.
J. C.

This happened to me just a month ago. They wouldn't come out for 2 days, and that was legal. I have a baby at the house, and they (the warranty & AC company) said that was all they could do. I ended up calling another company on my own, and they fixed it that night. The warranty people called me the next day because I was so angry at them. They just explained that there was nothing they could do, and I informed them that I already called someone the night before. The warranty company had me fax them the bill, and they refunded it. It cost me $400, and it was worth the money that my son was sleeping soundly in his bed and not suffocating under the heat.

Hi there,
Though what they did was legal, try registering a problem with the Better Business Bureau. The BBB will contact the company and get their side. We did that with our builder and got results. It could work/help here as well. Take care and stay cool.

S.

1st let me say that when your warranty expires with that company, don't renew it! Maybe you can post another request on mamasource to look for a new warranty company if you think ya'll will want a warranty again.

We experienced some problems with our warranty company and the ac companies they were using a few years ago in our first home (which was built in the 70s). One company they sent out to "fix" the problem made it worse and did really shoddy work. So the warranty company ended up sending a different company out to fix everything. I would suggest you call your warranty company and demand that they send out a different ac company to find the actual problem and get it fixed. We did end up renewing our warranty each year we were in the house just because the house was older and we knew the second we didn't have a warranty that major things would go wrong. We never did quite find out what was wrong with the AC...they did end up replacing something (i think they called it the "handler"?) but every year they would have to come out to add freon. They told us that a properly functioning ac unit shouldn't need freon added yearly, so there was probably a leak under the slab. The warranty company wasn't going to go through the expense to find out about the leak under the slab because apparently it's very expensive, so they ended up "buying us out" on the ac unit--just gave us some money and said that was all they were going to do about the ac for that policy. So since that policy was getting ready to expire and we were starting a new one (with the same company--don't know why we never thought to switch companies) we would be able to call them on the ac again in the future...

Well...i don't know if any of that was helpful at all...best of luck!

WOW! You have already gotten lots of advice on this - and I too have to put in my two cents about home warranties sticking. I was 8 months pregnant in April and our air started going out. Long story short, my husband took the air conditioner apart himself after the warranty company did nothing and the repair company they sent out came three times before telling us we needed to having it cleaned for a meer $800 - which was not covered on the policy - imagine that! Anyhow - my husband actually made it better and it works find now - for free. Our unit is about 10 years old also and another repairman that we paid told us it would need to be replaced because they don't really last that long...obviously he was wrong too - my advice is if you know someone handy have them take a look - you don't have much to lose if you are going to have to replace it - at least that is the position we took when we were in your shoes - and it worked out for us - hope it does for you as well.

We too had the same problem. We ended up, finally, just calling an a/c company and paying for hte repairs ourselves. I would suggest you give this company a call. They were fair and not too expensive. They even came out on the day we called them.
Atmac
214-428-COOL

We even did a maintenance plan with them. They will come out 2x a year and check the units (heat and a/c) out and clean them, etc. for 128 for the 1st system and 99 for each additional (we have two a/c systems). I was really impressed with their professionalism and their service.

C.

Dear S.,

Yes, we have just gone through this with our warranty company as well. Our warranty company paid to have our coil replaced, which would have costs thousands of dollars had we not had them. But they were a pain to deal with. I had to call them every day to get the status on our claim. They eventually came through. But we were without air for 1-1/2 weeks.

Another thing--be sure to request a room air conditioner for one room so you and your daughter can sleep well at night. We had to pull some strings through our realtor but she was able to get us a room ac.

Hope this helps.

A. S.