So geo is expensive to buy, expensive to fix, the salesmen oversell it and the warranties are not as good as consumers assume them to be. Of course this is true of a lot of things.

It all depends on the installer, again #1 on the check list. I don't think we went back and charged the customer a single dime for anything related to warranty. But again, this is what you pay for when you get a reputable company, likely a bit more upfront than the person who was $1000 cheaper but now is not there anymore when the customer needs him. Life is full of choices. Look around here, how many posts are here where people look for cheap installs, bypassing installers or markups. Who or what pays for the contractor's expenses when he accepts the crummy labor allowance from the manufacturer and does not charge the actual repair time?

Well said Doc.  I have been contacted more and more for DYI installs and try to get away for this exact reason..long term relationships and who is responsible for the unit...

We do as Doc says, take the claim payment from said manufacture and move on for systems we put in.

We have been involved more and more with other systems not installed by us, either a company out of business, not satisfied or do not have the capability to perform some tasks such as TXV replacement or refrigerant troubleshooting.  These tasks allow the manufacture to pay us the said rate but we do have to go back and charge the customer for the difference. To replace a TXV PROPERLY, notice I capitalized PROPERLY, it takes 3 times as long as they pay for and we need to recoup our costs just to break even on the service job....

So in summary, for jobs we install, we typically take the payment from manufacture and call it a day, for jobs not installed by us, we tend to charge the customer the difference.  

Posted By ACES-Energy on 27 Dec 2012 05:26 PM
Well said Doc.  I have been contacted more and more for DYI installs and try to get away for this exact reason..long term relationships and who is responsible for the unit...

We do as Doc says, take the claim payment from said manufacture and move on for systems we put in.

We have been involved more and more with other systems not installed by us, either a company out of business, not satisfied or do not have the capability to perform some tasks such as TXV replacement or refrigerant troubleshooting.  These tasks allow the manufacture to pay us the said rate but we do have to go back and charge the customer for the difference. To replace a TXV PROPERLY, notice I capitalized PROPERLY, it takes 3 times as long as they pay for and we need to recoup our costs just to break even on the service job....

So in summary, for jobs we install, we typically take the payment from manufacture and call it a day, for jobs not installed by us, we tend to charge the customer the difference.  

Hi AJ, I heard you have a great "iced over" flowcenter pic. Just to explain, a black sheep in our area just went out of business, and ACES and us pick up plenty of their failures to repair. Similar story, contractor sells the job, does a crappy install (really crappy!) , goes out of business, and now their customers call us to honor the "factory warranty", because units to going into lockdown and run very inefficient. Some of them need a complete redesign, including the loopfield.

Hey doc. Yup its a great photo but bad for customer. 27ewt, 18lwt, 6 ton unit with 11gpm, (4) 26-n99 loop pumps, 90% glycol, 1 year old, loop is a disaster from data I have gathered. Was wired to main breaker with no disconnect ( only if pulled meter at house) along with many ther things. Did $3k of work this fall just in wiring and misc. Safety stuff, nothing to do regarding performace. Customer out of money to fix properly but guessing they will find some in a couple weeks when unit fails. Seen about a dozen of these this fall. I have two appointments Monday for jobs I didn't do. One not finished and other a disaster. Choose contractor wisely and not always cheapest

........and again, the manufacturer is not responsible for repairs other than specified under warranty terms. Soooo........shoppers must have this conversation with homeowners before purchasing.
Like the others here, my customers do not pay for difference between warranty allowance and regular rates, but my contracts do say "warranties subject to manufacturers' terms and conditions" which means acts of God and that ilk will not be covered nor will R22 in a few years.

Yeah I understand this, we do WaterFurnace and they don't pay the best but I also have warranty costs built into my price, when I say 10 year parts and 10 year labor that is for my installs only. If a customer of mine has a system break due to install or manufacture defect we eat any additional cost that WaterFurnace does not pay us because they are MY customer, not WaterFurnace's. However if I go to fix an install, I collect the full amount up front and then send them whatever the manufacture sends me. So if its a competitors WaterFurnace and the repair comes to $1,200 for part X and labor of X I charge $1,200. I then bill WaterFurnace and once I get the $600 back from them I refund the customer. If other companies don't explain their warranties im sorry, but usually its the cheap companies. We also work with Trane and all systems get either 5, 10 or 12 year labor warranties from Trane, who as I know is the only brand that pays well, we get $138 per hour plus a markup on warrantied parts.

Customers need to read the fine print if the buy from others, if they buy from me they will not pay for repairs for at least 10 years on all geo's(assuming the unit is maintained)

Posted By ACES-Energy on 28 Dec 2012 09:35 AM
Hey doc. Yup its a great photo but bad for customer. 27ewt, 18lwt, 6 ton unit with 11gpm, (4) 26-n99 loop pumps, 90% glycol, 1 year old, loop is a disaster from data I have gathered. Was wired to main breaker with no disconnect ( only if pulled meter at house) along with many ther things. Did $3k of work this fall just in wiring and misc. Safety stuff, nothing to do regarding performace. Customer out of money to fix properly but guessing they will find some in a couple weeks when unit fails. Seen about a dozen of these this fall. I have two appointments Monday for jobs I didn't do. One not finished and other a disaster. Choose contractor wisely and not always cheapest

Sometimes you need to completely abandon everything and simply put in a new system right away. The alternative is that you spend thousands in diagnosing a problem, and then you need to abandon everything anyway to make things right. But I heard the guys are now back into business, underwritten by the suppliers they own an awful lot of money. It will be an interesting new year, and it seems that factory warranty will be the least of the problems.