Warranties

How does everyone out there feel about warranties? I mean you can get a 'warranty' or 'guarantee' for just about anything out there. For most of my life, I've been too cheap (or poor) to invest the extra money in warranties and just opted to take my chances. But now things are different. I'm not just investing in a camera or DVD player. I'm now responsible for a home and all of the expensive appliances (that will inevitably break) in them.

Since my home was a newly built home, the appliances are all new and, therefore, under a manufacturer's warranty for various time frames. Additionally, I have a home warranty that came with my closing. I'd never even heard of a 'home warranty' before. As far as I'm concerned is not named very well. I mean my 'home' isn't under warranty. If I decide I don't like it or it's not living up to my expectations, no one is going to fix that but all of my appliances and major pieces of equipment are covered under this warranty.

It's paid for through the end of this year and so far I've used it twice - first for my hot water heater several months ago and then this week when my AC stopped working. I looked up the cost to renew it next year and it's really not that much money and I can pay monthly. So I'm thinking this is a pretty good deal. All I do is pay a $75 service fee each time they have to come out to my home, which seems like nothing compared to the hundreds (I imagine) I'd spend if I paid for actual labor and parts.

But this week I felt like the warranty worked against me so I don't know what to do. Here's the scoop.

My AC has been working great. But I noticed an odd noise out of it a few weeks ago. The outside unit is right outside of my bedroom window and I would hear the blower going on and off quickly as I lay in bed going to sleep but the AC was still on in the house and keeping me cool. I didn't know if these sounds were unusual so I did what most of us do when we don't want to believe something is wrong - I ignored it.

Then one night, after babysitting Lucie, I came home to an 80 degree house. Thank goodness Buster was with me but clearly my AC was no longer working. It was too late to call anyone so we went to bed. It progressively got hotter over night and poor Buster and I (he was panting and I was tossing and turning) didn't get much sleep as it got up to 86 and the sun hadn't even come out yet.

I made an early phone call to my home warranty company and they came out to fix it by lunchtime. Of course there was a bigger need than the quick fix they were able to provide but I had AC, again, and was happy (and cool). The additional work required the repairman to call the warranty company to see if they would approve it. Shockingly, they said 'no', under the pretense that the issue was due to installation and, therefore, not their problem.

First of all, how do they possibly know this? Were they here when it was installed? Second of all, who cares? I've been living here for 9 months and the problem is now! But they didn't care and it would cost me hundreds of dollars to fix.

Thankfully, I know someone in the AC business and I called and talked to him. He assured me that it wasn't necessary to fix this issue (honestly it's too complicated to explain but it involves a valve that's stuck). Apparently this valve isn't necessary and he told me not to pay anyone to fix it and he would come take a look in a few weeks when things calmed down (AC companies are very busy in Austin in the summer).

So while I'm frustrated with my warrant company I'm happy to have connections that can help me make these big decisions.

So, my next (hopefully) big decision is if I want to keep the home warranty in 2011. As I've gotten older I'm much more in the mentally of 'being prepared' rather than 'taking chances' that I was before. But being prepared still costs money. Thoughts?

In the meantime, I feel like my AC is working better than ever. And with our 100+ degree temperatures I'm very grateful for that.