It’s 2 degrees F outside right now and I’ve just finished loading our woodburrner for the second time. The first time was at 5 AM when it was a paltry 60 degrees in our house.
Let me tell you, heating exclusively with wood sounds nostalgic, romantic, fun even until the fire has gone completely out, there’s a windchill advisory, and you can’t get the flue warm enough to draw the smoke out of the fire box. Ask me how I know this. Cough.
We’ve been struggling to heat and cool our house for three years now. We did everything right – researched our options, contacted multiple HVAC companies, requested quotes from three of them, and then picked the one that seemed the best. That locally owned company sold to a regional one just months after they installed our system. The new company tells us they are not responsible for any of the work the first company did.
We dropped tens of thousands of dollars on a system that simply doesn’t work. And we’ve dropped thousands more on service calls, new ductwork, thermostats, refrigerant recharges and more. Most techs have no idea why it’s not working. They have a handful of things they know to check and if it’s not one of those things, they shrug their shoulders and charge us for a house call on their way out the door. The most recent HVAC technician finally called the manufacturer and tells us this unit should have never been installed in our home and will never work. He gave us quotes for new systems.
I don’t know about you, but we don’t have an extra $20-30k laying around to install another system, especially with no guarantee that it will work. So we’re scrambling to locate seasoned wood in the dead of winter and spending our days feeding the fire.
What has happened in our society that we’ve regressed to a point where you can spend tens of thousands of dollars on a system that is critical to your human survival, not get what you paid for, and then the seller (or the person who acquired the business) is not obligated, through human decency or legal obligation, to try to make it right?
In the past, the relationships we had with the business owners, service providers, and vendors we bought from kept us honest on both sides. We had a vested interest in making sure our customers were happy with their purchases because we saw them at the grocery store, at church, and at our kids’ PTO meetings. And also because, at some point, they were likely to need whatever we were selling to make a living, too. But now the owners of our businesses live three states (or even continents) away. And the companies we deal with are so big and automated that there is rarely a human being to talk to when you have an issue. In fact, avoiding talking to you, especially when you have a problem, is actually the intended outcome, not an accident. To top it off, the people who are theoretically trained to make sure our cirtical-for-human-life systems work are just barely trained in only the most rudimentary of skills. Because if they were any more skilled, they would be a threat to the monster conglomerate company that they have no choice but to work for.
All of this to say I am in the market for a reliable, stand-up HVAC company that can install and maintain a modern heat/cool pump. If you know someone, send them my way.
Sorry, I’ve got to cut this short now to throw a few more logs on the fire.
nicolederr.com 