Buying a home is stressful and I admit it feels good to know it is under warranty. Maybe that's why where I live it seems like the home warranty is standard in every real estate offer. It depends on what you buy but it never covers everything in your home. It is a very specific contract with limited coverage of some of the appliances and systems in my home.
● "[Home warranty company] agrees to repair or replace systems and appliances mentioned as covered... "
A few weeks after moving in I found a leaky gasket under the dishwasher. We called the home warranty company and after a $60 copay it was fixed. The repair technician was good but focused on the appliance repair. He was not there to find other issues. After the call I poked my head in under the cabinets in the kitchen much more deeply than I had before. I found another, much bigger, problem that was contributing to the moisture under the sink. The "clean-out" plug attached to the sink drain was over tightened and broke the ABS pipe. It was leaking every time we used the sink and dishwasher and probably for several months before we moved in. For another 60 dollars the plumber removed the broken pieces of pipe and plugged it with a 5 dollar rubber bung.
You may be wondering what happened to all that water. I go downstairs and find I can easily stick a pencil through the drywall at the base of the floor! The water had been leaking for some time and saturated the drywall.
The damage caused by the leak was not covered...
● "[Home warranty company] is not responsible for Consequential or Secondary Damage (including Consequential Damages due to a Service Contractor's conventional repair efforts of the primary item)..."
I ended up pulling out a section of drywall, killing any mold, and patching the hole myself.
Three months later I notice paint starting to bubble next to the shower stall in a completely different part of the house. We called, they send out a plumber, he looks behind the faucet and finds no leak. We pay him sixty dollars and he says, "Not a plumbing problem, go buy some caulk and goop it on the seams of the shower. I don't have any with me..."
At this point I make a mistake. Instead of calling the warranty company to send out a better plumber I pull out the cover of the drain and find a squashed gasket. To me this is a sign of a plumbing problem. Covered, right? Nope. If there was any chance of having this repaired under the contract I lost it when I decided to pull out the entire shower.
As we would find out over the next several weeks the shower was improperly installed, here is the language in the contract that cost me 1000 dollars...
● "THIS CONTRACT DOES NOT COVER: Repairs or replacement required as a result of ... Improper Installation, [among other things] "
Had I paid 100 dollars more for the upgraded coverage improper installation would have been covered.
I'm not saying I couldn't have tried harder to negotiate a repair. Had I made a case and the warranty company agreed to have it fixed. How would it be fixed?...not well enough for my tastes. By this stage I had lost confidence in the workmanship of the home and felt I needed to dig more deeply that a superficial repair. I don't want the same low quality parts patched together to make a system that I don't trust work.
● "We reserve the right to repair and/or replace systems and appliances with non-original manufacturer's parts, including rebuilt or refurbished parts... We will not upgrade any covered item. "
I decided to start from scratch. As we pulled everything out we found that the shower was not on a solid foundation and the drain pipe was not welded with ABS cement. Essentially, it was sitting on top of a drain stub. Even if I had found nothing the idea of water seeping slowly into the walls and mold growing would prey on me.
As of the date of this article I'm still working on the new shower. I'm about 500 dollars into it and doing all the work myself. I don't recommending pulling out the entire shower stall to see what's really going on. Consider doing a little extra reading before it comes to that. If you are considering a warranty get a clear picture of the coverage, increase it to a level that you are comfortable with (or do away with it altogether). By the time I pulled out the contract and read through it, it was too late to do anything but tell you about it.
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