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The joys of home ownership - not

April 16th, 2007 at 02:22 pm

We got the heater serviced today (see previous post). Actually, I didn't call until today because it seemed to be fine all week, then went out again last night (in the midst of our Nor'easter storm).

Of course, the unit is out of warranty.

The repair was $361.60 including the service call. The other option was to extend the warranty for another year. That would be $369 and cover the service call and twice/year routine maintenance visits on the heater and AC, plus 20% off any needed parts. So including today's repair, it would come to $545.53. I don't normally believe in extended warranties, but in this case I figured it was really only costing us $184 to be covered for the year instead of $369. Plus we'll get the 2 service visits included for that price. So we decided to take the warranty just in case something else breaks. And even if nothing breaks, we'll get 2 service calls for $184 which isn't such a bad deal.

Posted in Cooking/Household Stuff | 6 Comments »

6 Responses to “The joys of home ownership - not”

  1. Chris Says:
    April 16th, 2007 at 02:51 pm 1176735097
    1176735097

    Ah, one of the reasons that we chose to buy a new house.
    Which of course included a new heater and A/C. Not that this is always the best approach.

    Replacing (as opposed to repairing) a heater can be quite expensive. But let's say you pay the $369/yr to keep extending the warranty (also assuming the option is available). Let's figure that installation + heater cost is somewhere around $6,000. That means that you could in theory pay $6,000 over 16 years, and then end up replacing the heater at that point anyway.

    Personally I would sit there and watch they guys do the work on my heater, and since I'm not mechanically challenged, I'd go ahead and do the same thing for the next 15 years. At this point, we haven't had the heater serviced at all (the house is now 7 years old). We are probably going to have it serviced next year, and still plan on possible replacement of the heater when it's about 20-25 years old (but definitely before I turn 65 years old), and after the mortgage is paid off (which is only 13 years away).

  2. disneysteve Says:
    April 16th, 2007 at 03:09 pm 1176736161
    1176736161

    Chris - This heater is about 6 years old. We installed it in 2000. It had a 5-year warranty. When that expired, I chose not to extend it as I think the extended warranties are a scam in most cases. Since they gave me the option of taking a warranty today which would cover today's service, I decided it was worth it, but I don't know that I'd continue to extend it in the future.

  3. JanH Says:
    April 16th, 2007 at 03:27 pm 1176737254
    1176737254

    We have the service agreement for the air and heating and it has paid for itself. They have found things in the twice yearly checkups that have saved the air conditioning and in the heating that probably saved our home. This is one service besides the termite one that I really feel has been worth it!

  4. boomeyers Says:
    April 16th, 2007 at 05:02 pm 1176742923
    1176742923

    It should have worked longer than 6 years! Geesh!
    I would have gone for the extended warranty too. It just seemed to make sense and then you can have some maintenance done on it this year too!

  5. Joan.of.the.Arch Says:
    April 16th, 2007 at 07:56 pm 1176753387
    1176753387

    Both my gas furnace and a/c are 1970's units. They just keep on kickin'. We did replace the blower 12 years ago, but have had no other problems. Hard to see what else could go wrong with a furnace; they seem pretty simple. I'm thinking maybe these are appliances of which it can be said, "They just don't make them like they used to." Of course, our old furnace and a/c are inefficient.

  6. disneysteve Says:
    April 16th, 2007 at 10:46 pm 1176763602
    1176763602

    Joan - When we replaced our 1964 furnace 6 years ago, our gas bills dropped 50%. When we replaced our 1964 AC the following summer, the same happened to our electric bills.

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