DAY 6 WITH NO HOT WATER

SURROUNDED BY DRAGONS

OR

DAY 6 WITH NO HOT WATER

This has been one hell of a week.  Having written that, it’s time for a review.

Monday  - About 2:30 pm I heard water running in the garage.  Our 12 year and 1 month old water heater bought the farm with us planning on leaving town the next day.  This should have been a minimal problem.  I’ve installed 3 water heaters in the past and knew what and how to make this right.  Step 1 was to shut off the water.  Done.  Step 2 – buy a new water heater.  This is where the problem starts.

LOWES

I got my last water heater at Lowes and I’m not a fan of Home Depot.  I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of getting another water heater at Lowes, because the Whirlpool I was replacing only lasted 1 month beyond warranty, but overall I’ve done a lot of business with Lowes over the years and FOR THE MOST PART they were pretty easy to deal with, UNTIL NOW.  

When I got to the store I asked them to have somebody meet me in the aisle with the water heaters and someone was paged.  Ten minutes later I was still waiting.  I went back to the front service desk and they paged someone again.  I waited another 10 minutes and still had a no show.  That was it.  I was done.  I mentioned earlier this Lowes was pretty easy to deal with.  Both times I’ve had an issue with Lowes it has been a service issue and this was the last straw.  I am so done with Lowes.  At 25 minutes without help I walked and I will never return.  Bye Bye, Lowes.

I’m off to Home Depot.  Although not a fan due to lack of service, my choice was limited and I was also playing a game of ‘beat the clock’.  To my surprise I got instant help at Home Depot and was out the door with a new 40 gallon gas Rheem water heater in less than 5 minutes.  Things were looking up, but not for long.

Step 3 was remove the old water heater.  A piece of cake.  Done in 15 minutes.

Step 4 install the new one.  More cake please.  Done in 20 minutes.  Add another 10 minutes to fill it and check for leaks.

Step 5 and I was about to learn that Rheem should have been spelled Ream.  Light the water heater.  As the title suggests this is day 6 with no water, so obviously that did not go well.  I knew to bleed the air out of the gas line before pushing the spark starter.  Whoops, no spark.  After screwing around trying to get this damn thing lit, I went to the internet for information.  Honeywell builds the control for Rheem and it took no time at all to find out Rheem has had problems with this control unit for several years.  I find this next part very interesting.  Despite the known issues, Rheem still used Honeywell AND Home Depot still sold Rheem water heaters.

Unintended Step 6 call Rheem.  The person I talked with was warm and friendly.  We did about 10 minutes worth of simple diagnostics and she acknowledged I had a problem and would express ship the part(s) to me.  I was told I would have them by Tuesday or Wednesday.  I was going out of town until Thursday morning so I could live with that.  I got home Thursday morning to NO PART(S).

Unintended Step 7 call Rheem, AGAIN.  I was told the warm friendly person I talked with on Monday did not ask me 1 question on the check list so the part(s) didn’t ship.  Maybe it’s just me, but I think when they realized what had happened they should have called me, but no.

Unintended Step 8 call local plumbing supply stores and get the part locally.  Nobody had it.  

Unintended Step 9 call Home Depot and talk with Frank the manager.  In the initial phase of this Frank was helpful and very nice.  He called Rheem.  At this point Rheem told us to call a local plumber and get it fixed.  They would foot the bill up to $125 because according to Rheem it should not cost more than that.

SAY NO TO YES

Unintended Step 10 call a plumber.  I called Yes plumbing because I had heard good things about them.  WRONG!  The person on the phone was very nice and told me they had a senior discount and would have a person there between 2 and 4 PM.  The day now is Friday.  1:30 PM someone from Yes called and confirmed a plumber was on his way.  I was about to get the Charlie Hustle.  The plumber (?) showed up and within a couple of minutes told me he couldn’t fix it, but he was more than willing to replace my new water heater with one of his new water heaters.  WTF?  He told me I could take my water heater back to Home Depot.  I knew Home Depot would not take it back and if I gave this plumber (?) the green light I would be out the cost of the Rheem water heater let alone whatever his price would be.  No #$^&^% way!  During this period my wife was on the phone with Frank from Home Depot.  When the plumber told me it couldn’t be fixed my wife put the plumber (?) on the phone with Frank.  WOW, his story changed immediately.  He told Frank the water heater was improperly installed.  I knew then he was trying to get Home Depot to void the warranty so he could sell me his water heater. 

After he got off of the phone with Home Depot his story changed yet again.  Now, by some miracle, he could fix the water heater.  Brace yourself, he wanted $198 to diagnose the problem, which he just told Frank was no spark, + and unknown amount for parts and labor. 

I wouldn’t let that plumber (?) sell me a drop of water.  What a total ass.  Did I mention earlier I’ve installed three other water heaters?  If you are in Las Vegas and ever need a plumber say NO to YES PLUMBING!
(Yes Plumbing charged me a $49 evaluation fee which was refunded on 10/20)

Meanwhile at Home Depot Frank was starting to distance himself from the problem.  He started putting all of the responsibility on Rheem and wanted to become less involved.

To me the ultimate question here is who bares the responsibility for this mess.  Here is my conclusion and I’d be interested in hearing yours.

Honeywell makes a bad controller and sells it to Rheem (which should be spelled REAM).  Rheem puts it on water heaters and sells them to Home Depot.  H.D. sells them to the public.  With an abundance of knowledge these are defective, to me, the ultimate in responsibility falls on HOME DEPOT the corporation and not the individual stores.  If H.D. quit selling Rheem water heaters, Rheem would be forced to either get out of the water heater business OR get a non-defective controller.  Honeywell and Rheem both share a bit of the responsibility but I still believe Home Depot has the lions share.

Back to my dilemma.  Saturday day 6 – Rheem was to ship a part(s) overnight to our home and authorized us to call a plumber (NOT YES PLUMBING) to get it installed.  

I’ll let you know how this turns out later today.  I’ll tell you this – I’m not holding my breath on this one.

UPDATE Saturday 10/17  The new parts arrived shortly before noon the the technician/plumber was here and did the install by 2:15 PM.  A few clicks of the button and VOILA we were on the way to getting hot water.    

UPDATE Monday 10/19  Home Depot did an excellent job at redeeming my faith and trust in their company.  I got a call today from Kim in Atlanta.  She was concerned about our plight and left me her phone number and extension in the event we have any more Home Depot issues.  Good follow up is a sign of a good, decent and caring company.  Thank you, Kim. 

UPDATE Monday 10/19  Home Depot is really showing customer care and concern.  We got another call from the Atlanta HQ.  Michael called to express his apologies.  I'm a Home Depot fan once again.  I'm really not expecting much in the way of care or concern from Yes Plumbing. 

UPDATE Tuesday 10/20  Yes Plumbing did the honorable thing and refunded the $49 evaluation fee we were charged.

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