Home Depot
Water heater lockout, $364 labor charge despite warranty

11/13/06:
My wife and I purchased a brand new GE hot water heater from Home Depot. They came in and installed it, and all was well.

Friday 4/6/07:
03:00pm:
My wife noticed that there was no hot water coming from the sink. I checked the hot water heater and noticed flashing lights. I looked up the flash code sequence in the owner's manual, and it said FVC lockout detected, call for service.

04:00pm:
I called our gas company to service our hot water heater. We have the Service Plan, which covers repairs.

07:30pm:
The gas company technician arrived on site. He assessed the situation and informed us that there is a sensor built into the new hot water heaters. It is meant to stop the hot water heater from working if something hits the unit or comes in contact with it. There is no reset switch, and the part needs to be replaced. We have no children in our house and no one was near the hot water heater, so we don't know how this sensor could have gone off. Either way, the safety mechanism is great as long as we can get the part. The technician said he has no replacement parts for this type of unit. According to the tech, these parts are proprietary parts between GE and Home Depot.

07:50pm:
The tech called the GE technical department and informed them of the errors. GE explained that they can ship the parts overnight and hopefully they would be in on Saturday. They stated that due to the holiday weekend they can't guarantee it and that the parts probably won't arrive until Tuesday, April 10th at the earliest. At this point we said we'd agree to the overnight delivery in case the parts came in on Saturday.

After the Baystate tech left, I called Home Depot, where we bought the unit. The representative told us that Jean from the plumbing department would place a call Saturday morning to the installer, Carl, and inform him of our situation and see if he has the parts on his truck.

Saturday 4/7/07:
06:40am:
I called Home Depot to make sure Jean was following up with the installer, Carl, to see if he had the parts. Jean said she had paged Carl and was waiting for his return call.

08:30am:
We still hadn't heard from Home Depot, so I called for a follow-up. Jean said she hadn't received a call yet. She said she'd call the store manager, Eric, and explain the situation to him.

09:00am:
Eric called me at home and said that Carl is not on call and that he had contacted Carl's backup, Fred. Eric had explained the situation to Fred and would have him call us.

09:15am:
I spoke with Fred, and he told me that he doesn't have parts available on site and that I need to speak to Eric about replacing the GE water heater.

09:30am:
I spoke with Eric, and he said that he could not replace the water heater because he can't absorb the cost of replacement. GE would not reimburse Home Depot for the replacement. Eric instructed me to call GE to see if I could have them reimburse Home Depot for the cost of replacing the water heater.

12:30pm:
I checked with Home Depot, and the replacement part had not come in yet. So I called GE. The GE supervisor authorized a replacement hot water heater to Home Depot. However, GE would not cover the labor charges to remove and install the replacement water heater. After endless efforts in talking to Eric at Home Depot to absorb the labor cost, I agreed to have the water heater installed and charge my Home Depot account $364.00. It wasn't acceptable to wait until Tuesday for hot water, especially with a house full of people coming over on Easter Sunday.

01:00pm:
At this point, after being on the phone for a good 6 hours, I was totally exhausted and needed to step away. My wife had read our contract from the original installation from Home Depot. She decided to call Eric this time. She read the contract to Eric, and he said it was open-ended. The contract specifically states: "Installation through The Home Depot of a GE SmartWater heater with 6 year limited warranty will include a 6 year full in-home warranty on tank, functional parts and labor." Eric said that I had agreed to the $364 installation charge and we had to pay it. We decided we had no choice but to have it installed and deal with the charge and contract later.

03:30pm:
The Home Depot installer arrived, removed the defective water heater and installed the new GE water heater.

05:00pm:
The new water heater was installed and up and running.

06:00pm:
Hot water was available at this time.

My wife has filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, and as of today, 05/25/07, Home Depot is still stating that we are responsible for the installation charge. (Again, our contract states labor is covered.)

We are writing to you with two requests.
One: Home Depot needs to recognize that they could have more customers who run into this same problem. It could even happen to us again. They need to carry the replacement parts for the sensor. It isn't feasible to have people potentially wait days for a part that stops them from having hot water. And in America, overnight delivery from a Friday to a Saturday should be attainable, holiday or no holiday.
Two: We want the $364 to be waived off of our Home Depot credit card. Our contract states labor is included, and we shouldn't have to pay for it.

Home Depot is a great company. We are hopeful that they will honor their contract with us.

Company: Home Depot
Country: USA
State: Massachusetts
City: Westfield
Address: 514 East Main Street
Phone: 4135640680

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