Home Depot
Ripoff Breach of contract for repair of hot water heate

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 dispensing from the sink. I checked the hot water heater and noticed flashing lights. I looked up the flash code sequence in the owners 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 arrives onsite. He assessed the situation and informed us that there is a sensor built into the new hot water heaters. They are to stop the hot water heater from working if something hits the unit or something 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 dont know how this sensor couldve gone off. Either way, the safety mechanism is great as long as we can get the part. The GE 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 informs them of the errors. GE explained that they can ship the parts over night and hopefully will be in Saturday. They stated due to the holiday weekend, they cant guarantee it and that the parts probably won't arrive until Tuesday April 10th at the earliest. At this point, we said wed 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 to 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 paged Carl and was waiting for his return call.

08:30am:
We still haven't heard from Home Depot, so I called for follow up. Jean said she hadnt received a call yet. She said shed 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 contacted Carls 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 onsite and that I need to speak to Eric on replacing the GE water heater.

09:30am:
I spoke with Eric and he said that he could not replace the water heater because he cant absorb the cost of replacement. GE would not reimburse Home Depot for the replacement. Eric instructed me to call GE to see if I can 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 wasnt 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 on 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: installion 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 is installed and up and running.

06:00pm:
Hot water is 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 for two requests.
One: Home Depot needs to recognize that they could have more customers that run into this same problem. It could even happen to us again. They need to carry the replacement parts for the sensor. It isnt feasible to have people potentially wait days for a part that stops them from having hot water. And in America, over night delivery from a Friday to 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 shouldnt have to pay for it.

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

Brad
Waterbury, Connecticut
U.S.A.

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

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