Exterior Water Service Line Coverage
$7.95/mo
$23.85/qtr
$95.40/yr
When Janet and her husband woke up one morning, it was unusually chilly. Of course, it was January in South Dakota, but Janet didn’t expect it to be 55 degrees inside her home.
“[The heat] went out at some point in the night and did not work on Monday morning,” Janet said. “So, I went out and turned up the furnace and it still didn’t work, so I knew something was wrong.”
Janet had several repair plans from HomeServe and had needed her furnace repaired two and a half years ago, saving her $600, so she knew all she needed to do was make a quick call and a licensed, insured and qualified service provider would be dispatched to her home to handle the repair.
“We have had HomeServe for a while – we would see letters in the mail about the plans, so we signed up in case something happened,” Janet said.
“We have had HomeServe for a while – we would see letters in the mail about the plans, so we signed up in case something happened,” Janet said.
However, when Glenn from Foltz and Sons Electric and HVAC arrived, he had bad news for the couple – the heat exchanger was badly cracked and he would have to condemn the unit, because it was too dangerous to continue to operate. The entire furnace would have to be replaced for Janet’s safety. In fact, until it was replaced, they wouldn’t be able to use it at all, because of the extreme risk it posed.
“Fixing a furnace or water heater costs so much, we just wanted to be ready for the possibility of something happening.”
“At first, I asked, ‘are you sure you can’t fix this?’” Janet said. “He pointed to the part and said, ‘if I put in that part in there and I walked away, the possibility of you becoming ill or injured is so high that I just can’t do it.’”
“That old heat exchanger is scary,” Glenn agreed. “It could have easily made them very sick.”
A new furnace will typically cost between $2,800 and $6,800, and Janet and David were an elderly couple who had recently suffered some financial blows, including damage to their home from a plumbing leak. They simply weren’t able to afford the repair.
Glenn knew that he couldn’t leave Janet and her husband, a veteran, without heat in the winter and, although replacing the unit because of a cracked heat exchanger was outside the scope of her repair plan, the team at HomeServe agreed to help because it was the right thing to do.
The total cost of the new unit was $5,000, Glenn offered to discount $1,000 off the cost to help Janet and her husband, and HomeServe picked up the remaining $4,000 cost, leaving Janet with no out-of-pocket costs for the replacement.
“I’ll tell you what, we are so grateful and humbled,” Janet said. “We had some financial problems, our home insurance had dropped us because of a water leak and this one more thing on top of the others – we would have been in a pickle.”
Despite needing to order a new furnace from a supplier in Idaho, Glenn was able to replace the furnace quickly, while customer representatives kept Janet and her husband apprised of what was going on every step of the way.
“The space it was going in was very tight, so we had to be specific with the equipment,” Glenn said.
“He ordered the furnace and things got rolling quickly,” Janet said. “Glenn is quite a nice guy; I even gave him a hug. He even filled out the registration for the furnace warranty. I was happy I didn’t have to figure that out. He was so helpful; I couldn’t have asked for more.”
Soon, Janet had heat again – and, just as important, a new furnace that ran safely.
“Everything was perfect,” Janet said.
“It was a pleasure to see this project through,” Glenn said.
Published February 02, 2024