Anachostic

Boy, do I have to unload on this one.  Here’s the story in a nutshell, then I’ll detail the whole experience, then I’ll document all my grievances at the end.  So yesterday afternoon, I noticed the house was getting warm.  I went over to the thermostat and found the display was dead.  That’s not a good thing.  So I went to the breaker box, checked the HVAC breaker (good), went to the compressor and checked the shutoff (fine), went in the attic and checked the overflow pan (dry) and finally the shutoff for the air handler (fine).  So what’s the problem? 

I turned to Copilot and asked.  The general answer – there’s something wrong with the 24v power supply somewhere.  It suggested I check for a fuse that commonly blows inside the air handler.  I found it and it appeared blown, tried to pull it out and it sort of broke apart, so I couldn’t completely confirm its failure.  It’s a 3A fuse.  I don’t have an exact replacement, but for troubleshooting purposes until I can get to the auto store and buy a 3A, I put in a 10A fuse (this is relevant later).  No change.  Copilot says to check voltage to the wires running to the thermostat.  I detect no voltage.  Copilot says it must be upstream, possibly a transformer.

I’m not messing with transformers and I don’t know exactly where I’d buy a replacement anyway, so I call the pros.  I have a service company that I pay a monthly subscription to for HVAC and plumbing to do my work.  MUCH more on them in part 3 if you stick around.  I call and get a tech to come out.  He’s a ways away and has to fight nasty Friday interstate traffic, so ETA is about 2 hrs.  He arrives, I give him the the full details and let him go off to do his work.  Two hours later, we don’t have a solution and I tell him to get the fuck out. More on that in part 2 if you stick around.

Saturday morning with a fresh head, I get breakfast, get a proper replacement fuse and after replacing said fuse, I notice a secondary safety shutoff near my drain line.  I check it and it has standing water.  I suction out the drain line and flush it with fresh water, then drain the safety shutoff.  Suddenly, my thermostat works.  A few minutes later, the compressor kicks on and the house begins cooling.  Shortly after, my house is back to its set temperature.  My problem is fixed.  10-15 minutes of work, not two hours.  I call my contracted company and immediately cancel my subscription with them.  It’s an AI system (that won’t admit to being AI), so they just make a note that someone will call me back.

Now in part 2, we learn what all happened in that two hours where nothing got resolved.  The tech arrived at my house and I explained the symptoms – the primary one being the thermostat did not have a display.  I explained what I did – swapped the fuse and tested for power.  We went inside and checked the thermostat.  He commented that he’d never seen one like that before.  I should have taken that as a HUGE red flag – it’s a Honeywell, one of the biggest brands.  Now that he’s seen the problem first-hand, I let him go work.

Before starting, he asks if I’ve seen "the book".  I have, and I have a lot more to say about it in part 3.  I tell him I’m a "member", so I get the discounted rate.  Satisfied, he heads off.  He comes back shortly after and says that his first recommendation is that since I had a blown fuse, I need to install a surge protector device.  I explain that I already have a whole-house surge protector.  He says, yes, but surges can come from the ground as well, the device I have only protects against surges from the power mains.  Is he correct?  Technically, yes.  Is it the cause of the blown fuse? Very unlikely since nothing in my house, nor my unprotected pool system sustained damage.  Whatever.  It’s just a recommendation and I know I’m going to decline it.  Off he goes again.

He comes back with more news.  He takes me out to the compressor outside.  He says the capacitor should be changed because the date on it is like 8 years old.  He also says the relay should also be changed because of age.  He explained that every time the compressor cycles, the relay switches and it arcs and burns and blah blah.  Yeah, that’s exactly what a fucking relay does.  These are more recommendations.  Now also, he needs to show me that my system must have a leak, that it’s losing pressure.  He demonstrates this by jumping the compressor so it kicks on, then shows me on his digital gauge how the pressure is dropping steadily.

This is where things started to get ugly.  This is not an electrical problem.  I’m getting a little pissed that he’s not investigating the reported problem.  But, as he explained to me before he started, he’s going to do a full system evaluation and now he’s found multiple potential problems.  I go back inside.

I jump back to my copilot chat and explain what’s going on.  Copilot is telling me this is typical pressure tactics and importantly tells me, you cannot test pressure on a compressor in isolation, as he is doing.  The pressure drop is completely expected without the full system running.  So from here on out, I’m in total scam-protection mode.  He has lost all credibility

He calls me back.  Now he’s taken the fan off the top of the compressor and says he’s found the leak.  He uses his leak detector tool and points it two different places where it flashes and beeps.  One is in a corner joint and the other is in a puddle of water in the middle of the base. He tells me the puddle is Freon or maybe oil.  I know it can’t be Freon because you can’t have liquid Freon in a puddle.  I check the liquid with my finger and it is not oily, just watery.  But he has me nearly convinced.  I had been weed whacking around it recently and maybe I kicked a stone into it and nicked the line.

While I’m still expressing a lot of skepticism to him, he throws another issue out to bolster his argument.  The fan motor.  See how the housing is rusted?  That means it’s been running overheated, so it’s going to fail.  That needs to be replaced.  This is a claim I can’t accept, but he’s trying to beat me down, I know it.  So I’m devastated about the Freon leak, but then, I had a glimmer of hope.  This leak is inside the chassis.  I couldn’t have nicked it it must be a defect, and this unit is still 2 years under warranty.  He verifies that the unit is under warranty, but still cautions me that it’s going to be a level 5 repair.  And it’s 7PM on a Friday, it’s not getting done for a little while anyway.  I’m not a happy camper.

I go back inside and relay it to copilot, who said that the leak detector is pretty good evidence of a leak.  (Later, Gemini would tell me, based on how the tech was behaving, that those tools can be faked to give positive readings and to be very distrustful of what he was saying).  So I’m thinking this through, a warranty replacement is going to take days to order and ship the part, I have to pay for labor and a full recharge, still looking at a grand or more, plus downtime.

Finally, he’s now up in the attic and he comes back with more news.  My ducts are undersized.  There is growth on the blower fan and elements.  And the drain line is completely clogged (Holy shit, this is the actual diagnosis!  But he didn’t know that).  And I am literally at my breaking point.  NONE of this is relevant (well, one piece was, but unknown to me at the time).  We’re two hours into you evaluating my system and you don’t have any answers.  You have a shitton of recommendations and a hypothesis that lightning came through the ground line and damaged my system.  Then he flipped the switch – "you never should have changed that fuse to a 10A fuse".

When he tried to turn this around and even SUGGEST that I was at fault for this, I saw red.  I cursed him up a storm.  That somehow in the 3 hours since I changed a fuse to a higher rating it’s going to leave my system exposed to an event that hypothetically happened?  And every time I tried confronting him, the response was always, "I didn’t say that."  And if there’s one thing that pisses me off, it’s people that say something knowing they have plausible deniability.  It caps off every dis-trustworthy thing he had done up to that point.

I told him to pack it up, we’re done here.  Leave everything alone and end the job.  I’ll pay the service call fee and I’ll be cancelling my subscription tomorrow.  Then he was confused.  "What did I do wrong?"  I don’t even want to get into all the things that I told him, because that’s basically part 3.  So, he put everything back together, packed up, asked again for an explanation, which was given, and he left.

And guess what, the system turned on and started running.  I was already two hours late for my usual dinner so I immediately left and I saw his truck pulled over just down the road.  I couldn’t resist.  I pulled up alongside and rolled down my window.  "Guess what?  It’s working now."

Since you know the rest of the story and the ending, this is now part 3.  The Festivus Airing of Grievances.  And as I told him, I don’t think it was his fault (I’ve kinda changed my mind on that.  He’s a shitty tech.)  The problem lies with his company.  This HVAC company bought out my previous HVAC company, with whom I had a pleasant and trusted relationship.  This new company has been out a total of 3 times and every time, it’s been a high-pressure pitch and bunch of exploratory nonsense.  When I signed up for the subscription, I did it for two reasons, I could get the discounted price immediately, and on that first call, they did a lot more work than I initially wanted (more missed red flags).  The other reason was that twice a year, they would come around and do maintenance and a routine check.  I knew deep down it was just them inviting themselves in to look for problems they could fix, and sure enough, they always did.  But each time, I was able to say, I decline.  And then I did the work myself.  I thought that was fair to have a professional come in and do the evaluation, then I could decide what was in or out of my skillset.  This arrangement does NOT work when you can’t trust the professionals to be honest.

Now, "the book".  When I was first presented with the book, it was mostly promoting their subscription plan and the savings I could get by joining it.  But there’s more to it.  Here’s the meat:

This is expectation setting.  When the tech comes into your house and the first thing they show you before doing any work is the price sheet, it’s a change from "I’m here to fix your problem" to "I’m here to charge you money."  Straight-forward, yes.  Customer friendly, compassionate, partnership-inducing?  Nah.  Not to mention, when you come in to do a job and your first task is to educate the customer about the company, the benefits a subscription offers, and basically a massive sales pitch, before any work is started – before any trust is earned – that’s marketing first, quality second.

And psychologically, the layout is fucked.  The first number you see is the biggest.  That’s your immediate and first expectation.  So when the actual number comes in lower, it’s a relief.  It could’ve been SO much worse, right?  No.  This whole concept is FUCKING TERRIBLE.  And it’s being sold as being transparent and up-front.  Look, if you come in and fix the problem that I called about, I’ll pay you what you’ve earned.  If you come in and find a bunch of problems I didn’t call about, no matter how valid, that’s predatory.  If I go to the emergency room because my finger was cut off, the ER doc is not going to say, I’m going to send you down for an MRI to rule out lung tumors, which by the way costs $15k to treat.  You treat the problem at hand, make the customer happy, and earn the trust to expand the scope.  My tech could’ve solved the problem in 10 minutes and said, "ok, you’re working again. I’m going to see if there’s anything that could cause trouble later."  In my relief, I’d be like, "Yeah, have at it."  Instead, he found a dozen problems before even attempting to fix my stated problem.

If you look at the price sheet, it’s clear that this is a glossy, laminated booklet.  Their whole image is very put together.  They have full uniforms, fully wrapped vehicles, branding, trademarks (trademarks out the ass!), everything.  And you know what, for a blue-collar line of work, that’s not encouraging.  Maybe it is for people who don’t know any better, but not after you’ve been around a while.  There’s a similar parallel I found in dentistry.  I used to think bigger was better.  I went to a chain dental place, not Aspen Dental, but similar.  You know what these places are?  Proving grounds for newbies.  Fresh out of school, they don’t have any clients, so they have to work at a chain.  Like hair stylists working in mall shops until they build up a clientele and can go independent.  And that means, they are unexperienced.  My tech didn’t recognize a Honeywell thermostat.

Finally, there’s something icky about a hands-on profession adopting hands-off technology.  The previous company had people that you could talk to and would call you with status updates.  This new one has text alerts, emailed invoices, and an AI call center.  It’s highly impersonal.

That’s finally off my chest.  Now to wait for Monday when they call me back.