We bought a house in June 2015 and it came with home warranty. We pay $650/year for it and we've used it for our cooktop and pool equipment. Our upstairs A/C went out yesterday and the service people came quickly, however, they said it would take a week to get everything in order to fix it. Anyone else have a long timeframe for home warranty people to fix things? I consider this to be wayyyyy to long for an A/C in Texas in June.

Good luck. Our water well went out (it was covered) and they told us they would be out in 7-10 days. When I politely let them know my wife was 9 months pregnant and couldn't be without water for 7-10 days, the well guy was out there the next morning.

Now the well guy that came out was actually using used parts to make a complete pump and selling it as "new". But that is an entirely different story.

Home warranty companies pay squat to the contractors.

In a hot June in Texas, you're lucky that it's only a week to get to you. I'm sure that they have higher paying customers in front of you.

The home warranty companies probably do that on purpose knowing you'll just pay someone else to fix it.

Remember their motivation is to pay out as little as possible.

you can ask them to pay you cash for the claim and have it repaired yourself. you'd be out more out of pocket for a bit but you can resolve it faster.

With our home warranty (First American) we've found that even stuff that is covered costs us quite a bit out of pocket. For example:

Our AC went out last summer. The warranty contractor came out and told us that the part itself and repair were covered but it would be $1100 for various non-covered items due to the way our AC was installed . (Uh huh). Took over a a week to get the parts in and fix. We looked into just doing it ourselves but it would have cost more than $1100 for parts and labor, however, but we felt like it was crap that we had to pay over a grand for them to fix (not replace) a covered item.

Same deal when one of our water heaters went out - the actual heater itself was under manufacturers warranty, so we assumed that the home warranty would cover the labor. But no, the contractor quoted us over $300 to drain the old heater, and do a bunch of other crap. We talked to a local plumber who fixed the entire heater for $150, and offered a personal guarantee on the labor. Didn't bother with the warranty once we got his quote.

Disposal died, and they installed a new (crappy) one for free, but charged us $165 to upgrade the electrical portion because the previous disposal was hard-wired and the new one had to be plugged in to an outlet.

Basically, each company has their own ways to make money on the warranty work and I have no idea how many were legitimate and how many may have been exaggerated or not necessary (like the water heater labor that was obviously padded). And nothing took less than a week to fix including the AC.

Our warranty was included when we bought our house last year - we are definitely not renewing it. It just doesn't cover enough of the repair cost to make it worthwhile and the contractors they send out are not that impressive.

Have your ac checked every year before you start using your ac it will double the life

Home warranties are good some are bad

Going through the manufacturer is always th best option but you have to register your equipment

Last I checked they were 10 year warranties on ac domponents

We are currently in the same boat, I feel your pain. We have American Home Shield and our upstairs AC went out as well. It's been over a week and the AC company is still waiting for our part (I think AHS orders the part through their network).

It's nice that we won't be out over a thousand for the repair, but I've found that AHS contracts with some really crappy companies for repairs.

Farmers Fight 06 said:

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We are currently in the same boat, I feel your pain. We have American Home Shield and our upstairs AC went out as well. It's been over a week and the AC company is still waiting for our part (I think AHS orders the part through their network).

It's nice that we won't be out over a thousand for the repair, but I've found that AHS contracts with some really crappy companies for repairs.

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I believe you are correct on AHS ordering the parts.

I think a lot of repair companies that are just starting out contract with the home warranty and once they get customers calling them back on their own dime they cut loose. I had one HVAC contractor flat out tell me he dropped working for AHS due to their slow payment to him.

Unfortunately AC is not considered an emergency to home warranty companies (hell, it's even spelled out that it's not in the lease on the house I rent out but I won't leave my tenants without it) .