I am writing this post to give an indication to others what my experience has been with my home warranty company, First American Home Buyers Protection Organization.
I bought a brick rancher built in 1967. As part of the deal I insisted upon a home warranty coverage. The seller provided this company which my realtor told me has a decent reputation as home warranty companies go. I had no choice in the matter anyway since I wasn't paying for it.
I made my first call a week after moving in. The old Maytag side-by-side refrigerator was occassionally leaking water out of the freezer compartment onto the floor in front and the old Jenn-Air downdraft drop-in stove had a fan switch which only worked on low and the two heating elements which came as a unit wouldn't get hot enough to pop popcorn on the stovetop. A service call was scheduled and the technician came to fix those items. A $100 deductible was paid by me for the service call.
The refrigerator had a frozen drain pipe which was cleared with hot water. The stove was another matter. The elements got up to 730 degrees with nothing on them which qualified as serviceable. The fan switch was ordered and an oven seal was ordered. To make a long story short, numerous visits by technicians and innumerable calls to the home warranty company which caused much weeping and gnashing of teeth finally resulted in the analysis that proper parts could not be ordered and a new stove would be purchased for us.
The company called us back and offered a brand new Jenn-Air electric slide-in stove
In the meantime a termite inspection revealed a water pipe underneath the house spraying water. A new call to the home warranty company brought a plumber out that day which I paid $100 deductible to replace two copper fittings underneath the house with bad solder joints.
A few days later a call from an appliance technician was made to schedule install of the new stove. Upon discovering the change from a drop-in to a slide-in stove the technician backed out and refused to do the job.
The stove was delivered a week later and I got busy taking the old one out that night. Several hours of cussing & fussing and sawing finally forced me to admit defeat and a carpenter was called in to modify the opening in order to get the stove in as far as it would go for the faceplate to clear the drawer perpendicular to it. That cost me $150. Yesterday I took the stainless steel rod oven handle off and handed over to a friend with machining skills to cut off a couple inches from both sides so the drawer will clear it also.
Today I got a call from the home warranty company asking how the stove installation went. I bit my tongue and very nicely informed them the new stove did not come with a griddle which the old one had and asked for the installation payment normally given to the technician be reimbursed to me. The agent promised to look into both items and call me back. Stay tuned...