A few weeks ago, I met with a service man from a heating and cooling firm in our area to do routine maintenance on my air conditioner.  He asked if I wanted him to do service on my water heater for an additional cost which made sense to me since it is 10 years old.  He discovered he couldn't do the work of service because he couldn't drain it - indicatiion of hardened sediment.  We negotiated and re-negotiated on a new water heater price and warranty which ended up being 4 figures.  Wow!  After he left, I found multiple little things like his not replacing the plates on the water heater, then noticing he hadn't replaced the furnace filter, or put the bleach bottle back where he got it or the water softener cleaner.  I decided to go check the air conditioner, too, and found leaves and dirt in the bottom of it which is also a little thing but not so little to me since that removal was part of the service fee.  In the past, those red flags and some others that happened, too, I would have noticed, told myself I was making too much of it, and gone on with the installation even though the warning seemed to still be with me.

This time, I refused to ignore them.  I asked to talk to a manager and refused to allow a hard sell installation (service showed up last week with the hot water heater when I hadn't called to confirm a date or a time with the company - another red flag) and said exactly why I wanted to talk with a manager.  We spoke today.  Not only did he sincerely apologize for all that had happened, assured me that what was bothering me was a problem for him, too, since he knew the way he wanted things to be done and what was done wasn't to be done and all the people involved had already been called into his office and reprimanded.  He also re-negotiated the price of the water heater and promised he would personally write up the proposal and would send only the people he knew would install it and install it well after I agreed to a time and date for install.  Every red flag I had was down.  I knew he wasn't just blowing smoke, he meant what he said and he understood and agreed with my concerns.

I am grateful to this program for helping me learn to heed red flags and to do what I can do to take good care of myself.  The outcome of heeding the red flags ended up with me spending $300 less than what was quoted, meeting a person who lives in my community, and getting a top of the line water heater manufactured by an American-owned company and installed by a well-known American owned heating and plumbing contractor.  Thank you HP.  Thank you Al-anon.  Thank you, MIP.

-- Edited by grateful2be on Wednesday 4th of June 2014 10:35:27 AM