Warning thisis about homes, Solar hardware warranty

[gfretwell]

EC&M had an interesting article last month about solar hardware and warranties. Some are totally useless, even if the company still exists. This is mostly for electrical contractors but shit rolls down to the customer.

A few excerpts

There?s promise and peril in that trend. On the plus side, declining prices make solar attractive to more customers ? from homeowners to electric utilities. But a booming market also attracts hordes of vendor newcomers looking for a piece of the action. More competition helps drive down prices, yet heavy competition also makes it tough for vendors ? particularly startups and other smaller ones ? to price their products high enough to fund enough R&D for market-differentiating performance and features. It also leaves less money to cover warranty claims."

"When a vendor exits the U.S. market, goes bankrupt, or struggles to honor its warranties, it can drag down the brand reputations and bottom lines of the contractors it works with. That risk isn?t unique to solar, of course, but the odds are higher than in a lot of other industries."

"?The inverters have a 20-year warranty ? one of the reasons we purchased them,? he wrote. The manufacturer sent him new ones, but he had to install them himself.

?I now have another inverter that will not talk to the system,? he wrote, adding that the manufacturer seems to have left the U.S. market. ?I have had no luck getting in touch with them, and the distributor has only offered to sell me a different brand ? and has had no better luck getting in contact with [the manufacturer].?

"Warranties are crap,? Brotherton says. ?Every single one has holes in it. Our industry I feel is one that you can?t say: ?It?s only this type of product? or ?It?s only the product that comes from this country.?"

One challenge is that contractors and their customers see only the warranty itself rather than its financial foundation. For example, one vendor?s marketing highlighted how its 25-year warranty was backed by Lloyd?s of London.

?Come to find out, they paid their premium monthly,? Vanderhoof says. ?The whole thing collapsed.?

It is at

but you need to sign up to get the secret handshake. It is like a bingo card for any free trade magazine

[Ralph Mowery]

Many of the warranties are worthless on the newer small companies or items. They go out of business and you are left high and dry.

Years ago dad had some tile put in a bathroom that was remodeled. The man guarnteed it as long as he lived. Man died about a year later and the tiles started falling off after about 2 years. No way to collect on that warrenty.

While not a long time guraentee I had the house reroofed with a company that has been in business for over 50 years,so hope they are still around if the roof goes bad.

[gfretwell]

The guy who built my house in Maryland never came back to finish the punch list I made. He shot himself a week after we closed.

[Tekkie©]

On Thu, 02 Sep 2021 15:30:23 -0400, [e-mail] posted for all of us to digest...

You were pretty tough on him aye? ;-)

[invalid unparseable]

I had a one year warranty on my new home which builder refused to honor. Septic came up, he would not fix it and county was going to fine me. I had to pay for a new drain field. I had to sue him. Also found out how corrupt the county was in siding with builders and not the home owner.

[gfretwell]

I had a lawyer for my transaction. He signed a very bad contract. ;-)

[gfretwell]

There would have been no recourse with this guy if he was alive. He was bankrupt and the money I paid was frozen by the IRS from what I hear. There wasn't anything to sue him for. I ended up fixing most of the punch list myself but I bet the casing on the small bedroom closet door is still bad. I ended getting stuck with a couple of his bills because they were tied to the property and I bought the encumbrance with the house. My lawyer warned me about it but it was chump change so I just paid them. It turned out he had been spending draw money from new builds on other houses he was building and mine may have been the last one that he actually closed. There were several people who were looking for him along with the Sheriff. That was the way with those small builders in Maryland tho. I had one living next to me who did the same thing. He looked at his bank balance, saw a million bucks and forgot that money was supposed to go to build houses he contracted for. He was living large for a while tho. I liked his hooker, Daisy but I couldn't afford her. We did have a drink and a smoke a few times tho. I think she was billing out at a grand a week in 1972 plus expenses.

[trader_4]

More typically, people hear "warranty" and stop at that. When something fails, then you find out that you have to pay to ship the failed one back, that the warranty only covers the failure if it's due to a defect, not just worn out (and they get to determine that), that it's prorated, etc, etc. Faced with that, unless it's a costly item, people just give up on the warranty.

A good example I had was the ECM fan motor on my condenser failed about 4 years in. I would have to get a tech out, I think I had to pay for labor too. A new one cost $350, so it probably would have been worth it based on that. But a new PSC motor fits and cost me $90, had it from Amazon in a few days. Not only did I come out ahead, but without the ECM electronics, which is sitting outside and likely to just fail again, this one will last. That's a good example where stupid things are being done to meet energy ratings. The motor is like 1/3 hp, the amount of time it runs for an AC season here, the savings on energy usage is minimal, never enough to make up for $250 difference in cost, even if the ECM motors lasted.

The best warranty experience I had was with a State water heater. The thermocouple failed about 6 years in. I called them up, they immediately sent me a new one, it was here in just 2 or 3 days, no questions, no need to send the old one back, etc. Of course the best experience was with the thing that costs $15. :) But it made me a fan of State, will look for them if I need a new one .

That's a good example. It's only as good as the guy who issued it. Unless you know the guy well, know that he's been around a long time and does take care of problems, it's not worth much. And even then, he can die, go out of business, move, etc.

[trader_4]

NJ has a state warranty program that covers all new construction for dealing with some of this if the builder won;t. But the defects have to be something major, like structural. And even then it seems most people have a a tough time and while they get something, it may not cover it all.

[invalid unparseable]

We settled out of court but I did not collect a cent as all his assets were hidden. I was allowed a tax deduction as a short term business loss for a couple of years which probably paid for a new septic drain field. The builder had problems with others and could have gone to jail over one where he was forging relief of liens from subcontractors on a house he built for someone else. He died of cancer at 50.

[gfretwell]

My wife did "warranty" for a few months before she got laid off and Centex seemed pretty good about fixing things, no matter what. They weren't really building anything and she was trying to keep her trades busy. That warranty money is in escrow for any reputable business so they didn't have a problem using it if they needed to. All it really did was make the company more attractive to sell because of the customer satisfaction numbers. Hannigan and Ellers got out with about $400 million each cash and a taste of ongoing profits. I sold my CTX stock at a nice profit, enough to build my pool. There were two spin off companies (EXP and CVCO) that did really well. CVCO is a triple for me. I sold the EXP for a double.

[Tekkie©]

On Thu, 2 Sep 2021 18:49:32 -0400, Frank posted for all of us to digest...

That sovereign immunity again.

[Wade Garrett]

Hey, I was pimpin' Daisy out back then. She was my bottom bitch.

She told me she liked you and would have done you for for booze or weed. Too bad you didn't make a move ;-)

[gfretwell]

She showed up with a pound of Mexican rag weed that my builder buddy ended up buying and he gave most of it to me. I traded it for 4 new Bridgestone radials.

[Tekkie©]

On Fri, 03 Sep 2021 21:20:18 -0400, [e-mail] posted for all of us to digest...

You still ended up getting a new ride... ;-)