A.O. Smith water heater. Big problems. No help. (JohnNY) **Updated 3/27/15, 11:30am**

Abracadabra

I went with Laars (BradfordWhite) on a recent job. The changes they made to their MightyTherm2 line (from the original MT) look good. Looks like they learned from some of the mistakes on the original MT.

DanHolohan

Good insight from Seth Godin.

nicholas bonham-carter

This article may be more apropos:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/243284
The need for companies to care is more than mere charity. Who will buy a product which has been reported to have problems functioning properly? There are services such as Reputation.com, monitoring the Internet for their clients, and helping them deal with adverse publicity. In this case, with AO Smith, it is like constantly pumping air into a tire, without fixing the leak, or fixing the reputation of the Yugo!
Whether they recognize it or not, the manufacturer is in partnership with the installer, and neither can neglect to pull his oar in the boat, without going round endlessly in circles. The end of the production line is not the end of the job for the manufacturer.
With all the electronics on board these products, they should be connected to the Internet, sending data (such as constantly firing, due to under sizing) back to the head office, and to the contractor.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a fall in their stock soon, as more of these unreliable products come to light.
In the constant drive for product improvement, there are bound to be mistakes in design or manufacture. To Err is human, but what separates the world-class company from the knucklehead is how those errors are managed.
In the 60's, a U.S. Navy boat accidently leaked a large amount of oil onto the beach in Cannes, France. Rather than cover it up, they admitted the fault and sent in the SeeBees to remove all the sand, and replace it with sand from North Africa. A year later, no one was focusing on the oil spill, but rather on the miraculous, Herculean effort which went into the remedy.--NBC

JohnNY

A tech from A.O. Smith field service called me yesterday and said he's coming to New York to see me next week. Probably Thursday.

I'll keep you posted.

JohnNY

Jlamb said:

John,



Forgot to mention. Take a look at aerco products they have a nice lineup of water heaters and boilers. Pretty impressive.



Jay

Yes, I've been installing some Aerco stuff this past year. They're no B.S. boilers and you pay dearly for them, but they're definitely "impressive".

jonny88

Great news John.Glad to see after nearly 4k views on this thread they are finally responding.Good luck with it.

GW

Parts....that's an interesting topic worth my two cents

I may be wrong, but don't all normal business people consider "what if's" ? It's our responsibility to tell these business people, "hey you should consider having x parts on your shelf in case the heater stops".

But no, for whatever reason, we heating guys rarely do that, we are reluctant and or chicken.

If someone were to tell me, "Gary, if this new system YOU'RE installing fails I will be looking for xyz, a piece of your hide, compensation, you fill in the blank.....I would retort with "that's fine, here's the price for a second water heater, where can we store it, can you move that pallet of potatoes"?

I do understand , John should not be struggling with this. I'm atemempting to shed light on a similar but different topic. Why is it, in our society, us mechanical trade people get to take on so much burden and responsibly? Some of the reason is because it's the right thing, some of it is we dont set the table for when that day "actually comes"

I'm a tiny 3 man company, 4 if you count me. We are 99% residential heating and cooling. While I understand a commercial water heater down in an upper scale restaurant is a huge problem, so isnt Mrs Jones' 2 year old boiler locking out in mid winter.

If my local GMC or Ford dealership does not stock parts to keep my trucks going, how is it that we, the contractor, are expected to have all parts for these apliances we're installing?

It's a fine line. If we share too much stark truth with our customer we will need to find new means of employment. Conversely if we say, "you will never have a problem, you have my word", wow, that person have guts.

Local vendors, I have learned, don't care about parts. They understand the end user is not their problem.

Technology had changed in the last 20 years.
The world has changed, we need to rethink the way we do business

Gary

SWEI

It's truly a sticky wicket, and the increasing complexity of today's appliances is making it stickier all the time. 30 years ago, you could service the majority of boilers with a shelf full of standard replacement parts. These days if you don't severely limit what brands and models you install, stocking spares becomes pretty much impossible. When the fans and controls for different models of mod/con in a single line are specific, how do you fully support even one brand? When a single mini split manufacturer offers roughly 50 different indoor and outdoor units in its residential line alone, how do you fully support that?

EBEBRATT-Ed

Gary makes an excellent point. We are all in the service business one way or the other.

I try to point out to the customer that it is there boiler, there building, etc. What do they need to do to protect their investment? The contractor shouldn't have all the burden

I needed a Motor for a large Riello burner. The motor was ok but the cooling fan on the end of the motor was broken.

We couldn't get just the fan, had to wait for an entire motor to come from across the pond. In this case they had eight other boilers so it was no big deal.

We could have blown a window fan at it or tried to find a metric motor that would fit.

For a lot of the "new stuff" parts are not readily available.

GW

tiny bit related---

I was at a one day Riello training a year or two ago. The guy next to me (amazingly) takes a phone call as we are all sitting there (not a huge deal, but whatever). I can only hear one end of the conversation, but it was pretty clear what was happening.

The tech/owner of the very small company (one-man I presumed) says "I can be there around 6PM, there will be an after-hours charge". The caller complains stating that he is 'calling during regular hours, there should not be an after hours charge'. The tech/owner (amazingly) agrees.

This was a service customer, NOT a system he installed. Yes, I packed in a few questions during a food break..."are you really going there when you leave here and not charging any additional money" I asked.

Most all seasoned business owners know how to draw a line in the sand. Most newbies or unstable owners are afraid to establish a firm boundary, letting the customer call the shots.

This commercial water heater situation is not what I am talking about, but we are not 911, we are not an ambulance service. If people express "This system better not go down" it's incumbent on our shoulders to say, Well if that's the case, here is what I can provide....and here is what that will cost"

Gary

icesailor

NYC007 said:

John You sure said it on the Complicated World ! So Sad -

It may seem like it is a complicated world, but it's all based on basics.

All trouble shooting flow charts all start with a #1 basic premise. "Is the power on?" And you go from there.

I'm sure that there aren't many here who read Flying Magazine. There's a guy, Peter Garrison who I sort of grew up with, and is the smartest, most logical person I have ever known. He writes a column called "Aftermath" about aircraft accidents. The next page is the FAA's report on selected aircraft accidents. In every case, human error was the main culprit.

There are no hateful worms and insect devils coming out of the wiring on those heaters. The control of the human body is as basic as the water heaters. Signals sent to the brain for the brain to interpret. If the signals are wrong, the brain can't make the correct action. If the brain has lesions, and information has to go somewhere else that doesn't normally process that piece of information, so it makes a decision that could be wrong. Same with the water heater controls.

Those guys in Tech Support are there to help you. They WANT to help you, When it is a problem like this, they are just as frustrated as you/we are. They get together and try to brainstorm the issue. I've spent time on phones with tech support. For me, that's a last resort. For them, it is usually a problem that they are clueless about it. But we discuss it. Because I KNOW that that guy knows things that I don't know. And I KNOW that he knows things that he knows but doesn't think he knows what might be useful. Its my job to dig it out. If you treat Tech Support with an adversarial relationship, you'll get nothing. If you treat them as equals and you are picking their brain for their knowledge, they become more willing to work on the problem and s solution. Because it makes them feel productive and useful. Sometimes, it is information gathered. Sometimes, when I'd hang up, the Tech Support person says "I'm really sorry I couldn't help you". To which I always replied "Don't be sorry. You have been a tremendous help to me. I know far more now than I did before I called up. I really appreciate your help."

No one know everything. But everyone knows something.

icesailor

@JLamb:

A late 50's, early 60's group that sold more records than the Beatles, The Kingston Trio, recorded a song that had a line in it:

Bad news travels like wildfire. Good news travels slow.

SWEI

icesailor said:

I'm sure that there aren't many here who read Flying Magazine. There's a guy, Peter Garrison who I sort of grew up with, and is the smartest, most logical person I have ever known. He writes a column called "Aftermath" about aircraft accidents.

IANAP, but I do pick it up it when I come across it. First place I turn (after I gawk at the the latest composite aircraft design or the whiz-bang new avionics) is his column. Sobering stuff. Checklists, anyone?

icesailor

tim smith said:

John, just had a rush issue yesterday on AO Smith high efficiency water heater we did not install, but very large restaurant in high tech corridor here in Bellevue. Water heater down in am, arrived and found bad combustion blower. Only one water heater so totally down. No one in town had the part, rep, 4 wholesalers, other companies no gots. Had to same day air it in from Portland Oregon. They had to close down for lunch, not a fun prospect for this size of restaurant with a banquet party scheduled. Ordered part at 10 am, was at airport in Seattle ready for pickup at 3pm. Installed by 5 pm and open for dinner.
I really want to praise Alaska airlines gold streak service and Ferguson enterprises for helping us make this happen. Still, these are the cyclone commercial tanks, why in the @$ don't they have parts for the many of these tanks installed? We are talking with restaurant ownership about installing backup water heater so hopefully never down again like this.

AO Smith needs to do like WW Grainger and Kohler. If you need an odd fixture from Kohler, and you can't wait, they have inventories of distributors all over the country that stock the part and can send it to you through your local Kohler Distributor. Order something from Grainger and you live on Cape Cod, you get it the next day from a store in Washington State because their Taunton (MA.) store is out of stock.

AO Smith needs to set up a system where they discount special material to legitimate dealers (Like Ferguson) and they can pull emergency stock. Its unreasonable to expect distributors to carry expensive parts that are seldom used. I owned a John Deer farm tractor. That's how it was for tractor parts.

AO Smith was a family run and owned Corporation. This is the business model promoted by The Carlyle Group and their leaders with MBA's from Harvard and MIT. No inventory, because inventory screws up the appearing bottom line and you can't pay the stockholders as much, and the Wall Street Crime Syndicate gets a smaller cut of the action.

I just read an article about the guy who will get credit for destroying Sears and K-Mart. Some guy with a non (normal) Anglo/English name who will walk away from his destruction with BILLIONS. AO Smith has a similarly named CEO. Maybe they went to Harvard or MIT for their MBA too.

Then. I remember what Lennie the store manager once said to me: Just because your handling a lot of money doesn't mean your making any.

4Johnpipe

I am making it standard practice to call tech support when I come across a repeating issue. We had control issues on a job that we could not diagnose. They were intermittent and did not present while we were on site a few times. The surprising thing was on the 3rd call to tech support we were informed of a known defect in a batch of control boards. The 3rd call! Now armed with the facts we notified the supplier and the manufacture rep of the condition. Neither were aware of it. The last call to tech was also information to them because of an ancillary condition down stream of the boards that they had not heard of. Patience and determination can only go so far. The communication chain failed and this is something we in the field can help with!

icesailor

@SWEI:

SWEI said:

It's truly a sticky wicket, and the increasing complexity of today's appliances is making it stickier all the time. 30 years ago, you could service the majority of boilers with a shelf full of standard replacement parts. These days if you don't severely limit what brands and models you install, stocking spares becomes pretty much impossible. When the fans and controls for different models of mod/con in a single line are specific, how do you fully support even one brand? When a single mini split manufacturer offers roughly 50 different indoor and outdoor units in its residential line alone, how do you fully support that?

I completely understand your point of view and I don't dispute anything.

But I have experiences where these parts are available quickly as long as the manufacturer sets up a system where they can easily draw parts from some other locations. WW. Grainger and my John Deere tractor are examples. I go to the Auto parts store looking for parts. If they don't have them by late that afternoon, they have them the next day. Where I lived and worked, my wholesaler used to deliver to us every Tuesday. He had a store in another similar place. But he noticed that although he sold a lot of water heaters, 3 to 6 at a time to give a better price, he lost all the sales to another store where guys would go and buy the dressings. Fittings, Vacuum valves, Pipe, etc. So he built a store of their own.

But with all the people buying things for cheap off the Internet, its hard on supply companies to make a profit. Its like water heaters, You can buy them 6 at a time and get a better price, but you still buy the dressings from the Internet. With the low costs of USPS, UPS, Fed-EX et al, there's no reason that the manufacturers aren't working out something that is already in place. Just look at Amazon.Com. They don't stock everything they sell. They order it in from all over.

I've told this story before. Someone needs to send it to the CEO and BOD's of AO Smith.

The small town I lived and worked in had the smallest federally chartered bank in the Nation. They had a crusty old President that worked with everyone. If you needed $2,000 to get a discount on Monday, but had money coming in by Friday, they'd give you a 30 day note on your word and experience with them. No BS. Write the check or put it in your account.

One year, he want to the American Bankers Association Convention in some Southern City. All the big Banksters go there.
Some reporter scribe was going around interviewing many of the grand Poo-Bah Banksters about what it was like to be president of all these big banks. The Scribe finally got to the small town banker and asked him what it was like to be the president of the smallest chartered Federal Bank in the Country? To which the local Bankster replied: Well, Banking is the second oldest profession in the world. And like the first, if you don't provide the services that people want on a Saturday night, they will take their business elsewhere.

It caused quite a stir among staid old Banksters, but he was right.

If AO Smith can't provide the services that people want, they'll take their business elsewhere.

FranklinD

I have been watching this thread with great interest. I am not a contractor or installer, but the parallels to my line of work are significant.

In the world of auto repair, we run into the same issues with parts availability. The small dealer I worked at for years stocked nothing other than basic, 'fits-most' parts. Just the oil filter selection filled 2 rows of shelving. No warehouse did we have.

Fortunately the auto industry has come a long way in terms of parts...we were 52 miles from the nearest city (of 26000). Middle of nowhere. Yet we had daily parts deliveries from warehouses in Minneapolis, Eau Claire, and Chicago. If I ordered a part, even a complete engine, I could have it within 18 hours every time.

If we started to see pattern failures, we reported it online to the Ford engineering department. The fastest response I ever saw was on 2008 Focus'...from concern, to report, to Technical Service Bulletin, to Field Service Action, to an available software update for the vehicles in question, in 72 hours. Amazing.

I hope that your industry suppliers can also start to implement some sort of similar strategy. It's no fun to field complaints and then essentially admit that your product has a fault. But if you're on top of it, own up to it, and DEAL WITH IT, you're not likely to lose a customer (in this case, the installer is the customer).

I apologize if I'm off topic here, feel free to delete this post if that's the case. I totally sympathize with the situation at hand, though, from one industry to another.

And no, I am by no means implying that Ford's system is perfect. For that one success, there were at least 10 less than favorable outcomes. Many times I ran the gamut of testing and was instructed to 'contact a Hotline Engineer'...and upon doing so, was instructed to do everything I had already done...only to arrive at the same dead end. In which case, the engineer would give me the ol "I will do some research and get back to you".

I'll be interested to see what conclusion is arrived at by the engineer. Seems like a lot of screwing around (and time and $ spent by AO now) when they just should have shipped you a new unit. When Ford came out with the CVT transmissions in 05, if they had ANY issue under warranty, they shipped you a new one in a black crate, and you sent the old one back. And that's a pricey unit.

Best of luck!

GW

Ice, well said. 10 years ago I NEVER would have considered buying stuff through the web- now i almost enjoy the power of the key stroke. I can think of more than one local plumbing/heating/hvac vendor that has taken a back seat in recent years due to their no-web-based platform. I, quite frankly, don't care about what "they" think of "their" service, I just want the stuff, I want it fast, and please don't charge way more than the next vendor who DOES have web based commerce.

SWEI

I hear you, Chris, and despite what it may have sounded like, I'm not actually suggesting we stock every part for every product we sell. Out here in the Wild West (3-4 days' shipping from either coast) we have significant challenges. I do a fair bit of business with Ferguson (who has a DC in Texas that's only 2 days away) but they don't stock a lot of repair parts for the stuff we are selling. This supply chain management has got to be a real challenge for the manufacturers, but as @FranklinD noted, other industries have stepped up to the plate and figured out how to get parts wherever they are needed in a day or so. It's hard, but it really is necessary.

icesailor

Back in the last century, long before the Internet, if you lived in a rural, isolated area, you had to be your own personal supply house. You stocked what you needed on a regular basis, planned your needs, and inventoried stock. There used to be salespersons that came around and took orders for their lines (Wolverine Brass, Crest-Good). They sold things that weren't easily available in any supply house. Wolverine Brass only sold to "Trade". Wolverine sold Quality stock you couldn't buy anywhere else. Try finding a 1 3/8" scratch thread tailpiece for an old leg tub, or a 1 1/2" X 1 3/8" tailpiece to connect a leg tub to a 1 1/2" drain where you had ripped out the old lead for a re-pipe. Lowes and HD (less than a mile away) sell a Kohler Cimarron comfort toilet for the same price as the advertised price as Ferguson (12 miles away). Will Ferguson give me a "Professional Discount" because I am still a licensed Master Plumber? Or treat me like any other cash paying slug that walks through the door. Lowes puts it in the back of my car.

My old wholesaler went all computerized inventory. The only thing left not done was UPC bar code pricing. I could make up a list the night before and send it in as an E-Mail through their system. It would be ready for me the next AM, or whenever I needed it. All boxed up. How's that for hitting the SEND button?

Buying from the Internet is like the three guys I saw in the South Boston Home Depot. The Grand Poo-Bah of Massachusetts HD's where a requirement of employment is that you are Tri-Lingual. It was 10:00 AM and they were on the banana to the home office because HD didn't have any 3/4", 30# Pressure Relief Valves for the boiler they were installing. Or working on. To get to HD, they probably drove by 3 fully stocked supply houses.

SWEI

Wolverine Brass has a guy in Phoenix. We've spoken a few times on the phone, but I've yet to meet him in person.

We have one supply house here (that mostly services the mines.) They stock basic stuff like copper and F1807 PEX for the plumbers, but almost nothing for heating. Last November, I had a no heat call which turned out the be a waterlogged expansion tank. I need an Amtrol #30 on a Friday afternoon. No luck at the supply house "We can order that for you." No luck at either of the hardware stores. No luck with the biggest plumbing & mechanical contractor in town (the one with five trucks and a big warehouse.) No luck with any of the five supply houses in Las Cruces (they don't stock any hydronic stuff, including barrier PEX.) Monday AM I get on the phone to Albuquerque only to find out that because Amtrol pre-charges their tanks with helium, they can not be shipped by UPS or FedEx (at least by the big guys who play by all the rules.) $114 truck freight on a #30 anyone? Now I keep two on the shelf. Later that week, I went through another round of similar silliness looking for a Watts 335-M2 for the same customer. Now I keep those on the shelf as well.

DanHolohan

Helium? It could have shipped itself.

Steamhead

We've run into this too. No longer can we count on supply houses to have what we need in stock.

This is why our shop resembles a mini-supply house. One example- we just started work on a building that had a bunch of Webster 02H traps (very common in this area) which had not been touched since they were installed in 1939 (yes, we found the date codes in them). No problem- we had parts in stock, and could fix them right away. AFAIK, no one else in Baltimore could make that statement.

A previous contractor had replaced some 02H traps with Hoffman 17C units, which made those radiators extremely slow. Talk about causing more problems than you solve. The 02H traps were gone, so we installed Barnes & Jones 122 traps which, again, we had in stock.

Somewhere along the line, the Hahvahd MBAs took over many suppliers, and they forgot how this business works. Customers don't want to hear that it'll take 2-3 weeks to get a part when their heating system isn't working (are you listening, mod-con vendors?). This was one of the problems with the company I worked for prior to starting All Steamed Up, Inc.- they didn't want to stock anything, choosing to depend on supply houses. We lost a lot of work as a result.

Mark Eatherton

Its called "Just in time" ordering/manufacturing, is rampant throughout our industry and is the bane of man kind, but looks good on paper.

My friend Richard in Colorado stocks all of the blowers, gas valves,and control boards for all of the products he deals with, and is constantly being barraged by the WHOLESALERS, looking for parts. A sad but true statement. He's a contractor, not a wholesale distributor.

ME

Steamhead

"just in time" for them means "we might have it next month". That is not acceptable.

If I were Richard, unless there was some overriding consideration, I'd consider letting some of these wholesalers hang themselves. Since he is doing THEIR job, they certainly have given themselves enough rope!

tim smith

Here is my take om how this issue with no parts in stock where this mission critical equipment is sold. We all start only supporting companies who are ready, willing and able to have parts in stock for the equipment at our distributors. They are who support the factories and in turn we support. We, as the last line before consumer make the decision what our clients should have in their place of business or at home. We should have a say. We should be able to somewhat drive what happens in our areas. We support companies that support us. It is suppose to be a symbiotic relationship. Some how pressure has to be passed on to these large corporations to do what is right. My .02 worth.

RobG

Some of the reps have stepped up to the plate and stock parts for the products they represent and sell direct to the contractor. The wholesalers could care less about losing the sale of a $300 fan, all they care about is the $5000 boiler sale.

Charlie from wmass

Ok I know I am late jumping in but has the gas pressure been monitored? That has been the big thing for me this year, low gas pressure on the mains and dropping gas pressure during peak demand periods.

Joe Mattiello

Wow
I read the entire tread, and feel bad for all the customers with similar stories. Good Customer Service is an essential ingredient for success in any company. Products can fail, and I'm sure every manufacturer has a story of a product that didn't live up to its expectation. However, this is when a good manager would take advantage of an unfortunate situation, and put a positive spin on it. I took a Dale Carnrgie sales advantage course, and was humbled after reading a book called How to Win Friends and Influence people. Best book ever; well besides Pumping Away by non-other that Dan Holohan:)
Anyway, a good manager would have resolved the issue immediately. Would it have cost some money? Absolutely, but you have to take care of the customer first, that’s who keeps all of us in business. Without the customer we have no purpose.

As for the restaurant commercial water heater, My brother Nick runs a catering business with over 60 employees, and when they get back from catering up to 4 weddings simultaneously, you can imagine the amount of dishes that run through the commercial dish washer. I've been there many times to witness carts loaded, while picking up my teenage son who is fortunate to have a job there. In addition to the huge dishwasher load, making large urns of coffee was another challenge for the direct fired commercial water heater. After replacing his second one, my brother approached me with his dilemma. I suggested a small 100,000 btu boiler with an indirect water heater. He never ran out of hot water again, and has not needed to replace it either. Now I’m his personal consultant.

Gordy

Mark Eatherton said:

Its called "Just in time" ordering/manufacturing, is rampant throughout our industry and is the bane of man kind, but looks good on paper.

My friend Richard in Colorado stocks all of the blowers, gas valves,and control boards for all of the products he deals with, and is constantly being barraged by the WHOLESALERS, looking for parts. A sad but true statement. He's a contractor, not a wholesale distributor.

ME

Inventory is the Red headed step child that no one wants to support. Most all business has gone the way of this. A 100.00 part on the shelf for a period of time is not a franklin in their wallet it is taboo anymore to carry unnecessary (in their eyes) inventory. Wait, and see what parts are the most used we will stock those the rest are ordered hopefully "just in time".

We have a fastner chain in my area called Fastenal. I call them Fasten none. Go in there for common sized nuts, and bolts they might have a dozen in stock. But I need 2 dozen we can get them here tomorrow. If I needed them tomorrow I would have came here tomorrow. Started calling them Fasten none.

EBEBRATT-Ed

Don't know how true this is but I was told that if parts sit on the shelf at the supply house longer than 6 months without being sold that the supply houses have to pay tax on them and that is the reason they want to keep stock limited to things that move.

Don't know if it's true or just a Taxachusetts thing

wogpa67

You may have something.

Couple years back I walked into my local Ferguson. They had a table of various product on sale. I picked up two 1 1/4" 4900 Taco air separators for 25 each, and a Fieldpiece sc77 meter for 70 .
Good day for me.

hot_rod

I was traveling with a rep up in Ontario recently. Early morning on the QEW and we were surrounded by semis, very few cars or pickup trucks. I asked why all the semi trucks?

He told me the parts inventory for the auto assembly plants, in that area is on the road 24/7. No more warehouse all the inventory is on the road and to the plant within hours, and it never stops moving.

Factory to assembly plant "just in time" delivery.

Some of the larger Plbg. and HVAC wholesale companies are trying that model with some central distro locations, and trucks moving thru the night.

BobC

It was easier when everything used essentially the same parts, more complex systems balloon the inventory requirements

Bob

Gordy

hot rod said:

I was traveling with a rep up in Ontario recently. Early morning on the QEW and we were surrounded by semis, very few cars or pickup trucks. I asked why all the semi trucks?

He told me the parts inventory for the auto assembly plants, in that area is on the road 24/7. No more warehouse all the inventory is on the road and to the plant within hours, and it never stops moving.

Factory to assembly plant "just in time" delivery.

Some of the larger Plbg. and HVAC wholesale companies are trying that model with some central distro locations, and trucks moving thru the night.

The model works in an assembly plant atmosphere when you know how many units are being produced hourly daily etc. Pretty easy to do the logistics on that. But for a whole sale supply whatever fill in the blank. Its not a consistent daily operation.

The bottom line inventory that is stagnant is money out of the owners pocket. The older generation did not see it that way. Inventory was like a savings account. I may not need it today, but when I do. I have it on hand.

vaporvac

I guess that mentality explains why I have so much c@#p in my basement and garage! Inventory! Now I have a name for it.

Gordy

AS George Carlin puts it STUFF!

GW

Awesome stuff, I'm a small company with 3 different, in the box, mod con boilers specifically for parts (Vitodens 100B, 200B, Bosch ZBR). Plus a several thousand tied up in loose parts for Viessmann and Buderus GB142

I'm glad some home owners see that hiring a heating guy is more serious that most purchases, go cheap yoy may find yourself in a big jam. Not to mention all the Lennox stuff.

Joe M. I am very curious, how exactly would you have handled this situation differently that JohnNY? Seems like the guy has been on this like white on rice

Gordan

I have a spare MCBA and combustion blower "in stock" for my very own TT PS60. I was glad I did when a huge power surge during an ice storm blew up those, and a number of other things in my house (and others), in the middle of cold cold winter. People may look at me a little strangely when I explain to them exactly why I was able to get my boiler, which was fried at 4:30 AM, fixed before my wife and kids got up for the morning. But that was the difference between them having to suffer a mildly cold house for a few hours or a seriously freezing one for who knows how long.

The time that it took to replace those spares convinced me that I had made a good investment in both the parts and the knowledge to replace them. (I'm not in the business, but I did design and install my heating system.)

EBEBRATT-Ed

All true. One of the hvac suppliers here they don't have the cheapest price in town, but they stock a lot and do a lot of business because they have the parts.