BristolBane said:
The cost is $484 for 1 year of coverage. We have had no claims so far. The house is now 11 years old with the original AC, water heater, and furnace still in place.
Anybody have an opinion on whether these home warranties are worth it or not? Anyone have trouble getting one of these companies to pay up on a legit claim? This particular company is "American Home Shield".
I can't remember the last time I had a $500 repair bill. And if I had an appliance with that big a problem then I'd replace it. For $500/year you could probably attend different trade schools each year in the subject of your choice and become an expert at all of them within a decade.
What annoys me with AHS is the attitude of "You must wait for us between the hours of 9 AM & 5 PM, and there'll be a $50 charge when we manage to show up during that time. Assuming that we DO show up." After that they'll either replace a $10 part or advise you to replace the entire thing. (Thanks, guys.)
The only time I'd consider paying that much money for that little service (essentially paying for peace of mind) would be if I had a six-figure income and a 60-hour workweek... with someone else available to wait for the repair crew. Even then the hassle factor still seems substantially high.
It's like paying a financial advisor to take care of your retirement portfolio of actively-managed front-loaded funds. There's no way that they can be more motivated than you, and eventually you'll become more of an expert on your specific portfolio than they'll ever have the time (or inclination) to be. They have to be generalists in their field (a mile wide, an inch deep) while you can be the sole greatest living expert on the BristolBane fortune (an inch wide and a mile deep). It all depends on whether you have the time, interest, & motivation to teach yourself or to have others do it to for you.
If you have the time for home maintenance and don't mind making a mistake or two, then here's an example. Our 16-year-old house has a roof leak on the south side. 95% of our rains come from the northeast, but when a hard downpour comes from the south (once or twice a year) then a gallon of water leaks into our kitchen.
Roof leaks are darn hard to figure out when they're intermittent. I know from bitter experience that it's very difficult to find any contractor, let alone a roofer, who'll come out to troubleshoot that type of problem. And if they do troubleshoot it, they might not find it (but we'll have to pay them anyway). We'd usually get a "Well, here's what I'd recommend" guess that requires several hundred $$ more of easter-egg hunting. Eventually you end up having that entire area of the roof ripped up and replaced in hopes that re-doing it solves the original problem (which might never actually be discovered or diagnosed).
We decided that the roof leak had to be caused by the guys who installed a passive roof vent (on the south roof) because, after all, they were the last guys to mess with that area of the roof. They came out and pulled the vent. When I squeezed into the hole I could see that it wasn't their fault after all. The water was coming down the wall outside the 2nd floor bedroom, getting inside the void above the kitchen where that wall joined to the roof above the void, puddling on the kitchen ceiling, and eventually leaking through. (The roof guys had to do other warranty work on another fan so they threw in this troubleshooting for free, plus a great big apology from me.)
I googled "roof leaks" for some very entertaining reading. I eventually learned that 90% of all roof leaks are caused by flashing problems, and flashing goes between the walls and the roof. Hmmm. So we went to Home Depot and sat in the recliner display with their roof books for an hour reading about flashing. We bought $8 of flashing, $5 of roof cement, and a couple bucks of nails (but not the book!). We pulled the flashing on that part of the roof and it looked like it had been machine-gunned by a crazed roofer. (I don't know why some pieces had five or six holes without nails but they did. They were also surrounded by water stains that had gone through the holes, around the felt, and down the plywood sheathing into the kitchen void.) We replaced the step flashing (using one rubber-collared nail per piece, with liberal daubs of roof cement). Now all we have to do is wait another 6-12 months for a south rainstorm.
[You battle-scarred married home-repair veterans know that I didn't get off that easy. Spouse suggested pulling the siding off the wall ("since that'll make it easier to get off the flashing anyway") and putting in radiant-foil insulation to keep the hot sun off that wall of our bedroom (behind our headboard). Of course most of the nails pulled through the siding instead of popping. So both jobs are done but I still have a bunch of holes to seal & paint.]
Same thing for leaky faucets or bad light switches. Go to Home Depot or Lowes, read a book or look at the parts display, ask one of the staff with a few gray hairs, maybe take one of their one-hour sales pitches "how-to" classes, and experiment while keeping in mind that you're several hundred dollars ahead of the contractor. If you really get into it, subscribe to "Family Handyman" ($20/year) and watch HGTV.
But if this stuff makes your eyeballs glaze over and you don't have the time or the interest, why sure-- $484 sounds like a great price. Not that you have any alternatives...
