A New Furnace When You Don’t Need One?

Jason Glad  The Mechanical Air

A New Furnace When You Don’t Need One?

 
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – May 18, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) — 84-year-old Afton Zundel knows how to operate the thermostat and how to change the furnace filter, and like most of us that is about all she knows about furnaces and air conditioners. She depends on experts.

She has a 12-year-old furnace and it seems to be doing just fine. But when Zundel received a call from a furnace and air conditioning company, experts wanted to come and tune it up for either $29, $39 or $59.

Before she knew what was going on the “experts” had Zundel signing a contract for a new furnace and air conditioner for over $11,000.

The expert who came to look at her furnace said she needed a new one. Does her old one still work? Well, yes, but the “expert” said that it was “wearing out and was going to break soon.”

Here is why we are very proud of Zundel; since she doesn’t know anything about furnaces and air conditioners she did the smartest thing and had her son call someone to come out and inspect it to get a second opinion.

That is when The Mechanical Air Company arrived on her doorstep to take a second look at what could be wrong with her furnace.

Jason Glad did a routine inspection. He checked and adjusted things on the furnace that most of us know nothing about. Was there anything wrong with the furnace? Glad said, “nothing. It is running in perfect operating condition, just like when it was installed, mechanically, electrically and chemically.” There was not one single reason that the furnace would need to be replaced.

Then he took apart the air conditioner outside and adjusted anything that might take a second or two to fix. What was he finding? “The pressure is running perfect, or almost perfect,” said Glad. There was nothing wrong with this machine either other than a simple pressure problem but that was only a $100 or $200 repair.

What these companies are doing by recommending the new equipment is perfectly legal. Now keep in mind that from a business perspective these companies need to charge between somewhere around $70 to $100 or even more per hour to send out their expertly trained technicians to the homes. So any employee who says that they will come out and tune things up for $30, $40, or $50 will have to have another way to make money or they will go out of business.

So expect an upsell sometimes, whether you need it or not.

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