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I am tempted to get the ice maker and install it myself although my wife says save you money and just dump a bag of ice in there. It should last months. How many bags of ice $500 buys you?
I do all that stuff myself now. Major appliances are pretty easy to repair. There are youtube videos for everything. Not long ago the dryer started blowing cool air. $20 part and about 30 minutes of my spare time and it was done. Icemakers are pretty simple.
You can probably buy the parts cheaper than what the repair shop will charge you. With car repairs I buy the parts then negotiate the repair cost. Car repairs to me are not worth doing DIY.
OP must be dealing with individual,not a company,he has limited resources,so if you are not happy with his terms,find someone else.
I have to replace my dishwasher and I bought it from Lowe and call the plumber,he came to put it in for me,I found him on internet and he has to pay the website $35 to just get my contact information.
OR the two of you can go and buy the part and then let him put it in for you
Especially when they didn't do any harm to the OP. OP wasn't held hostage, she just didn't like the terms of the business.
If I go to an emergency Vet I'm required to pay in advance. If dropping an animal off for surgery I'm often required to pay at least some of it in advance. Many home repair jobs require a certain payment up front.
If you send a dog to a trainer or boarder, and refuse to pay, they won't give your dog back and can in fact sell it to recoup their costs.
A Mechanic doesn't normally require payment upfront, but they won't give you your keys til you pay, and can in fact sell your car if they must.
This is unique in that you're expecting $500 worth of work on PERSONAL property. If you paid a painter $500 and didn't pay, he could attach a lien to the house.
The appliance repairman doesn't really have those options. He can't really hold the fridge, since its at the OP's house.
He can't really attach a lien to the house, since the Refrigerator is PERSONAL and not part of REAL property.
I'm sure this shop has had plenty of people schedule the repair but change their mind after the parts ordered and decide to buy a new one.
I know an appliance tech who talked about filing "theft of service liens". Supposedly, a lien can prevent owner from selling the house later on. Not a quick relief but maybe a long term one.
So far, I wouldn't pay in advance for a repair but that may become necessary if more service people get stiffed on payments.
I ran an electrical company for 5 years. I rarely got stiffed on a service call but I was getting to needing to charge a trip fee, as fuel soared & fewer free looks turned into paying jobs. I shut down instead of doing that. I would charge a trip fee now if I were doing it again.
Don't get me started on Sear Home Warranty in north Alabama. Had 2 bad experiences and 2 good ones. You have to pay up front for each service call ($75) then they group all the calls into an area. You might wait 10 days for your service call. Then if a part is needed and it's not more than $150 it's covered but again you wait for them to come back. The whole thing took 1 month last time.
I'm obviously thinking of switching to the local folks. They use Choice Warranty. Have no idea whether it's any better. They do send out their local guy so maybe it is faster and possibly better.
Is there a used appliance shop in your area? Often, they'll pull the part for you from a junked appliance. Sometimes they'll come install it, or at least give you advice.
...although my wife says save you money and just dump a bag of ice in there. It should last months. How many bags of ice $500 buys you?
That would be crazy to buy ice like that all the time when you could buy a pack of 3 ice trays for a couple dollars. If they break (ours haven't in 4 or 5 years) you have a spare or go spend another couple dollars. For my wife and I we'll take the ice trays any time. Just had to buy a new refrigerator and the reason we chose the one we did was it didn't have an ice maker in it.
I'm obviously thinking of switching to the local folks. They use Choice Warranty. Have no idea whether it's any better. They do send out their local guy so maybe it is faster and possibly better.
I can't imagine anyone being worse than Choice. We have had two claims and both have been fiascos that we ended up hiring our own people and paying out of pocket. I wonder if they actually ever pay a claim. Their contract is 15 of 21 pages covering legal aspects that basically say they can do anything they want and you have no recourse for any reason. You even waive your right to participate in any class action suits.
Their process is to stall and stall, knowing you cannot wait them out. You file a claim and a tech will be out in a few days. Nothing is going to be repaired when they come out. They will file a report with Choice for review and you'll get an answer in a few days.
When your AC is out in Texas July and it's been 5 tech visits and 2 weeks and they are still evaluating the claim? They finally agreed to cover the claim and pay to replace evaporator ccoil. All we had to do was pay $1700 for pre-negotiated "additional costs" such as disposal, connection modification, permits, etc. They would not be more specific and would not even say what brand/model evaporator would be installed. We called a local AC guy and he replaced it all plus new drain pan for $2100 and did it in one day. We talked to him Friday afternoon and he was there til 1am that night and we were cool Saturday morning. I am pretty sure the repair process would have dragged out another two weeks with Choice with "waiting on parts" and such.
We earlier had a clogged double sink that they denied claim due to improper installation because riser didn't have a cleanout. Standard construction per code at time house was built, just like all the houses in the neighborhood. Our own plumber cut the riser, snaked the clog, installed a $10 connector in the riser, and was done in less than 30 minutes for $200.
From now on we will just call our own tech and get the problem fixed properly and promptly. Even if it costs more it's worth it to avoid the runaround and delays.
Thanks. Wow. Totally different story from the lady at the repair shop. "We use Choice and it's not a problem." That is correct. Because it's not your problem!
Choice aggressively markets to me and that's another red flag.
Hate the sound the ice maker constantly makes. Not to mention how it manages to send a few cubes to the floor--every time!
The fewer moving parts, the less that can go wrong..
I embrace the K.I.S.S. rule.
Keep It Simple, Stupid....not referring to the OP, just in general, including myself.
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