Interesting Water Heater Warranty Info
So my 50 gallon GE Profile Water heater is leaking. Supposedly a 12 year warranty and it was installed in 2006 just before I bought the house. From previous experience, I learned never to pay up for a more expensive model just because the warranty was longer (not an extended warranty plan, just the stated…
So my 50 gallon GE Profile Water heater is leaking. Supposedly a 12 year warranty and it was installed in 2006 just before I bought the house.
From previous experience, I learned never to pay up for a more expensive model just because the warranty was longer (not an extended warranty plan, just the stated one) because the plumbers said they are all the same units.
So I call GE and the warranty isn’t actually valid for more than one year when it’s installed in a 2 family house as opposed to a single family.
Needless to say I won’t buy another GE product the rest of my life.
I suppose you could try lieing to them about it being single family if this happens to you.
Take a look at the longer term performance of GE stock vs. that of Whirlpool (WHR). Couldn’t happen to a better bunch of people!
**End of rant**
DIBS,
You have nothing to lose. Check DOB site for plumbing permit, if it was gas converion at that time from oil, it had to have a permit pulled, and from that you could get licensed plumber who installed. (They couldn’t get gas line without DOB “green card”.)
Being as it was installed in a two family home it’s considered ‘commercial” use. Warranty’s on any water heater manufacturer is 1 year parts & tank when a residential water heater is installed in a commercial application. You should’ve called a contractor first as they might have known this. But I believe GE is sold at places like Home Depot and they wouldn’t have a clue to the variations in warranty. Live & learn.
Coincidentally, my dryer upstate failed. I had to get a new w&d pronto. The guy I hired to do he work said NEVER buy a GE w/d. Interesting.
How insane. Post this on their Facebook page, on Twitter, on reviews sites, Garden Web, and other places of interest to appliance buyers. (Be sure to emphasize that two family is same as one family in NYC.) They might change their tune. I’ve seen it happen.
The previous owner installed it, so I don’t know where it actually came from or who did the installation.
My brother’s ex wife had some kind of connection to GE and he warned me years ago never to buy GE appliances. I passed this warning on to a friend when she bought her house but she bought a GE fridge and dishwasher. Dishwasher lasted less than 2 years and fridge has been problematic. When I lived in England and had to try to fly back home even though I had a bad flying phobia, a plane having GE engines was always enough to send me into a nervous collapse. Got to love those BA Rolls Royce engines!
I had the same experience with my first AO Smith water heater that went bad just short of 10 years–my plumber got the replacement unit. He passed away shortly after installing my current (third) AO Smith, so if that goes before the warranty is up I’d probably be out of luck.
BTW, when I bought my house it had a Serval water heater that had been installed in 1950. It had a monel metal tank and lasted until about 1980. I thought that was great, but when I had a more modern heater installed my gas bills went down so much that I realized it would have been much cheaper to replace the relic years earlier.
DIBS,
Sorry for your experience. I had an AO Smith wityh a 10 year warranty let go and they replaced it without a fuss 9 years and 10 months later.
I urge you to not contact GE, but instead the installer, assumingthis was a gas heater? If licensed gas guys installed it, they recommended the unit for your building which at the time was 2 family.
Warranty covers replacement unit, not labor, so they usually don’t mind doing it.