This is a warning for anyone who has a Peak Saver thermostat installed in their home and has warrenty coverage with Reliance Home Comfort. Reliance will not cover repairs to your furnace.
On March 26 2010 my furnace broke down and I called Reliance to repair my furnace. Their representative came in and after his inspection said to call Peak Saver because their thermostat was broken. Because it was a cold day he shoed me how to hotwire the furnace if I wanted heat. I chose to grab a couple of sweaters instead. A contactor from Peak Saver came in and reset the thermostat. It was not broken as Reliance said. The problem was caused by a bad belt which caused the thermostat to go into lockout position.
While Peak Savers was over a call was placed to Reliance to see if it was ok to go ahead with doing the belt work. Mike Travers the technical rep disconnected from the call and I went ahead with the work. The bill came to $205.80 . After spending extra time and money faxing and photo - copying the various paperwork Reliance decided not to pay the bill because as Mike Travers said Peak Savers thermostats are a pain in the ass and we don't like working on them. They offered me 3 months of free warrenty to cover cost of belt which is an insult because it didn't cover labour to install belt and their warrenty is useless.
I decided to go higher and file a complaint with Reliance. I sent an email to supervisor of customer relations.( She never returns my phone calls.)Here is her email reply.
Dear Mr. Krupa,
have thoroughly reviewed your situation below with the Service Manager. The Comfort Protection Plan you have does cover thermostats; however in your case, you have had a 3rd party, namely Peak Saver, modify your thermostat. This is a program offered by the local utility company. We are not able to work on these types of thermostats. The only options available would be to have Peak Saver come and fix it or replace the thermostat with a regular one. If the latter option was chosen, you would have been out of the Peak Saver program and lose out on future rebates for being part of this. Therefore, unfortunately Reliance will not be able to assist with the costs you incurred for utilizing the Peak Saver contractor to fix the issue with the thermostat.
If you have any other question or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.
Sincerely,
Kim
Kimberly Allen
Supervisor, Customer Relations
Reliance Home Comfort
[email protected]
Peak Saver program is being pushed by Utility companies everywhere and Reliace doesn't want to spend the money to train their employees on a program meant to save consumers money and help prevent future brownouts by peaksaver is an innovative program designed to help you reduce the demands on the electricity system. During peak electricity demand times, typically on hot summer days, a signal will be sent to reduce the electricity demand of your central air conditioning system, which in turn helps to reduce the amount of electricity needed by the Province. You won't even notice a difference, and you're doing your part to conserve without incurring time, effort or cost!
I spoke to the contractor from Peak Savers and he said they are not dificult to fix. Reliance just chooses not to spend money to train their people. And why should they when from reviewing the complaints board if a knowledgible and competent third party has to come in to fix a problem that Reliance didn't know how to they won't pay.
When I signed up for Reliance warrenty I was told everything was covered. First time I have to use their service they make up excuses not to pay. Its like the Michael Moore movie Sicko. They like collecting your premiums but when it comes time to pay they find reasons not to.
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