1 out of 5
Rolo came early to fix my faulty thermostat. I told him while I was installing new Google Nest, the spark went off and caused something to burn. He checked the basement furnace's motherboard and fuse and tested the Google Nest upstairs, which has no current. He tested all the wires on the thermostat and told me the Google Nest thermostat was bad. I told him that was not the case because the spark went off before I installed the new thermostat.
He continued running upstairs and to the basement's furnace to check on all the wires and pull the wire cable for more than thirty minutes. He then came upstairs to re-install my old Bryant thermostat which was kept inside the drawer while the new Google Nest was on the wall (which he said was bad).
After putting back the old thermostat, there was still no current and needless to say, the old "Bryant" thermostat wouldn't work. This time, he checked all the wires again. He connected and combined some wires together, ran up and down the basement, the furnace is working well but the thermostat is still not working, then this time, he said the wires were most likely "damaged".
Guess what? After forty-five minutes' of checking and running around, he saw the wires actually went through another control box not in the furnace but connected to the wires overhead near the ceiling on the basement. He opened the control box and checked the fuse. Sure enough, the fuse was burned. He replaced it with the "spare" fuse already inside the box and now everything came alive.
A burned fuse that could easily be replaced in 15 - 20 minutes job turned out to last more than 90 minutes with all the checking and running around. The worse thing was, he got calls while on the job and he was in a rush to another job. He ending up using the old "Bryant" thermostat. And now I have to figure out one way to put in my new Google Nest, yet again.
His hourly rate was more than $175 per hour and I think it was totally ridiculous. A $3 fuse that turned into a $350 job. My only mistake - I did not ask for an estimate before he started work.