Just to recap, our fun with our oil company started this summer when our A/C went out. We were planning to “fire” them after our current contract for oil runs out this year anyway (three strikes is definitely plenty), but today we found a fourth strike.
Strike 1: Our A/C goes out on the second-hottest weekend of the summer. On Friday the oil company says they’ll be there that night. They never show and never call to tell us they won’t show. This continues through Tuesday, when we finally lose our patience and call another company–this company, I’ll note, shows up that very evening. We called the oil company and canceled the call for service, telling them we’re all set; on Friday someone finally showed up anyway. (So they don’t show up when they’re supposed to, then show up when they aren’t supposed to, a week late.)
Strike 2: The A/C runoff had leaked into the furnace, so the HVAC folks opened that up to check it out. They incredulously noted that it looked as though it hadn’t been maintained in years. This, despite the fact that every year our oil company was supposedly doing the maintenance on it. It also turned out that the furnace was tuned to run as inefficiently as possible, which apparently tends to happen when you let your oil company maintain your furnace.
Strike 3: Our heat stopped working this last Friday. Or rather, it started to sound and smell funny so we turned it off. It turned out that our oil company forgot to deliver oil this winter after December, even though we’re on an automatic delivery plan, so we were running on empty. They came out and delivered oil, and given their past track record we had our new HVAC folks do the filter and nozzle change (the sludge on the bottom of the tank did a number on them). They got the heat running Saturday afternoon.
Strike 4: By Saturday night the heat had stopped again. Tonight the HVAC folks came back out. It turned out that the nozzle had gotten clogged again. The guy asked us how old the oil tank was, and we explained that the oil company installed it less than three years ago. The tech was appalled that the tank had gotten so gunked up so quickly. (Implication seems to be that the oil they’re delivering ain’t exactly in great shape.)
Good news: we have heat. Bad news: we still have a few months before we can tell this oil company to go to hell. At any rate, I should actually be able to accomplish something this week since my fingers won’t feel frozen any more.
Afternote: shivering kitties are sad. 🙁
Loot Tax
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