[FacePaint]

I'll start by saying that we should have handled this way differently but here's a heads up for those folks whose furnace breaks down.

We moved into a new place two years ago, new furnace. Last week our furnace broke down on the weekend. As the previous owners/renovators had put in the furnace we didn't have the warranty info. We Googled a couple companies (mistake #1) and asked someone to come out and check out our furnace.

The technician was suprised our furnace broke down after 2 years and said it should be under warranty. Says the motor is broken $800 to fix. We call our realtor who is trying to reach the previous owners to get the warranty info and decide to go ahead with the repairs. (mistake #2).

He comes back upstairs later, bad news... cost will be $1200 b/c it's not the motor but the circuit board. We say go ahead, need heat. After putting the circuit board in he comes back up and says it's actually both problems and the cost ends up being $2142.

Unfortunately for us the previous owners were being audited by Revenue Canada so we didn't know who installed the furnace. Our realtor offered to cover half the cost and would persue the warranty on our behalf. She called back today and said we were ripped off... big time!

I called 4 random companies and these were the costs:
Motor $202-$350
Board $197-$275
Labour $80-99/hour (4 hours max)

I called the company that ripped us off and they asked how much do I think we should pay. I gave them the average of around $950. The manager went to the owner then called me back saying they could give us $300 back (total cost still $1842).

This company is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau and has 16 complaints in 3 years. I welcome all comments, helpful suggestions and clever criticisms.