Expert Mechanical
Reviews and Complaints

We at HLWP feel terrible about the Cashell Southwick family inheriting a poorly installed system in their casita. We would like to partner with them to go after the company that did this horrible job. I am sure when you buy a home you have expectations that the systems may break due to normal wear and tear. So to protect yourself you buy a home warranty thinking you are totally protected from all of your potential mechanical breakdowns. As Cashell Southwick purchased her home on Feb 2014, we would love to reference the home inspection report, and would be happy to help you go through it.

We will not be doing any derogatory statements during this process.

Since this is so public, let's make this an educational post about the Home Warranty Industry. We at HLWP STRONGLY encourage anyone reading these posts that have a home warranty service contract with any company to read your service contract. Yes, that is correct. It is YOUR service contract, not just the warranty company’s. This is because the agencies that regulate home warranty companies hold not only the home warranty company to the service contract, they hold YOU accountable to it, making the service contract as much the homeowner’s contract obligation as the company providing it. When you read other leading industry home warranty reviews you start to get the impression that there exists a huge gap between homeowner EXPECTATIONS and what homeowners will take RESPONSIBILITY for. We believe there exists an opportunity to help people navigate thru the frustration extremely high expectations can bring which can backfire on homeowners. We encourage you to read all the reviews for home warranty companies to see if you agree. As we and the industry have failed in the past, all of us are left with a HUGE and IMPORTANT opportunity to recalibrate the expectations of an industry that brings the consumer and the home warranty provider together with home solutions instead of continuing to drive them apart.

For the most part home service contracts all have similar exclusions that have to do with age of equipment, timely and routine maintenance and pre-existing conditions. Generally, it all comes down to a proper understanding of expected vs unexpected breakdowns. For example, if an HVAC unit was installed incorrectly, improperly and with the wrong size & capacity of equipment, then we would certainly EXPECT a breakdown to occur. We call this an expected break down. Conversely, if the HVAC unit was properly installed, routine maintenance was performed by a licensed professional, and it is within its useful life, and a covered component failed on the system, then it would be considered an UNEXPECTED breakdown. Unexpected breakdowns occur frequently and is exactly why a home warranty service contract provides supplemental protection for those costly repairs with specified dollar limits. A home service contract is never intended to provide protection from expected breakdowns.

Often times, expected breakdowns aren’t the fault of the homeowner. This happens most often in real estate transactions when the proper inspections and due diligence were not performed or have been performed poorly. That’s why you need an amazing realtor that will navigate and guide you to know the truth and potential pitfalls of what you are buying, while providing you a comprehensive and responsible solution when purchasing your home. Once all the due diligence is completed by the homeowner, then the protection a home service contract can provide for the unexpected covered breakdowns is a valuable supplement to your home solution strategy. Education is absolutely essential in bridging the expectation gap.

We have been in business for 13 years and do have complaints. Not all, but most of these complaints are based on home owners not really understanding their responsibility to the home service contract and assuming its all liability is with the home warranty company. We can do better. We need to do a better job of educating our homeowners thru constructive consultation to turn perceived loop holes into real home solutions for our members.

Southwick family pays extra to cover their casita. In the last 1.5 years of our relationship we have dispatched 3 calls for this same AC. We repaired 2 of them.
1) At 9PM at night Expert Mechanical replaced a covered condenser fan motor ($450 estimated value). The technician did not examine the general condition of the system due to the priority to get them running before bedtime and was working in the dark.
2) During business hours Expert Mechanical diagnosed Compressor Run Capacitor (Homeowner refused to pay Expert Mechanical the required trade item fee reduced trip/diagnostic fee from $65 (per HLWP agreement) to $45. We at HLWP have paid for this on their behalf. We denied this claim due to the lack of maintenance on the system. Manufacturer requires maintenance yearly as do we. Depending on what company Southwick's used that company should have seen the ductwork as a challenge for efficiency by doing a "superheat" test with manufacturer specifications.

The age of the system is estimated at 15 years old. The Coleman nomenclature is bleached out so we do not know for sure. We took pictures to try to figure this out. It is pre 2004 according to the manufacturer. The manufacturer expected life of a system is 12 years when installed correctly. The most important day of a system's life is the day it was installed. Other than age, the system was not installed correctly. The problem with the system not keeping up in high temperatures is the ductwork is restricting airflow. As new homeowners and last year not being as hot the Southwick's are surprised by the system not keeping up and the compressor shutting down from overheating. You see, technically the cool refrigerant coming back to the compressor is what prevents the over heating. Since the airflow is restricted the original contractor under charged the systems refrigerant to compensate for the airflow. In the high temps this will over heat the compressor shortening the life of the system. Currently the system is running as good as it can for the conditions.

The right repair choices Expert Mechanical suggested were:

1) Install a mini-split ($)
3) Replace the ductwork ($)

Neither of these are covered under the service contract since these are pre-existing conditions, improper installation, wrong sized equipment, and required routine maintenance. With these conditions the unit is expected to fail, and expected failures do not fall into the scope and coverage terms of a home service contract. A home service contract provides supplemental protection on unexpected breakdowns.

The solution we propose is to get a Coleman Manufacturer Representative to verify Expert Mechanical's evaluation. Look up the permit filed for the casita and the original company that installed it. Hopefully they are still in business to contact them to make this right.

Hopefully we can regain your confidence in HLWP to know we really do live by the golden rule.

Unfortunately, the Southwick's think that public and private harassment on social media is a good way to get something fixed for free? We understand their anger. We would like the opportunity to get this relationship back on track. If we can provide further understanding on what a home warranty is and what it is NOT please contact us directly at [protected]. Thank you for your inquiry and we appreciate the opportunity to be of assistance.

I have experienced the same issues with Homelife and Expert Mechanical. Takes a week to respond to a request for service. Seems to me they should take some of their profits and hire some additional technicians to be more responsive to customer needs. Fortunately I didn't pay for the Homelife warranty, the seller did. I will definitely not be renewing the warranty with them nor will I ever use Expert Mechanical.

I'm the Director of Customer Relations with HomeLife Warranty Protection, LLC. What is being said about our company is not truthful at all. We built this company on integrity. Many times these homeowners do NOT want to honor our contract especially landlords and real estate professionals who themselves aren't truthful with their tenants and clients. They want everything covered for free regardless of lack of maintenance or previous damage. I'm sure I will upset many of these people but its the truth. Landlords and property management companies who have multiple properties try to leverage our claims department all the time with threats of pulling their other properties if we don't cover everything on the current property with a claim regardless of the findings on the properties. Many times we go above and beyond for our customers. That's how we've built this company over the last 10 years. It's easy to go on a website and try to ruin a business because you didn't get what you wanted, when you wanted and on your terms. We resolve every issue. We take very good care of our customers. Go to the BBB. We resolve every issue per our contract.

As a professional in real estate and as a property manager...I have regularly experienced similar issues. HomeLife, as compared to other home warranty companies is very unprofessional. Expert Mechanical has NEVER promptly responded nor have they repaired anything without multiple calls to complain. I will not be renewing my 3 policies and have encouraged about 15-20 of my clients to consider other warranty providers.

Ditto ditto ditto...on several properties
Michael3_3@msn.com