Home Depot Hot Water Heater Installation/would not service their own installation problems

In January we bought a GE hot water heater from Home Depot. Against my husbands better judgement, we paid to have Home Depot install it. This was a mistake. The hot water heater being replaced was a working hot water heater. Not working the best, and the water had a brown color to it, but it was working. Home Depot contracts with Delta Mechanical Pipe to do their installations.

The Delta Mechanical installer did show up on time and as scheduled. He removed our old hot water heater and replaced it with the new one. Told be I'd have hot water in about 30-60 minutes and left.

The problem was that the new hot water heater didn't work. The water never got hot. I called Delta Mechanical to get someone back out to fix the problem, and was told they don't service new installations. If my hot water heater did not work, I needed to call an electrician to fix it.

Well, needless to say that did not sit well with me, especially since the hot water heater replaced was a working hot water heater so I didn't understand what could have gone wrong with electric or water that it would be my fault. I explained that to the customer service rep at the Delta Mechanical but was told again to contact an electrician to fix our hot water heater.

I called Home Depot's customer service who takes care of these complaints, they said they'd get the installater back out to check the heater. They promised the installer would contact me before the day was out, and that they would call back to confirm our problem was resolved. Neither the installer nor Home Depot called back.

Next day, still without hot water, called both the installation company and Home Depot customer service, got the same story from both, promised phone calls. Didn't receive any phone calls, no installer showed up on site.

Day three, called, same story. Figuring by then I wasn't going to get anywhere, called a local plumber. He came over, completed the installation and I had hot water shortly there after.

The price of the Home Depot installation was about twice the price of the hot water heater. The price to get the hot water heater working was about the half the price of the hot water heater. Had we called the plumber originally, we could have had the hot water heater installed properly and ensured that it worked for less than the price of the hot water heater.

I have a major house remodel in progress. Home Depot products and services are no part of that work!

Judy D., Fountain Hills, AZ

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I did not have any issues with the install or water heater. My issue was in the method Home Depot and Delta Mechanical uses in authorizing your personal check. First, they wanted my bank info so they could bill me. After all was said and done, they wanted a check so they could bill me, even though they had all the info needed to bill me electronically. They wanted my Driver's license number and a signed form to authorize the billing - When all they had to do was use the original info I gave them to do the same thing - Pay the darn bill. Who are the idiot brain zombie sloths at these companies making the decisions?

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I can't understand why Delta Mechanical has a monopoly contract with Home Depot. Each community, state and county are different and there are various requirements for plumbing installations. The idea that one central company can best care for my community is absurd. We experienced terrible customer service with Delta and it was based on the fact that their central office didn't know our local requirements and their excuse when a discrepancy was noted was "well, we handle calls from all over the state and we're busy right now."

They actually said that!

We're doing renovations on our home and on 2 others. There is NO WAY that we will be using Home Depot's products or services in any capacity and this decision is directly based on our experiences with Delta Mechanical.

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I experienced the same shoddy treatment from Delta Mechanical/Home Depot.

There are plenty of plumbers and contractors in my area and I really don't like being forced to work with Delta for my Home Depot purchases. Having an exclusive contract from a huge company makes the contractor treat you and your business as if you're not important - which is what they do routinely. I was a Home Depot customer until I had to deal with Delta. It's obvious they don't want my business.

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I have had a problem with home depot and Delta Mechanical also. I had a Trane air conditioner and furnace installed. The air conditioner seems to working OK. The furnace once installed made noise when the drum spins. A new drum was ordered and installed which fixed the problem. I also noticed the front doors on the furnace didn't fit properly. The furnace then stopped working and Delta M came back out and replaced a part reset a switch. It went out again and they replaced the switch. Now it quit working again and they promised to replace the furnace but keep breaking their appointments they make. It has been a couple of months since they started on this repair and haven't came to the house yet. This all occurred before I had the furnace a year. No more major purchases with home depot.

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Iwill never buy a thing ever again from Home Depot. I live in Canada and it took five days to get the right parts for it. Because it was made in the States the parts numbers are different from our wholesalers numbers!!!! Once we had it it only took less than half hour to install. If my plumber had of charged me for all the time he spent to find it I could probalay could have bought 3or 4 new ones here in Canada. I will be sending their Home Depot Card torn up in the mail.