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Somebody has told you to put it through the insurance
Five ways heating and cooling equipment gets damaged, crossed with the four kinds of cover people turn out to have. What we can document, what we cannot, and the arrangement people call insurance that is not insurance at all.
Three things that apply to every answer below
- We are a contractor, not a loss adjuster. We can tell you what we found, what we measured, what it will cost to put right and — where it can honestly be established — what caused it. We cannot tell you whether it is covered, and any opinion from us on that subject would be worth nothing to you and nothing to the insurer. Ask your adjuster, your broker, or a lawyer if it comes to that.
- Photograph everything before anybody touches it. This is the single most useful thing you can do and it costs nothing. The unit, the rating plate with the serial number visible, the surroundings, the damage from several distances, and the date. Most weak claims are weak because the evidence was cleared away by somebody being helpful.
- Wear and tear is not an event. Insurance generally responds to something that happened. A compressor that reached the end of its life did not have anything happen to it, and a claim built on pretending otherwise is a bad idea for everybody, including us. We would rather diagnose it honestly and talk about what a repair or a replacement actually costs.
Work out what happens next
Pick what happened and pick who is covering it. Every answer below is on this page whether you pick anything or not — the picker only narrows it down.
A home warranty or service contract is an agreement with a company to arrange repairs, not an insurance policy responding to an event. Three things follow, and all three catch people out. The company chooses the contractor, from its own network, so calling us first can complicate the claim — ring them before you ring anybody. The company decides what the agreement covers, and that decision is theirs and not ours; we have no standing in it and no influence over it. And what the agreement covers is written in the agreement — read it, because the exclusions are where the arguments happen. We are happy to diagnose the fault and give you our findings in writing so you have an independent record. We will not tell you what your contract covers, and we will not pretend to be part of a process we are not part of.
Stop the water first. Then photograph everything, before anything is moved or dried.
Where the water came from matters more than what it landed on, and it is the thing that gets destroyed first by somebody being helpful. Find the source, stop it, and photograph the source and the damage before any drying, tidying or removal happens. Then switch the equipment off at the disconnect and leave it off.
What water does to heating and cooling equipment
An air handler or furnace that has stood in water is usually a replacement rather than a repair, and not mainly because of the metal. Insulation inside the cabinet holds water, the control board and the blower motor are rarely worth risking, and a gas appliance that has been wet should be inspected before it is ever fired again. Manufacturers generally say a flooded gas control valve is replaced rather than dried.
An outdoor unit is more robust and ordinary rain is what it is designed for. Standing water above the base pan is a different matter, and so is water carrying mud or debris into the coil.
Water arriving from above — an attic unit, a roof, a unit on a floor above — brings a second question nobody wants: whether it is a condensate problem, a plumbing problem or a roof problem. We will tell you plainly which we think it is, and we will not replace equipment underneath a leak that is still leaking.
Do not let anybody replace a board until the supply has been checked.
A control board that fails twice is a supply problem, not a board problem. Before a part is fitted, the incoming voltage, the neutral and the earthing want checking, and if a whole street lost power the utility is worth a call. Replacing the board and walking away is the fastest route to the same failure in a fortnight.
What a surge actually damages, and what it does not
Electronics fail: control boards, communicating thermostats, variable-speed motor modules, inverter boards on a heat pump or ductless system. Those are the components with circuitry in them, and they are the expensive ones.
A compressor or a simple blower motor is much less likely to be killed outright by a surge, which matters, because a compressor is usually the most expensive single item and therefore the one most often blamed. If somebody says a surge killed a compressor, it is fair to ask how that was established.
What we can document: which components tested faulty, what the measured supply looks like now, and whether the failure pattern is consistent with an electrical event or with age. What we cannot document is that a surge happened, unless there is something else that says so.
Report it, then photograph the site before anything is cut back or tidied.
Two safety matters come first. A stripped unit usually leaves a live electrical disconnect and open refrigerant lines, so switch off at the breaker and keep people away from it. Then photograph exactly as it was found. Contractors tidy sites by habit, and the tidy version is worth much less to anybody assessing it.
What replacing a stolen outdoor unit actually involves
It is rarely just the outdoor unit. The line set is normally cut and has to be replaced or thoroughly cleaned and evacuated; the disconnect and whip are often taken with it; the pad, the electrical connection and sometimes the indoor coil come into it, because a modern outdoor unit and an old indoor coil are frequently not a matched pair.
That last point is where a claim and reality tend to diverge, and it is worth understanding early rather than at the end: the honest replacement is often a matched system, not a like-for-like outdoor box.
On prevention, the useful measures are a welded cage anchored properly, a locking disconnect, relocation where the building allows it, and lighting. We will fit a cage. We will not tell you it makes theft impossible.
Nothing gets switched on until it has been inspected. Smoke in a duct system is its own job.
Heat damage is obvious and is dealt with by replacement. Smoke is the part people underestimate: it travels through the duct system, deposits on every internal surface and in the coil, and comes back every time the fan runs. Cleaning it properly is specialist work and it is not the same as a filter change.
What we do and do not take on after a fire
We will inspect the mechanical equipment and tell you what is serviceable and what is not, replace what needs replacing, and re-commission properly rather than simply reconnecting. We will give you our findings in writing with photographs.
What we do not do is fire restoration. Duct cleaning after a fire, odour remediation, and the testing that establishes whether a building is safe to reoccupy all belong to restoration specialists and, where required, to an industrial hygienist. We will say so on the first visit rather than take on the part of it we are good at and leave you to discover the rest.
One thing we will be firm about: a gas appliance that has been through a fire is not tested by lighting it and seeing what happens.
Get the diagnosis first. Decide afterwards whether a claim is even possible.
Equipment that simply stopped has usually reached the end of something, and that is a maintenance and replacement conversation rather than a claim. Have it diagnosed properly, find out what the repair costs against what a replacement costs, and only then work out whether anybody else is involved. It is the cheaper order and it is the honest one.
Why we say this plainly
There is a version of this trade in which every failure is framed as an event, every visit produces a document pointing at a cause, and the customer is encouraged to try a claim because the contractor is paid either way. We are not going to do that. It wastes your time, it puts a refusal on your record, and it sometimes puts a person in a position they did not intend to be in.
What we will do is establish what failed and why, in measurements: charge, pressures, electrical readings, the state of the coil, the age from the serial number, and what the maintenance history looks like from the inside of the cabinet. Sometimes that does point at an event. If it does, you will have the evidence properly, and it will stand up.
And if it points at age and wear, you will at least know exactly what you are buying and why, which is the useful outcome from a bad morning.
If it is a homeowner’s policy
In most situations you choose the contractor, and you are entitled to an independent estimate. Ours will say what we found, what we measured and what it costs. We are happy for it to go to an adjuster, and we are happy to speak to one about the mechanical facts.
Two practical notes. Keep the old parts until the claim is settled — a failed compressor or board thrown in the van on the day is evidence that no longer exists. And be careful about emergency work: stopping further damage is sensible and usually expected, but a full replacement done before anybody has looked can make a claim very much harder.
We will not advise you on deductibles, on whether to claim, or on what your policy says. Those are questions for the person who sold you the policy.
If you rent
Then the equipment is almost certainly not yours, and the important thing is not to start authorising work on it. Report it to the landlord or the managing agent in writing, with photographs and the date, and keep a copy. A written report with a time on it is worth a great deal later and costs nothing now.
A renter’s policy generally deals with your own belongings rather than with the building’s equipment, so damage to your things and damage to the air conditioning are two different conversations with two different people.
We are frequently instructed by landlords and agents, and when we are, we will tell you what we are there to do. What we will not do is take instructions from a tenant on a landlord’s equipment without the owner’s authority, or be used by either side as a witness against the other. We write down what we found. Both of you can read it.
If it is a commercial property policy
Then there are usually three separate questions running at once: the equipment itself, the damage it caused to the building or to stock, and the cost of not trading while it is down. They are assessed differently and they are frequently handled by different people. Keep them separate in your own records from the start.
Your broker will want documentation in a particular form and will usually tell you what that is. Ask them first and we will write to it, as long as writing to it does not mean writing a conclusion we cannot support.
Two things worth having before anything goes wrong rather than after: a current plant survey with model and serial numbers for every unit, and a maintenance record. The single most common reason a commercial claim gets difficult is that nobody can show the condition the equipment was in the week before.
If it is a home warranty or service contract
Ring the warranty company before you ring a contractor. They will dispatch somebody from their own network, and work carried out outside that process is usually the customer’s to pay for.
Where we can be useful is afterwards, or alongside: an independent diagnosis in writing, with measurements, so that you know what is actually wrong with your equipment and are not relying solely on the account of a contractor working to somebody else’s cost cap. A great many disputes here come down to a disagreement about the cause, and an independent set of readings is the only thing that settles it.
We will give you that. We will not tell you what your contract covers, argue with the warranty company on your behalf, or describe a fault in a way designed to fit an exclusion or avoid one.
Where this page stops
We will find it, measure it, photograph it and cost it, and we will put all of that in writing with the date and the conditions. Where a cause can honestly be established from the evidence, we will say what it is. Where it cannot, we will say that instead, which is a less satisfying document and a more useful one.
We are not loss adjusters, public adjusters, restoration contractors, roofers or lawyers, and we are not on any insurer’s or warranty company’s panel. We will not write to a conclusion, will not describe damage we did not see, and will not tell you what you are covered for. If a gas appliance has been damaged by any of the events on this page, do not use it until it has been inspected — that is the one item here that is not worth waiting on.