If you recall from the previous post (liked above), the second technician had ordered a new blower assembly for the original Polaris water heater. Well, that assembly showed up early the next day (Tuesday). My wife just happened to be home and called me just as I arrived at work. We were both baffled by this as if they were planning on replacing our old tank, why did they allow the parts order to go through? The new tank would have been already on the road to our house when that order was placed by the second technician.

This is when I realize that something is seriously wrong with what happened the day before.

So I call Direct Energy and manage to get connected with Supervisor Victoria. Well, Victoria listens to my story and is also surprised by what has happened. She is very surprised that when I called the rental water heater group before allowing the tank to be installed, I wasn’t informed of everything that was going to happen and what options I had. She can see on my file when I called and I asked if that call would have been recorded. Victoria said everything was so I asked her to pull that call and listen to it.

She also looks at my file and informs me that there is no record of who authorized the tank replacement and she is going to need more time to talk to the other people involved on my file so she’s going to call me back the next day (Wednesday).

Victoria is true to her word and calls me back on Wednesday. She has talked to many people involved and she still doesn’t know who authorized the replacement but she hasn’t been able to talk to the first technician who had been on site. She also drops the bombshell – we are now on the new rental agreement.

If you’re not familiar with Direct Energy and their rental water heater business – be very, very happy.

• Competition Bureau Takes Action to Support Competition in Ontario’s Residential Water Heater Market
• Direct Energy Rental Terms Change

To summarize, being put on the new rental agreement meant that I was now unable to have my rental Polaris water heater removed for a small fee. I was on the hook for the absolutely insane “buyout option”. For example, my just replaced “un-repairable” 7 year old Polaris had a buyout of roughly $3500 (you can buy them new for ~$4500, or less!).

I very quickly informed Victoria that this was not acceptable and at no point was I informed that I would be put on the new rental agreement. Her response? “Well, you signed the rental form didn’t you? It has the terms on it”. Crap. I knew I should have listened to my brain. But wait, that’s not how the installer represented the form I was signing.  He specifically told me I didn’t need to sign on the “rental agreement line” but just in the work order section for what had been done. But still – crap.

Anyways, Victoria decided that she was going to try and find out what happened. At this point, I asked if I needed to get my lawyer involved and she just brushed it off saying that we should be able to come to a resolution without going to lawyers. She was going to get back to me on Friday after talking to the first technician.

That was the last I heard from Victoria.

I had her direct line and called and left voicemails for the next 5 days. Finally I called the Direct Energy rental group again and got to talk to Wendy. Wendy happened to be in the same office as Victoria and was able to talk to her directly while I was on hold. When Wendy came back, she informed me that Victoria was no longer allowed to talk to customers directly. WTF?

So, Wendy was now going to follow-up with the “field manager” and call me back. That was the last I hear from Wendy even with me calling and talking to various other people at the Direct Energy help line.

Finally I get fed up and connected with Dixie at the Direct Energy rental group almost 3 weeks after my initial call. I talk to Dixie about what has happened. She informs me that there is no record of me calling the rental water group before allowing the tank to be replaced. We talk about how I was told lawyers weren’t required and we talk about the Ontario Consumer Protection Acts’ 10 day cooling off period and how I’ve now been screwed out of my legal rights due to Direct Energy’s agents (acting on their behalf) implying they would help resolve the issue. Dixie puts a request through to the Office of the President of Direct Energy and says that is my only hope at this point.

The same day I happened to have posted my frustration on Twitter and got this response:

@dxjones responds to my tweet about how crappy Direct Energy is at doing anything to help me.

Oh, there’s more but you’re going to have to come back in a few days to read about Direct Energy’s Office of the President.

However, the email address you need to remember is officeofthepresident@directenergy.com. They might be able to help you if you are having real problems. Don’t expect miracles, or prompt service.

[ The post "Polaris Water Heater Replacement – Part 2" originally appeared on Ivany.]

For some reason (still unknown to me) the water heater was deemed un-repairable by Direct Energy. My only guess is that potentially replacing the blower motor assembly for the second time in 7 years might have put the total parts cost over their break even threshold?

Unfortunately, this water heater replacement wasn’t without drama.

It started with the old tank tossing an Error Code 1 one Saturday in September. So I called Direct Energy and even though they claim “Same Day Service”, the earliest they could come was Sunday and of course, since the service Technicians don’t carry parts in their vans anymore, he had to order the replacement pressure switch (which I had told them about when I called on Saturday suggesting that the technician bring one).

One of the fittings on the old Polaris water heater that was badly corroded and leaking. This one is also immediately above the natural gas inlet.

Now, this first technician also noted that we had severe galvanic corrosion on the Polaris water heater fittings and he also scheduled for a crew to come out on Monday to repair that. Great! I’ve been complaining about that to every technician since we moved into the house!

Monday is where things started to go “funny”.

A second technician showed up Monday morning and tried to install the new pressure switch we had received but it didn’t fix the issue. Now, I say tried because the pressure switch wasn’t actually the correct one for the model of Polaris water heater I had. The technician was confused by this but after testing the whole system, he noted that the blower wasn’t pushing nearly enough air so even with the correct pressure switch, it wouldn’t have mattered.

That’s when he ordered the new blower assembly.

So then I was waiting for the second crew to come Monday afternoon and replace the fittings on the tank.  Well, they showed up just after 1PM. With a new tank. Huh? On top of that, they didn’t have any fittings to replace the heavily corroded ones on the existing tank. WTF?

I called Direct Energy before they even brought the new tank in the house because I didn’t understand what was going on. After talking to a person in the Rental Water Heater group, I was basically told that the tank replacement was my only option because they weren’t going to repair the existing tank. Uh, ok? Alarms bells are starting to ring here but my brain couldn’t process everything fast enough to realize I was about to get screwed.

The installation crew with the tank inform me that I need to pay for a venting upgrade due to the code changes and they give me the total cost ~$250. Yikes. Well. But then I’ll have a new tank and hopefully no issues? Oh, and they have only managed to scrounge up two fittings so they will use those and the “best” two of the existing ones but will reschedule to come back to replace those two later. Uh, ok. let’s do it.

7+ hours later at ~8:30PM when they finally finish the replacement (that’s not an unreasonable length of time for a Polaris dual outlet system) they present me with the work order that I need to sign agreeing to pay the ~$250 venting cost. I notice that the form is a rental agreement but the installers are pretty certain I only need to sign where the venting cost is recorded and not the actual agreement. Alarm bells again but the tank is already installed and I’m not sure what else to do so I sign in the materials costs section and not the rental agreement section, just like the installer indicated.

This is the newly installed 34G Polaris water heater with all new venting.

So they pack up and our Polaris water heater replacement is complete. Well, almost. They still need to come back another day and replace the other two fittings. Oh, and of course, there’s that paper I signed. Hmm, wait a second…

You can continue reading Polaris Water Heater Replacement – Part 2.

[ The post "Polaris Water Heater Replacement" originally appeared on Ivany.]

The biggest problem with this whole fiasco is that they were planning on moving customers without their consent. Basically, a form letter was sent to customers (I don’t seem to have received one yet) that could easily be confused as “addressed junk mail”. Apparently, buried somewhere in this letter is wording that states you will automatically be moved to the new contract unless you call and state you want to remain on the old contract. Well shit! Most people have already tossed the letter as it seems to be about new terms. If you are already on a contract, why would you expect the terms to change on you – it’s a damn contract!

OK, so aside from the shady contract change, what’s different in the new contract? It’s going to be a whole lot more expensive to get out of your rental contract.

The minimum to get out under the new contract is $274. On the old contract it was $75.

But that all depends on the actual water heater you have and it’s age.

User Belfour on the RedFlagDeals.com forum posted the Direct Energy 2012 Buyout Schedule. According to that and using my ~8 year old Polaris 34G as an example, it would cost me $3153 to buy out my tank. That’s insane! I can buy and install a brand new Polaris for not much more than that. On top of that, the buyout prices are going to increase each year.

Ellen Roseman (From The Star) wrote a post Direct Energy curbs competition with new contracts and the first comment from Dave indicates that according to the 2009 Direct Energy buyout schedule (which is no longer available online) to buyout a 15+ year old Polaris 34G tank it was only $100. Under the new 2012 Direct Energy buyout schedule it is $1092! WTF? What was a 15 year old tank in 2009 is an 18 year old tank now and it’s suddenly almost $900 more to buy it out?

UPDATED: I found my local copy of the 2009 Direct Energy buyout schedule [PDF].

And now it seems Direct Energy has realized that they may have just derailed their gravy train with this idiotic attempt to grab more money. According to CTV Toronto, Direct Energy backs down on water tank contract changes.

“We have not communicated this initiative as well as we could have.” - Rob Comstock, senior vice president of Canadian services for Direct Energy

Well, frankly Rob, NO SHIT SHERLOCK!

There’s one big problem with trying to fleece consumers this way – they tend to not forget. I know I won’t forget. I am going to be exploring my options soon to see what I can do about my rented Polaris 34G water heater. While it has been nice having the “included insurance” due to the number of issues we had with the tank, I’m confident now that if a competent installer had been involved (and not Direct Energy installers) I would never had so many problems. Direct Energy has already collected almost $3500 from me in rental fees since we bought this house and you can be damn sure I’m done renting tanks. As long as the “old” contract terms remain in effect, they may get some more rental money while I look but the replacement tank will NOT be rented from Direct Energy.

[ The post "Direct Energy Rental Terms Change" originally appeared on Ivany.]

The Polaris Water Heater has an onboard diagnostics system that will flash a red LED to indicate a fault. This LED is visible through a small window on the access panel near the bottom of the hot water tank. By referring to the Polaris manual, you can discover what each of the error codes mean and there’s also a nice flow chart that suggests what to check/fix.

Error code 1 indicates that the pressure switch has failed to close. What this means is the Ignition Control Module (ICM) is unable to test if there is fresh air coming into the Polaris water heater. Without fresh air, there can be no combustion.

Now, the flow chart in the user manual basically has one solution for error code 1 – replace the pressure switch. While that may be the final solution required, I’ve had a service technician from Direct Energy tell me that you should also check everything associated with the Polaris Water Heater Error Code 2 problem. I recently had this issue and the problem turned out to be a small piece of dirt had become lodged in the air inlet to the pressure sensor. Likely this bit of dirt was picked up from outside, through the air inlet pipe and worked its way into the valve.

Once the technician remove the clear PVC pipes, removed the bit of dirt and reconnected everything the hot water heater came back to life. He also mentioned that on newer Polaris water heaters there is an external air filter on the 3″ air inlet pipe so that small bits of dirt don’t cause issues like this.

So, if you currently have error code 1, try checking for dirt in the pressure sensor valves before making that expensive service call.

[ The post "Polaris Water Heater Error Code 1" originally appeared on Ivany.]

The Polaris Water Heater has an onboard diagnostics system that will flash a red LED to indicate a fault. This LED is visible through a small window on the access panel near the bottom of the hot water tank. By referring to the Polaris manual, you can discover what each of the error codes mean and there’s also a nice flow chart that suggests what to check/fix.

Basically, the Pressure Switch Open (error code 2) indicates that the Ignition Control Module (ICM) is unable to test the air pressure of the incoming fresh air to the unit. This is because it is unable to close the pressure switch to perform the test. Without fresh air coming in, the Polaris Water Heater cannot start a burn cycle as it needs oxygen for combustion. It also needs to ensure it can exhaust the gasses of combustion to prevent Carbon Monoxide (CO) buildup in the house.

The Pressure Switch Open failure is supposed to be a soft lockout (SL) fault. The IGM will try again in 60 minutes and if successful, the unit will resume normal operation.

There are three noted sources of this failure:

1. There isn’t 24Vac across the pressure switch (no power)
2. The clear PVC tubing is cracked or has some sort of leak
3. There is a blockage in the inlet/exhaust air venting

There is now also a fourth possibility. As discovered by Steve, error code 2 can also be caused by frost buildup in low temperature environments (~ -28C or -20F ). There is a technical bulletin available for this issue which describes how to correct the issue. Steve was kind enough to forward the PDF to me that he received from the Polaris Technician.

Polaris Water Heater Technical Bulletin #5002 – Frost Buildup (PDF)

If you have a Polaris Water Heater from roughly June 2008 or newer, error code 2 can also be caused by a dirty air filter. The air filter is located in the air inlet pipe and can be removed for cleaning. An addendum to the Polaris Water Heater user manual is available on the John Wood Water Heater website:

Polaris Water Heater Addendum – Inlet Air Filter (PDF)

If you are still having problems, John Wood provides a form you can use for technical support questions. If you are a US customer you should use the American Water Heaters technical support form. Also note that American Water Heaters has a listing of some Technical Service Bulletins on their website.

[ The post "Polaris Water Heater Error Code 2" originally appeared on Ivany.]