Who is to pay for a technician house call - nothing to fix

Question

Hi All,

This past weekend I had a tenant in a single family house (in CA) report that the heater / furnace was not turning on. I had a technician come out to diagnose the furnace - the diagnosis was that there was no electrical power going to the equipment. This cost me about $90 - the minimum payment for a house visit which would have been deducted from the actual labor had there been any. I then called an electrician and he advised me over the phone that with all the recent rain, it was probably just a GFCI outlet that needed to be reset (it's a button on the outlets in the wet areas of the house).  In this scenario who typically would / should pay for the $90 furnace technician visit (landlord or tenant)?

Thanks!

Matt M. · Answer

@Ryan H.

Furnaces are supposed to be hardwired and not plugged into a GFCI outlet. There are GFCI breakers in electrical panels, but ive never heard of a heating system on a GFCI. Or am I missing something since this is in CA...

Mary M. · Answer

This would be your expense.  It sucks. I know. But you will learn very quickly to give tenants either a sheet with all the “things” to do if say, the bathroom heater goes out, or the ductless heater unit wont turn on, etc etc

You will also learn to talk the tenant thru the steps to take for each.

Unfortunately, sometimes it takes having to have something go wrong to know you need to add it to the “walk tenant thru how to do this” list.

Jane A. · Answer

In similar cases, I am just super happy that this issue did not turn into much bigger :)))

Ryan H. · Answer

Great! These all make sense. Thanks everyone

Katie Stewart · Answer

I would just eat the cost, personally!

Jennifer Rysdam · Answer

It sucks, but you should pay it. Just chalk it up to learning for both of you. Next time you/they will now know to check that GFCI before calling someone. If you try to make them pay for it then who knows what they'll do the next time something doesn't work? You wouldn't want them to try and start fixing things themselves to save money.

Mary M. · Answer

@Casandra M. 90% of the things tenants call about are “user error” so i have learned how to walk them thru correcting these “issues”.  These are simple things like check the breakers, make sure the remote is set correctly etc ;)

Casandra M. · Answer

I agree with @Mary Mitchell - Looks like a lesson learned for a cost you have to absorb. Maintenance costs shouldn't be covered by the tenants unless they caused damage themselves.

We don't give our tenants a "walk-through" list of steps to take, but rather, we either go physically ourselves to the property or call up our local handyman to check the basic things before we call in expensive electricians or plumbers. Many good property managers should have a light-maintenance man available for these checks as well.

Who is to pay for a technician house call - nothing to fix

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