Patno's Plumbing Heating Air Conditioning Inc

On April 10 we received a call that the furnace is making a whooshing noise. I arrived onsite to test furnace and found the furnace filter was sucked into the blower compartment. I ran the furnace through all sequences of operations and found the furnace motor pulses on start-up and takes a little...

while to come on indicating there may be an issue with the motor all other operations appear to be good. I wanted to make sure the DC motor was operating properly so I would return to make sure all is ok. I returned on April 13 to test the motor with proper DC motor tester and replace furnace filter. The furnace motor tested out ok. I asked one of the tenants what was happening with the furnace as he lives in the basement near the furnace room. He informed me the burner comes on and shuts off repeatedly. This indicated the flame sensor is dirty. I cleaned the flame sensor and tested the furnace repeatedly to make sure all operations are good.  The furnace ran normally and brought the house temperature from 20°C to 24°C. The tenant also informed me before I left that the furnace sounded much better than it had in the week prior. The weather in Edmonton between the dates of April 10th and April 21st was ranging between -2°C and 15°C on April 20th [redacted] with more than one day of snow. The tenant called me on April 21st stating the furnace was now not working at all. He said the burner comes on but no air movement in the house. He said the burner comes on and runs for a few minutes and then shuts off but fan does not come on, this indicates the furnace is now tripping on high limit. He told me the furnace was working fine when I left on April 13th. I told him this sounds like a new issue with the furnace and there would be a charge for going to the rental and troubleshooting the issue. He stated he would have to call the owner to see if it was Ok for us to come and inspect the furnace. The tenant also informed me the Owner was not happy that another company was called to troubleshoot the furnace as [redacted] would come out and do this for free. He also informed me the owner was told of the original furnace issues the week prior to our first visit to site and nothing was done about it. The owner called me multiple times the night of April 21st and when told of the male tenant that had called me she said there were only 2 people on the lease and he was not one of them. I told her that there were more than 2 people living in the house. She was getting increasingly angrier with every phone call saying she would not pay for us to troubleshoot the new issue with the furnace. She said we were being unprofessional because we were going to charge her to troubleshoot the new issue with the furnace. I explained to her the tenant told me the furnace was working fine when I left on the 13th. She then told me that he had told her the furnace never worked after I left. I also informed her as a service person we cannot remain onsite and watch a piece of equipment for multiple hours waiting for an issue to arise as this is a waste of company time and customer time that cannot be justified. She repeatedly called us unprofessional [redacted]. The owner does not live in Edmonton and admitted she did not know what the weather was like in Edmonton during the period of our work at her rental. There is a period of 8 days between work completed and the date of the issue where heating would have been required in the evening and during the day. If the furnace didn’t work at all after I left why was a call not placed sooner?  The customer paid for work that was performed and completed. If the furnace quit working this is a new issue and would require a new invoice and further troubleshooting of the furnace.