And yes I do take it personal that you think we are all idiots.
But apparently you take me for an idiot. Want me to prove it?
I've been in the biz too long to know why so many of these heaters are being installed,
PRICE.
They are the cheapest on the market, that's why you go there. Now, it doesn't stop at Lowe's,
this tracks to Home Quarters, aka the Craftmaster.
Before then, Furrows, and Central Hardware.
Customers going after the rock bottom price on a heater and they found it. Whoopee, want a gold star for that?
So you have people that don't have a effing clue to how a water heater operates, they just know the damn thing makes them feel good in the shower or on their hands, that's about it. Everything else is "Oh look honey, you can save $50 by going to Lowe's."
I'll say it again; the MAJORITY were driven to LOWES FOR PRICING, not quality, not brand name, not warranty. PRICE.
It's always about the price because every time I have to work on these damn things, I have to hear "Well I don't have a lot of money to fix this, how much is this going to cost" attitudes like it's my damn fault you made a stupid buying decision. Not so compadre. I didn't buy my logic in the sunday's sales flyer with your morning coffee and donut after church.
I can't even get customers of mine to join together and file a lawsuit...they got hot water! At least for the current moment, why waste all that time?
I CYA myself real well; I used to dump these service calls on these heaters and now I got smart:
Get those free parts, I'll put them in...but I'm not guaranteeing **** because I've done my job as a licensed plumber in trying to enforce logic and understanding over the phone that "you'll eventually rip this piece of crap out of your home, sooner than later" mentality and once again, the consumer fails at thinking knowledgeably and instructs me to part the unit together.
It almost always goes bad again, given the customer calling me back days/weeks/months later that somehow it's my fault it broke again? Screw you! I did my job, so did chuck or bill, larry from india...
you just didn't listen to reason when the product failed and it went into the twilight zone of repair after repair after repair.
It's plausible when a product has one, maybe two problems that relates to product dissatisfaction, but this heater takes the crown for having multiple problems and the answers aren't found in free parts whether at the store OR from the India hotline of hot water love.
So to end this ongoing rant of mine once again, I feel sympathy for anyone who makes the call to listen to my words when I'm asking them to believe me that the poor buying decision started this mess.
We all know big box stores don't offer the "best" product reliability when it comes to these products...otherwise there wouldn't be such a gap between the businesses that sell them exclusively.
When I see a Lowe's water heater, I see somebody trying to save a buck. I've been at this too long to see anything else. Most would call their plumber, let the plumber get their own heater from a supply house...
but apparently some like to get their product from the big business model of
"We care about you until our product breaks, and you'll still buy from us no matter how little we care."