A few years ago I had a tankless hot water heater installed by Busto and was pleased with the product and the workmanship. So when we had a problem with the hot water suddenly slowing and low pressure, with barely any water coming out, I natuarry called Busto. Though this seemed to me to be quite serious, they couldn’t get anyone out for 3 days. The worker who came out assured me that it was not a busted pipe and went to each bathroom and checked the flow and finally in the master bath, the faucet spewed out some orange sedemint and he immediately said, “your softener exploded”. He then went to various faucets and removed the aeroater and cleaned the sediment out. I requested a descaling while he was here and this was completed and I paid for the service. Over the next 2 weeks, we constantly got sediment in the water and the hot water started getting slower and slower until almost nothing. By this time I had already flushed the system by letting all the faucets run, without success. So on 8/29 I called Busto for a service call. The young lady answering was pleasant and advised she would get back to me after calling the service technician who had performed the work. She called back shortly and advised he could come out between 12 - 2pm on 8/30. I cancelled all activity to be home for the appointment. At approx. 2:10pm, after the appointment time slot, I received a call from the young lady saying the tech was delayed on the previous call and could ”possibly” arrive by 4pm. I assured her that I would be at home as I had cancelled anything that could interfere. She advised that she would keep me posted. Shortly after that I received a call from a male at Busto. He gave some general info on sediment and advised the tech was leaving south Tampa enroute to my residence. He then began to explain that I could let the faucets run myself to flush and it would save the cost of the service call. I inquired if the problem was in the tank flushing if I would have to pay again. He asked how much I paid and then advised he was calling the tech when I gave him the amount. I received another call from the male a few minutes later and he continued to tell me about flushing the lines saying you can do a lot of that yourself. I advised I had already done this twice. When I inquired as to paying again for the same service, rather than getting the tech out to evaluate, the male questioned my plumbing experience, suggesting that I did not have the knowledge to make that determination. Apparently it was good enough to determine a problem the first time for which I paid for descaling consisting of circulating water and chemical through a tank and for removing the aeraters from 4 faucets. It appeared that rather than coming out to access, he was doing everything to discount the call so that the tech would not have to come back out in the event it was the same issue.
Rather than questioning my plumbing experience it would seem that the better option would have been for someone to actually come out to determine the problem. Though I’m sure they are skilled, all problems may not be able to be evaluated via phone call. There could actually be a problem which my meager plumbing knowledge could not determine for them and relay in my phone call, and maybe, just maybe, someone who’s plumbing skills are questioned, should not be suggested to “do it yourself”.
