Withholding information

[jackfaire]

Back story. On a furnace with a pilot light the only way to turn it off without stopping the gas for the pilot is to stop electricity so tripping the breaker. Turning the thermostat as low as it will go just tells it that you need it to be much colder before it comes on that temp is above freezing and it will come on if it gets cold enough.

When someone calls to stop their service if a new party is taking over we wait until the next time we read the meter and then calculate what the read was on the day they asked to stop. Most of the time this is accurate.

Until yesterday every single customer who told me their furnace is Off meant they had turned the thermostat down and my bosses had told me without electricity the pilot would go out.

SC calls to say the usage we are charging her for is wildly inaccurate.

So at this point I have done my research see the calculations were done correctly and

SC (Sucky customer)
Me (Hapless rep)

ME: Well ma'am I am showing that those calculations were done correctly.

SC: It's not possible the furnace was off.

ME: Ma'am you turned your thermostat all the way down.

SC: Yes I turned it off!

ME: Ma'am was the pilot light out (standard follow up question to that statement)

SC: No it wasn't out but the furnace was off the usage for October should look like the usage for August!

ME: (me under the impression that since it got cold the furnace came on) Uhm ma'am your comparing a warm month to a cold month?

SC: (In a very agitated voice) Now your just being a smartass! Your not listening to me your talking over me and you don't seem to get what I am saying to you!

ME: Ma'am I am sorry at this point maybe I could have a supervisor give you a call,

This conversation had been going in circles on me explaining the furnace would still be used if the pilot was on and her telling me I wasn't getting that the furnace was off.

So I took down the number to reach her at passed it over to my supervisor and when she gets on with my supervisor.

SC: I know it's off because I turned the breaker off!

Uhm well why didn't you say that. If you had just said oh I turned off the electricity to the furnace you know that thing none of your customers do because they all are too freaked out to touch much more than the thermostat.

I think this qualifes for sucky training too because quite honestly I had been repeatedly told that without electricity the pilot light would be out so when the pilot light is on I would never think to ask about electricity.

Anyway my boss got it straightened out but why do customers withhold information and expect us to know every single thing about their indiviual equipment.

[PepperElf]

maybe they weren't ....

i'm thinking they finally figured out that turning the heat all the way down wouldn't stop the usage
so they just lied when your supervisor got on the phone

i could be wrong but... that's what i suspect

[sirwired]

Huh... with my furnace, I can cycle the breaker all day long, and the pilot doesn't go out. Naturally the furnace doesn't actually work without juice, but the pilot runs as long as there is gas. Maybe there is some funky local code requirement that has your furnaces cut the pilot if there is no juice?

SirWired

[Broomjockey]

Maybe there is some funky local code requirement that has your furnaces cut the pilot if there is no juice?

SirWired

Pretty ass-stupid code, if you ask me. "Hi, we're just going to guarantee you freeze to death if there's ever a blizzard that knocks power out to the town for 3 or 4 days, and also has the risk of exploding you by leaking gas if the power goes out for a few hours, then comes back on." Granted, the exploding would only happen if it doesn't cut the gas when the electricity is turned off, but you're still condemning anyone in a cold clime to death in a black-out.

[HYHYBT]

Almost every thermostat I've seen has at least three controls: one for temperature (usually ranges from 45-90 degrees, more or less), one for the fan (automatic or always on), and one for AC, heat, or OFF. If you set them to off, they don't run at all for anything. If it's set to off, it should use exactly the same amount of gas every day year-round whether the breaker is on or not.

I have seen the kind with only a temperature control in a residence exactly once, and that house didn't have a furnace. It had hot-water radiators along the outside wall baseboards, and took about a day to warm the place up if you were foolish enough to ever turn it "off". Why *all* your customers would have such a system could, potentially, be an interesting story if you happen to know and are willing to share.

[Stryker One]

Expensive pilot light

How much does it cost to run a pilot light for a month?

[jackfaire]

Pretty ass-stupid code, if you ask me. "Hi, we're just going to guarantee you freeze to death if there's ever a blizzard that knocks power out to the town for 3 or 4 days, and also has the risk of exploding you by leaking gas if the power goes out for a few hours, then comes back on."

Actually the furance needs the electricity to run so even if the pilot stays on if the power goes out they aren't getting heat anyway. In our area though freezing temperatures are rare and cold weather power outages are as well. There are safeties built in so if a pilot goes out the gas stops flowing.

Around here the thermostats that most people have the OFF function is really setting it to not come on unless it hits 40 degrees which it rarely does.

Heat pumps also don't tend to work at 40 degrees so people see that shoot their usage up.

Now also something to keep in mind not everyone has the same furnace. It's like anything else they buy them from all different manufacturers so the knowledge we have is pretty restrictive.

Another point on the OFF function at least once a week I get a customer who tells me ,"I set the furnace at 63 (or some equally higher than necessary temp for a vacant home) so it should be off" Then get upset because it was 54 degrees most of the month.

[Broomjockey]

Actually the furance needs the electricity to run so even if the pilot stays on if the power goes out they aren't getting heat anyway.

I guess furnaces are just designed differently around here then, because I'm fairly certain that ours didn't need electricity except for the fan that aided air movement, and even without that fan, you'd still get heat, just not as efficient.

[drunkenwildmage]

You also have to factor in Electronic Ignition Furnaces, that don't use a pilot lite. If the power was to them, then in theory, they shouldn't use any gas.