Why I didn't replace my water heater

National Home Services claims on its website to be the fastest growing "home services" company, and I'm not surprised, so persuasive are the techniques it uses to grab its customers.

I gave the rep. 10 out of 10 for his courtesy, by the way. He had blue eyes and an affable, respectful manner. When I opened the door he made a point of drawing my attention to his badge and his uniform. He informed me that the Ontario government was having a drive to replace old water heaters / tanks with "greener," ones that were Energy Star rated and that, if I had an older tank, this initiative would entitle me to a free, new one, which would be 25% more efficient. He asked to see a recent bill from our gas company that would tell him what kind of rental agreement we currently have for our current water heater, which we rent from Direct Energy. I didn't see any harm in showing him this piece of paper and when he saw it he made a note on his notepad, nodding sagely and telling me that, since Direct Energy "is no longer renting out these water heaters," I was going to have to switch my allegiance to National in any case.

"Some of your neighbours have already made the switch," he said. "We must have missed you the last time we came round."

Then I let him into the house (after he'd asked politely whether he could take a look at my old boiler to see if I qualified for a free replacement). We went down to the furnace room. I'd insulated our water tank, as advised by the City of Ottawa's energy auditor who inspected our house a couple of years ago, but I kindly removed the insulating cover so that the sales rep. could take a close look at the numbers and make another note on his clipboard pad. "Oh yes," he said, "this one was installed in 1997. It's an old, 37 gallon tank and there's sure to be a lot of sediment at the bottom by now which will be making the heating mechanism less efficient. We'll give you a 40 gallon tank with a glass-lined inner flue that will give it a longer, cleaner life." What's more, the new model would be so much better insulated that I'd no longer need to cover it with the extra jacket.

We went back upstairs and he showed me some pictures of what I assumed was the inside of the dirty old, poorly insulated tank I have at the moment, and the super-clean modern equivalent which would have an easy-to-use adjustable thermostat and would never need lighting with matches. (I didn't recall ever needing a match for the one I've got, but still).

Well, I said, this seems almost too good to be true. How generous of the government to replace our old water tanks for free. Making no comment, the rep. changed the subject.

We discussed the new rental agreement, in which he promised the first two months rent free, a free preventative check-up of the heater every three years, and any service charge or cost of replacement parts to be included in the monthly rental ... which incidentally would be only slightly more than what we're paying at present—about $4 a month more: $17.95 plus taxes. In the small print, which he didn't dwell upon, is the additional statement that "annual fee increases are limited to 3.5%". Actually, the Terms and Conditions (in what appears to be 5 point font) state "...on each annual anniversary of your Effective Date, your monthly rate will increase by 3.5%...." (my emphasis). He did say that the savings in heating costs with the more efficient unit would more than adequately compensate for the increase in the rental charge.

He then told me he was obliged to contact his headquarters by phone before leaving my house (he used my phone) to make an installation appointment for me and so that I could confirm that he had been wearing his uniform when he called and that I had been given all the proper information and paper work, etc., etc. I said "yes, yes". The agent also asked me to give the door-to-door rep. a mark out of 10 (see above).

Then we got round to fixing a time for the installation. Again I could hardly believe my luck; they could come round as soon as Monday and the job was only going to take about an hour and a half, he said. I made the appointment, wrote it down, and signed the Residential Water Heater Rental & Protection Plan Agreement there and then. We didn't take long over the paper work because all the requisite information had already been written down by the rep.

Next time, if there is a next time, I won't be so hasty.

In the evening friends of ours came round and I told them about the deal, showing them National's Program Guide and my copy of the Agreement, as well as our old tank in the basement, at which it was pointed out to me that the new tank I was expecting was in fact exactly the same model as the one we have at present (size 40 gallons, with a glass-lined inner flue).

We can find nothing on the Enbridge Gas website to suggest that Enbridge has withdrawn its alliance with Direct Energy. If we had transferred our allegiance to National Home Services, we'd have been locked into the contract for 15 years and if we had moved house we'd have been obliged to persuade our buyers to accept the same rental agreement themselves (it's not really a rental, it's a lease).

Here's an alert which was easy to find on the Internet once we'd had second thoughts about the contract with National Home Services, and here's another. Perhaps the best one is this video from the CBC that actually filmed their sales people in action.

On Saturday we called National, spoke to an agent and asked for our new agreement to be cancelled. The lady who answered the phone said it would be possible but if we did this we would have to give a reason for the change of mind, despite the relatively large print in National Home Services' own Program Guide, saying ...

Your Rights Under the Consumer Protection Act, 2002:
You may cancel this agreement at any time during the period that ends ten (10) days after the day you receive a written copy of the agreement. You do not need to give the supplier a reason for cancelling during this 10-day period.

As a matter of fact Chris did tell her the results of our post-agreement enquiries.

It was as well we acted speedily, once we'd had our eyes opened. If they'd installed the unit on Monday it would have cost us too much fuss and expense to back out at that point.

If this story sounds familiar, if you have just signed up with National Home Services (also known as JustEnergy—clicking on their links to water heaters sends you straight to "www.nationalhomeservices.ca") and now want to withdraw from the arrangement, send them a letter of cancellation, obtaining proof that you sent it. In your letter write a simple description of the agreement, state that you wish to cancel it and add a request for confirmation that the cancellation has taken effect. Then tell your friends about this, as I am doing here. Or write to the press about it!