Running the Business · Part 5
A warranty policy that protects you: what to promise, for how long, what to exclude, and what a warranty cannot do
A warranty is a promise you make in writing so that the year-two phone call is answered by the paper instead of by an argument. Written well, it says what is covered (your workmanship, for a stated period), what is not (the customer's own fixture, the drain you cleared but did not replace, damage from pressure you told them to fix), how to make a claim, and that the manufacturer's warranty on the equipment is the manufacturer's. Written badly, "lifetime warranty on all work" is a section 7161 claim you cannot keep. This lesson is the policy and its limits: what a warranty can promise, what it cannot waive, and why the honest version sells more than the inflated one.
What the full lesson covers
- Warrant your workmanship, in writing, for a stated period (one year on repairs and service work and two on repipes and replacements is a common, defensible structure), and put the statement on the contract's list of incorporated documents (7159(d)(12)).
- Exclude in plain words: customer-supplied fixtures and materials; conditions you documented and the customer declined to fix (the 105 psi with no regulator); drain clearings (the stoppage returns because of what is in the line, not because of the clearing); pre-existing pipe you did not replace; damage from freezing, misuse, or someone else's work.
- Pass the manufacturer's warranty through; do not adopt it. "The water heater carries the manufacturer's six-year tank warranty; we register it for you; labor to replace a failed tank is covered by us for the first year."
- A warranty cannot shorten CSLB's four- and ten-year windows (7091), cannot waive the workmanship standard (7109), cannot disclaim your own negligence or violation of law (Civil Code 1668), and cannot penalize a review (1670.8).
- "Lifetime" and "guaranteed" without terms are 7161 claims. Say what you mean, for how long, and keep it.
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More lessons in Customers, Warranties, and Complaints
- 1Presenting options and price without apologizing
- 2The other guy is cheaper: what to say, what to let the customer check, and the line not to cross
- 3Delivering bad news: it is worse than you thought, and how to say so
- 4You are liable for four years (patent) and ten years (latent), and CSLB accepts complaints that long
- 5A warranty policy that protects you: what to promise, for how long, what to exclude, and what a warranty cannot doYou are here
- 6The CSLB complaint process from the contractor's side: responding, arbitration, and avoiding the citation
- 7Reviews: earning them, answering bad ones, and what you can and cannot do about a false one
- 8Template: the warranty statement
- 9Template: the CSLB complaint response letter