Radio Thermostat thermostats

The reports, as CPSC published them

1. No one hurt

   Made Jun 22, 2012 · , sent to the company Dec 4, 2012 · , published by CPSC Jul 24, 2012

   The product, in the report: Thermostat that was installed as part of our overall security system.

   To Whom I May Concern:

   On this last Monday, XFINITY put me through the worst nightmare any company has ever put me through. A week or two ago I had their new security system installed. They had sent out a salesman from a subcontractor. He was very knowledgeable and very professional. The company’s installer was just as great. They gave us the kind of service and professionalism we are use to getting from Comcast employees.

   We had also purchased a thermostat from them. It was not good at all. From the very beginning it did not work properly. The hold function did not work. It would kick off in the middle of the night and I would wake up in the middle of the night sopping wet. I am a very sick Veteran. They have classified me as 100% disabled. They see my condition as permanent and total. The most I can do is stay home most of the time and try not to die. I get out once in a while but I have to be very careful and my wife has to be with me at all times. She hates to leave me at home all by myself because I have all most died more than a couple of times. She will not be able to stay home with me fulltime until she can retire two years from this coming February. She has had to call in sick because of an immediate family member (namely me) to many times as it is. So far her employer has been very understanding but I am sure that their understanding has its limits. On Monday XFINITY caused it to happen again and put my life at risk.

   Monday morning we called and told them about our problem. They were able to determine that I understood how to use the control panel and their thermostat was indeed not functioning right. A few hours later it went crazy. It turned on our furnace and started pumping hot air into an already overheated house. I was able to turn off the furnace using my circuit breaker box but their unit then stopped working all together. The way their system is set up we could not just turn off the thermostat and use the fan to try and keep the house cooler. Like you can with most thermostats. I started to get sick. When I become overheated it can very quickly become life threatening. If I had been home by myself napping I may have never woken up. My wife would have come to a corpse. If this had happened to someone with a crated dog they would most likely also have come home to a corpse. As anyone can see their system has to major design flaws. They said they could not get out to us for a couple of days. We had turned down a next day appointment at first when the hold problem was the only problem we seemed to have. We disparately needed to go shopping the next day. My wife kept crying and telling them that the situation was quickly becoming life threatening. She told them she would already have to lose a days work because of the malfunction. She said she was close to having to call 911 and take me to the hospital. She said she would put me in bed and have all our portal fans blowing on me but that could put me in danger of catching pneumonia. I have been told by my doctors that I may not survive another bad case of pneumonia.

   Finally someone was contacted within the company who new they have emergency service. We were told that their on-call person had been called in. He was helping another customer but he would get to us right after. We are of the opinion that if the people that we first contacted had been properly informed about the emergency on call service he would have been sent to us first. That would have prevented so much anxiety for myself and my dear wife. One of my major problems is I can not deal with stress very well and it can make me very ill. Dealing with Comcast over this matter continued to cause me nothing but stress. The man who arrived turned out to be the person who will be responsible for our over all security system. We now have his card and can call him directly. That is first positive thing that resulted from this whole mess. After he showed up it was determined that he could do nothing. The thermostat was not repairable at all, not even for the short term. The only thing he could do was replace the thermostat. We had been informed by the person who said he was coming out that he was coming out to install a new thermostat. The problem was he did not have one and did not know how to get one. He said that he had just finished the training necessary to be certified to install and repair thermostats as part of the overall security system. The company that had been doing the installing had all the thermostats. They had been pulled out of the equation before the in-house service people like him had been supplied with thermostats to install. In fact a man from the installation company who heard about the problem through the grapevine called me. He was very upset and said he should have been called in the first place. It just happens that he personally is capable of servicing furnaces and air conditioners. He had not been hired to do that by Comcast but he was pretty sure he could do that if his company was able to allow him to do that even though he had not been hired by Comcast to give that kind of service. We came to realize that is the kind of company you buy a thermostat from. One that can service your entire system and not just part of it. Because of health and property concerns heating and cooling problems need to be dealt with as quickly as possible. It is bad enough that we are at the mercy of the electrical company. People do not need another weakness to deal with on top of that one. The kind man called me right back. He said he was told by his supervisor to stop and come back. He had been in route to our home. Comcast had told him that they were now handling the service end of thermostats and they already had a man dealing with the problem. Their service man told me he was helpless to help me. Because of that I had already called our handyman. He said when he had finished his current job he would pick up a good thermostat and come by to install it. He was able to recommend a good heating and air company. They are sending out a tech today, Wednesday. He will check the installation of the thermostat and train us on how to use it. He will also service our air conditioner and furnace. We will know be their customers. They have 24 hour emergency service if we have any problems in the future. That makes us feel so much better because of my health concerns. The man from the installation company called back yesterday to make sure everything was ok and that we had gotten some help. I had the feeling if we had not he was prepared to get us a new thermostat and come install it himself. That shows you the kind of people you deal with when you do business with XFINITY, even their subcontractors.

   The way I see it, the problem comes from the top. The type of organizational machine you normally deal with when you deal with Comcast is not up and running. Good people can not do their normal good job if they are not given the tools and information they need to do that job. While waiting for the repairman to come out I tried to get in touch with a person in authority who could talk to me about reimbursement. Our serviceman said he would leave the thermostat in for our handyman to remove so we could return it. He did not want to leave a bunch of bare wires hanging out. I wanted to find out if that was going to be ok with Comcast. I also wanted to know if they as a company were concerned at all about my wife’s lost wages and all the emotional stress the problem had put us both through. The person I was finally able to talk to said she could not understand why I was calling Comcast at all. She said I was calling a Cable Company. She said I needed to call a furnace company to have a thermostat installed. She said she had worked for Comcast for fifteen years and they did not install thermostats, even though I tried to tell her I had one in my wall that had XFINITY on it.

   This morning I tried calling Comcast again. I was reluctant to talk to someone at the new security section because of the fact that they did not seem to know what was going on in their own department. I gave them one more try and was able to talk to the right person. His supervisor is suppose to call me this afternoon and tell me how to return the thermostat. They are still trying to figure out how they want to go about it. I personally feel that this product was offered to the public way to early. They are still working out to many major problems. I am happy to say that they still have the great Comcast employees trying to do a very hard job without being provided the proper resources and information. Because of that this new department is not living up to the high XFINITY standards. At least that is my opinion. I am sure this wall change given the needed amount of time. We are willing to be patient and work with them so that can happen.

   The man that was suppose to call us back on Wednesday never did. I called the serviceman that gave us his card Thursday morning and so far and has not called either.

   Bought from

   Comcast Cable Company

   Bought

   Jun 8, 2012

   Where

   North Salt Lake, Utah: Home/Apartment/Condominium

   Who was involved

   Age 63, Male

   The reporter’s relation to them

   Self

   As this report names them

   Brand [RADIO THERMOSTAT], made or sold by RADIO THERMOSTAT COMPANY OF AMERICA

   How badly, in CPSC’s words

   Incident, No Injury

2. No one hurt

   Made Dec 12, 2011 · , sent to the company Dec 19, 2011 · , published by CPSC Jan 4, 2012

   The product, in the report: Radio Thermostat Z-Wave USNAP

   On November 19, at approximately 2pm out Vivint (alarm company) thermostat spontaneously combusted. The fire occurred in the garage and at the time I was in the garage working out on the treadmill. Due to the good timing, minimal damage occurred. The thermostat was installed by a Vivint technician and is a Radio Thermostat Z-Wave USNAP model number RTZW-01. The fire is still under investigations and we have an ANFIRS report as 911 was contacted and the local fire department used the thermal imaging cameral to ensure the fire was not between the walls.

   Model

   RTZW-01

   UPC

   11026172

   Serial number

   IC: 4714A-ZWAVE0210

   Bought from

   Vivint

   Bought

   Apr 25, 2011, about then

   Where

   North Pole, Alaska: Home/Apartment/Condominium

   Who was involved

   Unspecified

   The reporter’s relation to them

   Self

   As this report names them

   Brand Radio Thermostat, made or sold by RADIO THERMOSTAT COMPANY OF AMERICA

   How badly, in CPSC’s words

   Incident, No Injury

CPSC’s disclaimer

Sources