Thanks all! DH got the message about the insurance company, TG! He took all the estimates [best is now just under $1200] and went over to their house last night, but, oh my, father is out of town until Saturday and mom (who is/was the nicest of the bunch) says father is the one who will take care of it. I'll believe it when I see the money. Jaz, the vehicle was on private property, so in this locale it is not *required* to involve the police. Even so, I admit I wish I had called them immediately. I had thought that only the plastic/glass covering and lightbulbs were broken; that would have cost less than $100 to repair. To me that wasn't a biggie, and could/should have been settled easily with something like having the kid do yardwork in reparation. It was later that evening when I learned that the damage included a deeply bent area in the signal unit's framework along with more dents in the adjoining quarter panel and door. That's when I realized the police should have been called immediately, if for nothing more than an impersonal legal presence. Well, tomorrow is Saturday, and methinks that father had best have money ready upon his return, or I'm liable to get my favorite lawyer directly involved. My present mantra is to follow Teddy Roosevelt's maxim: "Walk quietly, and carry a big stick."

I like the idea of a tax credit qualifying high eff heat pump. I think a VS air handler with electric heat strip is a better choice than a backup furnace(since you have a high end hydronic system already in place). of course, your electric panel may require an upgrade to handle the heat strips. I would want staged heat strip package. for your area climate, I would recommend a stat like HW VisionPro IAQ that has dehumidify on demand feature. I also would want a two stg condenser over a sgl stage. IMO

Wow - I’m not even sure where to start . . . I was going to try to stay above the fray but when accused of intentionally scamming or cheating a contractor - I can't resist commenting. For starters, can you just imagine what would have transpired if I’d asked the painter and the fabricator to come together to discuss who was responsible for the granite breaking? The painter, I’m certain, would have washed his hands of the whole thing the very minute it was even suggested that the granite wasn’t properly installed. And the fabricator would have insisted that he installed it properly and dare us to prove otherwise. And once both of those parties denied any culpability, we, the homeowners, would have been left with no recourse at all. The MIA standards are ambiguous at best. They provide a guideline for installation and suggest remedies in various situations, i.e. shims to mitigate cabinets that are unlevel, etc., based upon a fabricators assessment of what's needed - which is totally subjective. There are “tolerances” for everything so that a “range” of conditions is considered acceptable, which would make it nearly impossible to "prove" an improper installation based upon them. They also speak at length about “stones of lesser soundness” due to fissures, hardness of the mineral matrix (whatever that is), etc. Our friends just installed Cosmos granite and were told to NEVER stand or sit on it due to its large mineral deposits and overall fragility, although I assume it was properly installed. Someone here on Gardenweb even posted that her granite cracked because she used her crockpot on it - was that a result of improper installation? Given the nature of stone, you simply cannot say that a properly installed granite countertop cannot be damaged “except with a sledgehammer” and there’s also no way you can say, sight unseen, that our granite broke due to improper installation. We look at it as iroll said - the painter’s crew damaged it - nothing more, nothing less. It wasn’t broken when they arrived and it was broken when they left so we simply cannot be made to feel guilty for holding them responsible. We also did everything we could to make sure our painter didn't have to pay any more than was necessary. When the original invoice the fabricator sent was for $2034 and included an $848 upcharge for the exotic stone, we spent half a day arguing that we'd already paid the upcharge for that slab when we originally purchased a small piece of it. They didn't agree and were adamant that the upcharge was valid, saying they'd only charged us a premium for the small piece we used, but we finally convinced them to remove it. So in essence, I guess you could say the fabricator and the painter are sharing the cost of replacing our granite - one paying $1186 and the other $848.

Some companies do offer a "spiff" to realtors. In our state, it's on our contracts that if a home warranty is purchased, the realtor may get a "spiff" from it. It's around $50, depending on the company. But even if a homeowner chooses to offer a home warranty on the sale of their house that didn't pay any bonuses, I still recommend them. I had a seller decide he didn't want to buy one, and a week before his house closed, his HVAC system died. If he'd purchased a home warranty, not only would his buyer be covered, but he would have been covered until the sale of the house went through. As it was, he had to spend $1400 on a new unit. Had another seller who elected to include a home warranty for a prospective buyer. The warranty covered his property while it was on the market. In the middle of summer, one of his a/c compressors failed. $55 (plus the $400) fixed it, rather than him paying in the thousands. It's just one of those things that goes a long way in protecting the property while it's being marketed, and also a "warm fuzzy" for buyers. No, they don't cover everything, but they sure can help!