Parts warranty claims from the counter, drafted the way each manufacturer wants them.

Today the contractor hands over the failed part with whatever they wrote down: the unit's model and serial, maybe an install date, maybe a rating plate photo. A replacement goes out the door. Later the warranty desk looks up the registration, works out when coverage started, matches the part to the unit and keys the claim into that manufacturer's system.

For the test, AI reads copies of those claim files and drafts each claim in the manufacturer's layout, listing what is missing: no registration found, an install date nobody can prove, a serial that won't decode. It files nothing and approves nothing.

Two sets of numbers on every claim. A distributor's claim form asks for the unit the part came out of, by model, serial, install date and failure date, then the failed part and its replacement, each by model and serial, with the replacement's invoice number and repair date. One large distributor's published procedure has contractors keep the defective part until the warranty department asks for it, wants the claim within 30 days of the replacement's invoice, and issues credit only after the factory authorizes it. A unit serial written where the part's belongs is the first thing to check.

Registration sets the term. Goodman's warranty for its GSX and GSZ outdoor units runs up to 5 years unregistered and up to 10 when the unit is registered online within 60 days of installation. ICP's current certificate for air handlers and coils gives 90 days to register. Goodman's warranty page adds that residents of California, Florida, Georgia and Quebec keep registered-owner rights without registering. So the same failed part can be covered on one street and not on the next, and the draft states which term it applied and the record behind it.

The install date is often the argument. In a new home, Goodman and ICP both count from the day the owner bought the house from the builder, and ICP applies that to build-to-rent and single-family rentals as well. When no date can be verified, Goodman starts coverage three months after the manufacture date and ICP 90 days after it. Goodman's serial carries that date in its first four digits, year then month, so a serial beginning 2002 was built in February 2020. Every brand codes serials its own way, and the draft names the rule it used to read each one.

What a claim can't include. Goodman's certificate excludes labor, freight and refrigerant, units ordered over the internet or by telephone, and damage from unapproved, used or recycled refrigerant, and a part replaced under warranty is covered only for what is left of the original term. ICP's excludes products not installed to government minimum efficiency standards and gives installations outside the home one year on parts. A claim that asks for refrigerant, or an air handler in a dentist's office claimed on residential terms, comes back, so the draft marks those before your clerk files.

What your reviewer watches. Usually the warranty clerk or administrator: the right serial in the right box, the term applied, the proof behind the install date, the replacement tied to its invoice, and the questions left for a person. Denied claims belong in the sample, because the test is whether a draft would have caught what the factory caught.

When your reviewer says yes against the success criteria, the same job runs on new failed parts as they come across the counter, for about 30 days.

Your warranty clerk approves every draft and files it in the manufacturer's system the way they do today, and the factory's answers keep landing in the same side-by-side sheet.

You see the live run's fixed price before signing anything. A second manufacturer's line, or any other job, is priced separately.