Change in Contract Terms After Contract Was Signed and Non-Working Unit

[markcam26]

My question involves a consumer law issue in the State of Colorado.
I signed a contract for a new heating and AC unit 9 months ago that included a 5 year labor warranty. Right from the start I had issues with the unit not working. The Company had to come out 12 times over 11 weeks following the install, 9 visits were due to the unit freezing up, and the last three were due to the unit not working at all.

I have two issues:

The first issue: This Company has sent me what they are calling their standard “terms” that get sent with all contracts. I went back to the documents they sent me and these“ terms” were not attached to the contract or referenced in my contract. They are contained in a separate document and I am being told that by signing the contract I implied my agreement with the” terms”. The only place “Terms” is in my contract is below the Signature line where it states “By signing you accept the proposal and terms”. There is no reference to the additional terms document on my contract and they were not provided prior to me signing the contract. Now they are trying to get me to acknowledge I received and agreed to the terms prior to doing any additional repair work.

Can they add or enforce additional terms that were not included or provided prior to signing the contract without my agreement?
Can they force acceptance of the additional terms prior to doing warranty work?

The second issues: This Company was out several time post install, it averaged out to once every two weeks over a three month period. I was never able to get the unit to cool my house below 76 degrees even after the repairs. The last time they repaired my unit was a week before it started snowing in Colorado. When I turned the AC on a few days ago the unit failed to work again. The problem is the same issue fixed twice in October.

I had to call another company to repair my unit yesterday, they found three issues over 9 hours. The first two issues were fixed, one was how the units electrical jumpers were set incorrectly when installed, second was faulty hardware they were able to replace, but cost me $1500. The third issue is going to cost almost 25% of the amount paid for the new unit to repair if I want the unit to work at 100%. I stayed with the repairmen during the entire time they were onsite. They discussed everything they were checking and referred to the install book several times. After the first two repairs listed above, the Unit is working better than it ever has, I was able to cool my house to 72 degrees and I have more airflow.

I had this company log everything they checked, tested and changed during the repair. I did not tell them the issue with the other company or prior repairs that had been done.

The company that did the install never found these issues that seemed to be fairly clear when taking the time to check and adjust the unit per the install book.

What would be a legally reasonable number of service calls I should let a company repair the unit?
Is there a reasonable clam to recover the cost I will have to pay another company to repair the unit?

[Mr. Knowitall]

If the issue ends up in court, they will presumably argue that they provided you with a copy of their "standard terms" and that the "terms" language in the signed contract incorporates them by reference, you will argue that they did not, and the court will attempt to decide which version of events is more credible.

There's no arbitrary number we can give you for how many chances you are obligated to provide to the original contractor before you give up and have somebody else perform the repair. If in fact they were out six times to repair these exact issues and failed each time, should you sue on a breach of contract/breach of warranty theory you have a decent argument that you gave them a reasonable opportunity. (I cannot comment on how the contract language will factor in, with or without the "standard terms", as I have not seen those documents.)