Thursday, January 26, 2006
Sometimes spam is funny. Not on purpose, but still...
Two recent examples:
"Important Information from eBay Inc biIIing Department" (yeah, eBay always misspells things...)
An offer to sell me a degree from "Online Educatoin Enrollment". (Duh, eye gott uh dugree frum ah hi kwality collage...)
But then, what do you expect? Right outside of Prospect High School ("A California Distinguished School"), there is a big huge sign proclaiming... 2+2=5!
Two recent examples:
"Important Information from eBay Inc biIIing Department" (yeah, eBay always misspells things...)
An offer to sell me a degree from "Online Educatoin Enrollment". (Duh, eye gott uh dugree frum ah hi kwality collage...)
But then, what do you expect? Right outside of Prospect High School ("A California Distinguished School"), there is a big huge sign proclaiming... 2+2=5!
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Repipe and sink no more!
Or something like that. We had our house repiped. It went pretty well. We went with Repipe Specialists (if you get a quote from them, say we sent you, and I think we get a Starbucks card or something, and you get 20% off...), but it seems that they have a franchise model, because Genmor Plumbing did the actual work. I don't know if it would have been cheaper to go with them directly or not. They had all the piping work done in one day!
When the the inspector came out, and said that we need to be grounded in reality, err, the ground, because the former owner replaced the main with plastic pipe, but didn't put in a ground to replace the one that the old metal main provided. Turns out that the way to ground a house is to knock an 8 foot rod all the way into the ground, and then hook a big wire to it. We're looking for someone to do that for us, because I think it would be pretty difficult to get all eight feet into the ground.
We also got a defective shower valve--it would only put out hot water, which is actually worse than only putting out cold water, because you can get hurt--so the plumbers took out the offending part, I took it back to Home Depot, they gave me a new part, and the plumbers re-installed it for no extra charge. Pretty cool! (or hot, or in between, which is better than just hot!). This was my second trip back to Home Depot--the pfirst was because the Pfaucet was missing some parts. I guess it is a good thing that the Pfaucet company has a lifetime guarantee. (If you can't guess the Pfaucet company, you're just not trying).
After the inspection, they came out to fill all the holes in the drywall (they did it right, not running the pipes through the floor, like some other companies that I got quotes from wanted to do). They also insulated all of the hot water pipes, which is one of the reasons that I had picked them to do the job. So it was three days in total:
1) Do all the work--pretty much all day
2) Be here for the inspection, fix the shower, repair leaking tub drain. (cost extra, because it wasn't part of the project, they just discovered it was leaking, and everything was open, so it was easy and relatively inexpensive--we are talking plumbing here--to fix). About 1/2 day.
3) Fill all the holes, insulate the pipes--about 1/2 day.
In all this time, the water was only off the first day, and briefly while they were swapping out the defective shower valve on day two.
While they were here on day three, I turned the heater off so as to not waste gas. A couple of hours later, after they left, I went to turn it back on. It wouldn't go on! So I called them and told them that my heater wasn't working, did they maybe nick a wire or something? Well, it turned out that the thermostat is battery operated, and--you guessed it--it picked that exact time to run out of juice. Of course, I apologized profusely! Muy muy embarazoso...
Or something like that. We had our house repiped. It went pretty well. We went with Repipe Specialists (if you get a quote from them, say we sent you, and I think we get a Starbucks card or something, and you get 20% off...), but it seems that they have a franchise model, because Genmor Plumbing did the actual work. I don't know if it would have been cheaper to go with them directly or not. They had all the piping work done in one day!
When the the inspector came out, and said that we need to be grounded in reality, err, the ground, because the former owner replaced the main with plastic pipe, but didn't put in a ground to replace the one that the old metal main provided. Turns out that the way to ground a house is to knock an 8 foot rod all the way into the ground, and then hook a big wire to it. We're looking for someone to do that for us, because I think it would be pretty difficult to get all eight feet into the ground.
We also got a defective shower valve--it would only put out hot water, which is actually worse than only putting out cold water, because you can get hurt--so the plumbers took out the offending part, I took it back to Home Depot, they gave me a new part, and the plumbers re-installed it for no extra charge. Pretty cool! (or hot, or in between, which is better than just hot!). This was my second trip back to Home Depot--the pfirst was because the Pfaucet was missing some parts. I guess it is a good thing that the Pfaucet company has a lifetime guarantee. (If you can't guess the Pfaucet company, you're just not trying).
After the inspection, they came out to fill all the holes in the drywall (they did it right, not running the pipes through the floor, like some other companies that I got quotes from wanted to do). They also insulated all of the hot water pipes, which is one of the reasons that I had picked them to do the job. So it was three days in total:
1) Do all the work--pretty much all day
2) Be here for the inspection, fix the shower, repair leaking tub drain. (cost extra, because it wasn't part of the project, they just discovered it was leaking, and everything was open, so it was easy and relatively inexpensive--we are talking plumbing here--to fix). About 1/2 day.
3) Fill all the holes, insulate the pipes--about 1/2 day.
In all this time, the water was only off the first day, and briefly while they were swapping out the defective shower valve on day two.
While they were here on day three, I turned the heater off so as to not waste gas. A couple of hours later, after they left, I went to turn it back on. It wouldn't go on! So I called them and told them that my heater wasn't working, did they maybe nick a wire or something? Well, it turned out that the thermostat is battery operated, and--you guessed it--it picked that exact time to run out of juice. Of course, I apologized profusely! Muy muy embarazoso...
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
