Frozen water pipes

[Pat]

twstanley, I don't agree that you wandered off track. I think you were dead on. It is often too expensive to pay a high service charge per hour to repair something at the piece part, i.e. component level but it could easily be cost effective for a motivated owner if ONLY the parts were available.

I don't charge me $20-$100 an hour to try to fix something. Even if I have to shotgun or Easter egg something the parts cost (with my free labor) may still be an economial choice over buying new.

I get a lot of personal satisfaction from repairing stuff and that has to be worth something.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Vickie and I had only been married a short time when she got home from work one day and saw to her horror that I had the clothes dryer "scattered". It was one of those things where to replace the heat coil you had to dump the drum out. Vickie was unnaccustomed to "home" repair, and was always thinking of the Tim-The-Tool-Man scenario; where home repairs never worked quite right; because in her previous marriage repair simply meant writing a check. [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] She has since become comfortable with repair work and sort of expects it to happen now. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] The nice thing about it is if I DO want something new, I just say that it can't be fixed [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] and out comes the checkbook. [img]/forums/images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[Bird]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
It was one of those things where to replace the heat coil you had to dump the drum out

[/ QUOTE ]

Must have been a GE or Hotpoint product. [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] I've done a couple of them; once with my right arm in a cast and sling, but with a lot of help from an 11 year old daughter, we got'er done. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] It was, in fact, a GE. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Bird, Not to take anything away from your daughter but... Sometimes all you need is a helper with at least three fingers on one hand that work and knows enough to pick up something when told in order to be an order of magnitude ahead of being alone, even with two fully functional hands.

A great side effect was that she got to do something hardly any kids get to do and it probably left a lasting impression about fixing something instead of just buying a new one.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] You cannot buy the kind of self esteem that kids get from being a useful worker. When Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were in the process of adopting some kids in the early fifties, they went to an orphanage and met a boy who said: "Take me, Mister, I can hoe corn real good." Someone at some point made the comment to that kid that he was good at hoeing corn, and THAT was the card that he tossed out on the table when he needed to have the highest hand possible. Now that, was true self esteem; not the phoney kind that the libs want to give you when they say it's ok for you to say that two plus two equals three. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[Pat]

CJDave, You sure complain a lot. Next thing you know you'll be complaining that a highschool diploma is an attendance certificate (if that) and doesn't proclaim any minimum accademic standards that were met.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[twstanley]

Pat, I have had a lot of luck getting hvac parts ( and other parts ) here locally. I start off with my local dealer, but they are usually unhelpful or way over priced as they prefer to send a service person out to do any repairs vs selling parts.

I have found a good source for Carrier parts ( suprisingly I discovered my neighbor works there ), they sell everything I need over the counter, very helpful folks.

I even found a great place for bearings/bushings, keeping our antique hay rake and baler running required a few bearings and the ones from John Deere were at least twice as much as the exact same bearing from these guys, of course the box wasn't green though.

Some of these places are a bit reluctant and even have signs proclaiming no retails sales, but if I walk in there with a part number and money, they are happy to sell it to me.

[Pat]

twstanley, I have also found that owners-managers of parts houses don't usually want to pass up cash on the barrel head for something they have in stock when you have a good part number so their effort is trivial.

We have a chain of supply houses here wth plumbing, electrical, and HVAC operations under the same roof but operated with separate counters, cash registers and phone numbers. It is Locke supply. They will sell retail but typically gouge you. If a lisc plumber with an account with them walks in and buys an EX-WYE-ZEE he gets a discount which varies depending on his volume with them. If I buy an EZ-WYE-ZEE it might cost me as much as double the other guy. This truly SUCKS.

I priced a PEX crimping tool there and then bought the same identical tool at Lowe's for about $65 dollars less!

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]