Nightmare on Plain Street! - Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating

BigFish · 12-23-2009, 01:52 PM

So a few weeks ago our furnace goes off on safety.....I hit the reset, it fires up and good to go! Now we have not had it serviced since we bought the house 4 years ago and I am talking a complete maintenance! I have changed the filter, strainer and nozzle regularly but we needed a complete service so I find a company on Yellow pages.com and the ad reads "Licensed and Insured"......looks reputable?? Or so I thought??? I had made an appointment for this past Monday afternoon. As luck would have it Monday morning the furnace shuts down again so I figure....what luck the guy is coming today anyway so we are all set! The guy shows up and immediately I am suspicious....young guy, truck is not marked......I think maybe check for his oil burner license but I (stupidly) give him the benefit of the doubt and he starts the service! So I am across the basement keeping an eye on him for the first sign of trouble. I say to him....."You are going to change the nozzle, pump strainer and the tank filter right?"......he says....."oh we don't do the nozzle and the strainer"????? Meanwhile he is changing the oil filter (or so I thought) so I walk over to the tank and see that he has taken off my brand new B-4 filter unit and replaced it with a %$%$%$%$ty General model????? I say to him....."that B-4 was brand new and it only needed a new filter....I want that one put back on!!!" I continue on by saying..."Your boss is charging me $225 for a complete service, vac the chamber, clean the heat exchange and flu pipe, nozzle, strainer and filter change......thats alot of money condidering you are not doing anything? Are you licensed to work on furnaces?" He replies...."Yup!"....."Oh...no but I am a licensed plumber!"

I reply....."Do me a favor......pack up your crap (insert different word) and get the @#$% out of here and tell your F'in boss if he has a problem to give me a call!!!!" So the kid splits and its about 4:00 and I still have no heat so I run to the supply store for a filter, nozzle and strainer and there happens to be a guy there who is licensed and comes recommended by the heating supply shop (I know them there as I bought all my stock from them for 10 years) so I figure....ok and he agrees to follow me to my house and take care of it! He sets ahead to finish the job, goes to fire up the furnace and it is smoking like a bastard!!! The idiot had cycled so much oil into the chamber by repeatedly hitting the reset button that it was smouldering and it was saturated with oil!!!!

So he has to open it up, pull the chamber out and inspect to find it is just that...soaked with oil so we decide to be safe we should buy a new combustion chamber for $300 and clean the oil out of the rest of the lining and such....so its 9:00pm and we have to wait until morning to pick up a new chamber. I ask the guy to call me first thing in the am and let me know that he got one? So I am waiting....waiting....10:00am no call so I call him! He says he is on his way and will be there in about an hour and a half! Fair enough see you then! 12:30..........1:00.......1:30....still no show so he finally calls at 2:00!!! He says "Oh I got a no-heat call and my girlfriend had a car accident and blah, blah, blah (I think oh here we go with the lame excuses like many service men do when they are behind the 8 ball and can't just give you the straight poop!). So he says....."I am on my way there right now"......I am thinking "ok.....see you in a few"! 2:30.......3:00..........4:00............4:45..... ...I am pissed off!!!! I call him and I say "Whats up?".....he says "I am just entering Hanover I will be there shortly".......5:00...........5:30......(now Hanover does not take 45 minutes to cross)........6:00............6:15 he gets there and I am ready to tear him a new a$$ and send him on his way and he is all apologies and such and I ask him...."Did you pick up a new combustion chamber?"..........he says....."I couldn't find one as they will take a few days to order and have delivered but we will just clean everything out and burn the oil from the chamber with a piece of lit paper" (its a trick to eliminate some of the saturation without having a fire in the furnace and minimize any risk of such). :OK...good enough I say lets do it...saves me $300 then lets do it!" Well......we remove the chamber fire it outside and as we are bringing it back in.....it crumbles into a half dozen pieces!!!!!

By this time I am fit to be friggin tied....its 8:30 pm and still no heat, its 10 degrees outside and we are faced with trying to scare up a new chamber or have one overnighted if need be to put it in on Christmas Eve day....and we have family coming that night for a party!!!!

Continued below!

PRBuzz · 12-23-2009, 02:17 PM

Did you mean to say you live on Elm St by any chance? Think they made a movie about this senario: Nightmare on Elm St.

So good luck with Santa bringing a new combustion chamber, he'll be there in 30 mins or so........he's just across the other side of Hanover.

Canalratt1 · 12-23-2009, 02:21 PM

Larry it is very easy to get an Oil Burners License, you make an appointment for the exam and pass it you have it! It is actually called an Oil Burners Technician Certificate and with it you can start your own company with no experiance! I know because I just got mine after going to school for that, Basic Electrical and HVAC (I got my 608 EPA Universal Certificate. I am still unemployed and looking to get into these fields. If I knew you were haveing this trouble I may have been able to help you out with it. Even if the chamber was soaked with oil you probably could have saved it but once it was removed you are pretty much screwed. The first guy probably kept hitting the reset, thats the main culprit with an oil soaked chamber. If your still stuck let me know myself and my buddy that I went to school lives close by but not till after Xmas. Good Luck!

BigFish · 12-23-2009, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canalratt1

Larry it is very easy to get an Oil Burners License, you make an appointment for the exam and pass it you have it! It is actually called an Oil Burners Technician Certificate and with it you can start your own company with no experiance! I know because I just got mine after going to school for that, Basic Electrical and HVAC (I got my 608 EPA Universal Certificate. I am still unemployed and looking to get into these fields. If I knew you were haveing this trouble I may have been able to help you out with it. Even if the chamber was soaked with oil you probably could have saved it but once it was removed you are pretty much screwed. The first guy probably kept hitting the reset, thats the main culprit with an oil soaked chamber. If your still stuck let me know myself and my buddy that I went to school lives close by but not till after Xmas. Good Luck!

I have one Tony.....ya still have to know the stuff to pass....they don't hand them out...if they did the "Clotpot" (Thanks Numby) would have had one that showed up first!

FishermanTim · 12-23-2009, 02:52 PM

Is there any way you can go after the first guy, the "plumber", and get some $$ from them for the damage he caused?

Hopefully everything will work out fine in the end.

Merry Christmas!

BigFish · 12-23-2009, 02:59 PM

To be honest with you FT...I have thought about it....and decided it will be more of a headache and a pain in the a$$...my a$$...and I will never see a dime so.....screw it! Chalking it up to lesson learned!

Sorry Tony if my last post sounded rude? I did not mean it to be! I am wound pretty tight right now!

Thanks for the offer....I do appreciate it. I have a oil burner license...but I did tank replacements and installs so my first hand knowledge and hands on beyond the firomatic valve at the burner pump was very limited. So I bow to those who do it for a living......I just picked a bad apple to start with!

afterhours · 12-23-2009, 03:38 PM

..oral gratification??? what's next? ....flyfishing?

BigFish · 12-23-2009, 02:27 PM

So first thing this am I get on the phone as does the service guy (did I mention he is a sharp kid, good at what he does not not good at showing up when he says he will?) and about 10:00 he calls me and we happen to both be on the phone with the same company who "might" have a chamber that they "think" might work (not 2 words you like to hear) so I agree to drive to Franklin to pick it up in the order of saving us some time and with the old chamber in hand I drive there to find that the one they have is simply too small......by this time I am ready to cry or kill and just then the warehouse guy comes in and says that there is a new furnace in the warehouse that was returned because of a cracked heat exchange and that maybe the chamber from that one just might be what we are looking for???? What are the friggin odds I think to myself but hey....lets have a look! We get out there and to my surprise the furnace is identical to mine in every way just a newer model than my 13 year old model so we take the burner off and remove the chamber and its a dead on match, just what we need!!! So new these chambers are $300.....the guy says "Give me $90 and its a deal!"......I am about to offer the guy oral gratification

I am so overjoyed but decide instead to give him $20 so he and his warehouse buddy can get lunch! He then says to me..."Here why don't you take the burner I have no need for it!"..........

Now we are almost back to oral gratification

but because I am in a hurry we just load the goods in the truck and I am off with a new $300 chamber and a brandy new Beckett burner complete that costs about $300 plus all for $90 bucks!!!

Sweet! Now I am just waiting for the guy to get here and I just talked with him on the phone and he says 4:00....which will mean 7:00 no doubt so tune in later to see......"If BigFish Has Heat or......if BigFish Gets Hot!!!"

Cross your fingers for me!

Slipknot · 12-23-2009, 05:54 PM

Ya he may be good at what he does, but he is poor at making excuses and promises , he can't be in 2 places at once, not reliable is not good, just tell the truth if ya got too much work to handle. yikes
don't piss off the bigfish

good luck Larry
just put the thing on yourself already

BigFish · 12-23-2009, 06:03 PM

Just called....10 minutes away...so maybe here at 7?

Swimmer · 12-23-2009, 06:15 PM

You can't make this chit up! Good luck Larry!

Merry Christmas Angie.

afterhours · 12-23-2009, 08:29 PM

well........???? maybe frank will have to check on him....

Backbeach Jake · 12-23-2009, 09:32 PM

That poor kid is gonna get himself killed if he hasn't already.

PRBuzz · 12-23-2009, 09:28 PM

9:30 Got Heat?

Slipknot · 12-24-2009, 08:29 AM

All's well that ends well

ProfessorM · 12-24-2009, 10:39 AM

good thing you didn't offer him a lite beer

Glad it all turned out alright and you are warm and snuggly for the holidays. Have a Merry Christmas.

Swimmer · 12-24-2009, 12:43 PM

Bravo!

Canalratt1 · 12-24-2009, 12:56 PM

Glad it worked out for yah.

vineyardblues · 12-24-2009, 02:06 PM

Gage Lane update / the good / bad / ugly

Well the service tech just left, $169
I just learned way too much , he did everything that Larry asked about

But he also found that my chamber wall is falling down, and a valve that has a leak, he will call next week for that work ..lol

All in All I would tell others to use them (centeral Mass Company)
A cleaning is 120 with the parts electrodes/ nozzle / filters total was 169

It is now running st 82.2 %

eastendlu · 12-24-2009, 03:05 PM

Great ending but may i suggest next time just go to the movies and watch Avatar while the kid is on his way that way you have something to do instead of just waiting and getting aggravated.

Backbeach Jake · 12-24-2009, 03:42 PM

Glad to hear that the kid will see Christmas...if he only knew how close he came to holding up BF's basement floor.

Larry , sounds like you did real good ,too!

Nebe · 12-24-2009, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eastendlu

Great ending but may i suggest next time just go to the movies and watch Avatar while the kid is on his way that way you have something to do instead of just waiting and getting aggravated.

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