When It Rains It Pours...

What a week...the water heater blew out, the extra-fancy grind & brew coffee pot died, balljoint seized up on my daily driver, and a one year-old battery in my weekend cruiser decided to short out. The bright side is that the new water heater is staged in the basement and ready for a early morning swap, plus I found the receipt for my shorted-out battery. In the meantime, I have tapped into my special reserve of Labatt Ice & Molsen Export. Anyone else have a "challenging" week?

Yea, I guess so.....

My trucks radiator sprung a leak and was fixed. Then, the very next day the water pump blew and I had to drive a 22 foot long truck without power steering to the mechanic's shop. At least I saved a AAA tow for when it's really needed.

So I feel ya, bad week for unexpected expenses!

Hell I had me a great week. I cracked open a new bottle of morgan and celebrating my promotion this weekend! :box: :pepsi:

markviii wrote:What a week...the water heater blew out...The bright side is that the new water heater is staged in the basement and ready for a early morning swap, plus I found the receipt for my shorted-out battery. In the meantime, I have tapped into my special reserve of Labatt Ice & Molsen Export. Anyone else have a "challenging" week?

Did you give any thought to borrowing the pool heater?

Mike

Yes, and it would have been a solution if I wasn't out of coal. There is no rice coal to be had locally, and I dislike the low water volume through the heat exchanger in the EFM anyway. I will upgrade to a larger indirect and hopefully be able to run the boilers less aggressively (more storage, less recovery).

Gottcha Rob, the little electronic thingy in my distrbuter bit the bullet right down the road instead of up near Syracuse where I was headed (1 hr away) replacement & labor came to $66.00--I was real happy with that. I hate this electronic crap you can't see it, feel it or smell it THEN--set my coffee maker to start at 5:45 AM & came out in the morning to find the coffee all over the counter & floor--more weird modern day crap. Oh well, at least the truck started so I could get downtown to get my AM coffee Somebody many yrs ago told me never to ask " what the hell else could go wrong" sooooo, I didn't.

markviii wrote:, the extra-fancy grind & brew coffee pot died,

I'll mention it because I would imagine it's fairly common issue. I had a regular coffee maker that just started making steam. In the tube going from the bottom of the reservoir was a check valve, there was a piece of debris in it. You just take the tube off and you can squeeze the valve out. I had a thread on it, I'd imagine many coffee makers make it into the garbage heap because of this. A large enough coffee ground would clog it.

The rear gas tank on my F-250 sprang a leak this week.

A couple weeks ago my 93 Ranger starter brushes touched the commutator for the very last time; in the HD loading area; with a new Admiral washing machine in the back. My bad nervous decision was to call a friend, go to absurdly overpriced Pep Boys and get a battery. Click click click, o no it's the starter. An hour or so later the AAA driver helps me put the new machine in my other junky truck, after a nice ride home. I install the machine in the pastor's house, and hear a day later that the machine was faulty out of the box. I find the best price for a starter on Ebay and a week later it arrives, I install it, and now feel guilty as hell because it's Chinese made. Decide to fix the old Ford PMGR starter, find brushes for it on Ebay. By the time they arrive, I have the starter cleaned restored regreased, ready to go. Go to install the new brushes, a brush spring pops out, hits my face, and disappears into the shop, gone forever. I pick the starter over my head and smash it on the floor in frustration.
Then I get work to put a maintenance coat of finish on a redwood deck. My hernia is bothering me, so I drag a big white cast metal table across the deck, leaving two long scratches. I power wash the deck with my 8hp. 2500 psi power washer, and a socket cap screw decides to fail from metal fatigue. This causes the pump manifold to separate and the pump destroys itself. Wood-n-coal is kind enough to recommend a parts place; but despite the fact that their prices were the best, I pay outrageous Pentagon/ Rolls Royce price for a handful of parts.
Then, a new customer wants me to restore a huge cherry McMansion front door that he has allowed the clear finish to completely deteriorate. The panels are cracked straight through. I stand there and listen to the guy blame the door. Offer to fix and paint the door. Not good enough, see ya bye bye rather starve.
Landlady/friend calls, " I need you to take the drain cover off my shower drain. I want to put baking soda and white vinegar in there to clear the drain." I explain that won't do ANYTHING, arguement ensues, I have to fight tooth and nail to force her to let me do her a favor. The little philips head screws on the cheap Oatey drain are plugged with mineral deposits. I dig out the minerals with a box cutter and take off the cover. Drain is plugged with mineral deposits. Go to HD, they don't have sulfuric acid. Go to hardware store and pay $15 for a quart of acid worth 50 cents. come back, an put a keyhole saw down the drain and extract a disgusting ball of hair and minerals enough to make a surgeon puke. Put in acid, breath in fumes, cough the remains of my Marlboro lungs out, drain restored. OK , now I'm off to sand the customer's deck boards to remove the scratch under warranty I offer, i.e. make good on my mistake. Power washer repaired and in one piece, I'm afraid to test it lol.

Sometimes I want to hide in the closet, I just have a bad feeling about things.

Absolutely nothing broke on the farm in the last 48 hours. I suppose that means the end of the world is coming as it never happened before. I am relaxing today and drinking a beer watching my neighbor with his brandy new $93000 Deere tractor.... and to think I have problems. My 1946 Farmall M is still dragging the manure cart out everyday. When the carb leaked I hit it with a hammer and the hood is duct taped down to keep the rain out. Next year when the float gets stuck again I will hit it with a hammer again and use more duct tape. Mr Showoff will have to get his tier 4 diesel serviced......and I think I've got problems.You see it's all relative.

Yea I had one of those weeks.(actually 2 weeks). My radiator sprang a leak in my truck and an area that could not be repaired. $750.00. Riding mower broke and already had lots of other problems. Got them all fixed. $1,200.00. Then my truck quit running altogether. Turned out to be a diesel injector pump. $2,100.00 for the part and $1,100.00 labor. Then finally I went to the dentist cause I had lost a filling. Dentist found another problem that required a new filling and another that requires a crown. $400.00 for the fillings and $1,100.00 for the crown next week. I'm hemoraging money. Oh yea and I've got a doctors appointment Tuesday for a potentially expensive and maybe serious problem. I've got a lump where you are not supposed to have a lump. I need a beer!

Damn ck, we were talking about when it rains it pours, not torrential downpours Good luck with that Dr. thing Tuesday.

Dann757 wrote:Then, a new customer wants me to restore a huge cherry McMansion front door that he has allowed the clear finish to completely deteriorate. The panels are cracked straight through. I stand there and listen to the guy blame the door. Offer to fix and paint the door. Not good enough, see ya bye bye rather starve.

Isn't it the damnedest thing. Sometimes you can quote a very high price and they don't blink. Other times they die over a bargain price. A colleague tells me unless their eyes start to water your price is too low. Many will charge for an estimate. Unfortunately the ability to sell is a separate thing from the ability to do the job. Too often the fancy talker gets the job that you wind up doing right after he makes the money.

You certainly have had your share of bad luck for one week. Your luck has only one way to go now, up.

My daughter is moving out in a couple of weeks to be on her own. Another birdie leaves the nest. Anyhow, I wanted to get her car fixed up so she didn't have to worry about it for a while. Took it to my mechanic. Strut packs, brakes, rotors, plugs, front wheel bearings and $931.99 dollars later mission accomplished. A little more than I had envisioned. After reading other posts here, I consider myself lucky.