My local heros

JStar

ChrisJ, I reported your house to the local authorities.

j a_2

Some folk may like hanging gutters...They see it as art work..And if you write them up you could be offending them....Its a funny funny world out here...

JStar

j a said:

Some folk may like hanging gutters...They see it as art work..And if you write them up you could be offending them....Its a funny funny world out here...

I'll gladly offend 1,000 contractors if I can keep somebody safe.

ChrisJ

Hatterasguy said:

JStar said:

ChrisJ, I reported your house to the local authorities.

I do believe the local authorities are also very interested in ChrisJ due to his propensity for stealing old GE refrigerators.

I don't steal.

RobG

ChrisJ said:

Hatterasguy said:

JStar said:

ChrisJ, I reported your house to the local authorities.

I do believe the local authorities are also very interested in ChrisJ due to his propensity for stealing old GE refrigerators.

I don't steal.

Acquiring and stealing are two completely different things! My wife would kill me if I stole something, but she only gets irritated when I acquire things.

KC_Jones

So is it called acquiring when you don't get caught?

j a_2

JStar said:

j a said:

I think I missed your point...Is it your policy to go into ones home,say for tstat and start writing defects within there home....I hope not

Why? If I'm in a home and witness a safety or health hazard, I have the responsibility as a professional technician to alert the homeowner of the situation and document it with a customer's signature, assuring that they understand the issue and do not hold me liable for any of it. I don't care if I'm only working on the boiler but I see the gutters are hanging off the side of the house. If I see it, I am obliged to document it. If I'm the last contractor in a house, I can get blamed for any problem in the home. In NJ, we do have the authority to red-tag and disable unsafe equipment.

quite honestly I do no agree with your policy. But that's fine...If a gutter guy or dishwasher repairman,came into my home and started writing up defects and then told me I was going to sign off on them, I would tell him he is out of place and please leave.....No differerence between a gutter technician or a dishwasher technician....

j a_2

Losing you on this one...what does that have to do with safety...Can you explain that one...My point was a contractor is a contractor not one trade is better than the other...Jstar said as a contractor that is his resplnsibility, so one would assume yes mr. Dishwasher man can write and have you sign...I think NOT

ChrisJ

Wonder if oversized steam headers are anything like large pickup trucks that never carry anything.

Na.....

MarkS

ChrisJ said:

Wonder if oversized steam headers are anything like large pickup trucks that never carry anything.

Na.....

Overcompensating without the public display? Seems kind of pointless.

ChrisJ

MarkS said:

ChrisJ said:

Wonder if oversized steam headers are anything like large pickup trucks that never carry anything.

Na.....

Overcompensating without the public display? Seems kind of pointless.

True.
So what does overcompensating without public display indicate?

j a_2

Totally lost on this one ...but that's easy for me, just a dumb old plumber/heating guy

ChrisJ

j a said:

Totally lost on this one ...but that's easy for me, just a dumb old plumber/heating guy

Dumb doesn't necessarily go with old and neither go with plumbing or heating.

You may be old and a plumbing/heating guy but that doesn't mean you're dumb.

JStar

j a said:

JStar said:

j a said:

I think I missed your point...Is it your policy to go into ones home,say for tstat and start writing defects within there home....I hope not

Why? If I'm in a home and witness a safety or health hazard, I have the responsibility as a professional technician to alert the homeowner of the situation and document it with a customer's signature, assuring that they understand the issue and do not hold me liable for any of it. I don't care if I'm only working on the boiler but I see the gutters are hanging off the side of the house. If I see it, I am obliged to document it. If I'm the last contractor in a house, I can get blamed for any problem in the home. In NJ, we do have the authority to red-tag and disable unsafe equipment.

quite honestly I do no agree with your policy. But that's fine...If a gutter guy or dishwasher repairman,came into my home and started writing up defects and then told me I was going to sign off on them, I would tell him he is out of place and please leave.....No differerence between a gutter technician or a dishwasher technician....

Here's the difference: I know better. If somebody isn't aware that there's a safety hazard, then they can't report it. But, if I see a safety concern, I must report it. I don't care if it's legally required. As a fellow human being, it's the right thing to do.

j a_2

I guess if that's your policy and the law of the land in your areas of work, then fine..That type of approach would never fly in this area...If I had tried or someone thinks there coming into my home and sniffing around then tell me I had to sign off on his sheet, I say there off there rocker...Don't let the door hit you butt on the way out

JStar

I don't go out of my way to look for problems. If I see them, I bring them to the homeowners attention. Like I said before, I'm not worried about hurting somebody's feelings.

j a_2

But why make them sign off on it and report them...Don't you think the owner, being a good human being as you are will take care of it as he should

JStar

Maybe I'm being unclear. I'm not reporting them to any authority. I report the safety concerns to the homeowner, explain the dangers, and have them sign off to relieve myself of any liability.

Bob Bona_4

I do the same Joe. I bring them to either the emergency switch or breaker, have them watch me shut it off, take a pic of it off, and they sign if they re-energize, it's at their peril.

ChrisJ

A coworker showed me pictures of her steam boiler.
I felt it was my responsibility as a fellow human being to tell her it was a bomb waiting to go off and convinced her to call Jstar.

Same goes for anything you know could hurt someone in my opinion. Even if it's not your responsibility as an HVAC guy, it is as a person.

j a_2

JStar said:

If you see it, it becomes your responsibility to report it, or you can be held liable for misleading the homeowner.

Maybe I misunderstood the above post...I read it that you reported it ....To me notifying the owner is different than reporting it..

Robert_25

What are these chimneys plugged with? I have never seen anything even close to these pictures with oil. Wood yes, and coal can deposit a lot of flyash in the flue.

After seeing these pictures I decided to check the chimney and flue pipe in my own house this weekend...thankfully it was clean.

ChrisJ

Robert said:

What are these chimneys plugged with? I have never seen anything even close to these pictures with oil. Wood yes, and coal can deposit a lot of flyash in the flue.



After seeing these pictures I decided to check the chimney and flue pipe in my own house this weekend...thankfully it was clean.

Not sure what was in mine, but it looked a lot like what comes out of an oil fired boiler when you clean it. That and chips and pieces of a clay liner that shouldn't have been exposed.

Who knows when the last time my chimney was cleaned. I took those pictures a month or so after we bought the house and my guy couldn't clean the chimney. His brush kept getting stuck where two liners met and had a gap. So my guess is the chimney was never cleaned from the 1980s until 2011.