Dancing with life! PAH

Dave Yates (PAH)

Isn't it an interesting dance we find ouerselves enjoying. It's almost as if we are waltzing through life and finding our "partners" changing with each tune (job). We wind ouselves up and intertwine our lives with customers lives during the work. Brief encounters whose memories last our lifetimes.

For instance; the new radiant job upon which we embarked today. The HO is doing the Lion's share of the installation work - I dropped off 2,000+ Lbs of radiant product to him tonight - he (they) just found out last night that another blessing will be arriving in another 7 or 8 months - just in time for a wonderful radiant environment to rival that from which he or she will have just come from! The work takes on new meaning & we share conversations about our children, their births and growth. So we'll share our lives for some of the next six to eight months as this project winds its way to completion. Which is why we (you & I) would make lousy Doctors or Nurses since we get too involved in our patients lives! It's also why (I think) we all excell at what we do - because the work is no longer just work, it takes on a life of its own.

Today, Mike (our 15-year-old who is working with us this summer) worked in a very old home in center city York that was a stop on the underground railroad. Above the second floor ceiling, there is a hidden hideaway under the eaves of the roof where slaves escaping the bondage of ownership could hide for a few hours or days while regaining their strength or catching some needed shut-eye. (BTW, white people lived there at that time.) A piece of history preserved by a plexiglass cover & a light to showcase that darkened recess with matress, oil lamp and a few accessories. I don't know if he's caught the ability yet, but I can feel the spirits and hopes of those long gone travelers and, if I allow myself the luxury - by closing my eyes and listening quietly - almost hear their hushed whispers as they anxiously faced the unknown freedoms that awaited their travels end.

Being a plumber is the best job in the world!

PS - We have much work to do. This job is hardwood over radiant & no flooring companies would warrant the floor. The hardwood council echoed the installers sentiments. This, as I see it, is an opportunity for the RPA to include a "Hardwood Flooring Certification" as a portion of their testing to then turn over names of contractors to the hardwood flooring council as installers who are qualified to correctly install radiant under their flooring products. If we (as a group) can develop standards that govern installation guidelines and qualify license holders through training, we would all come up winners! They sell more hardwood, we sell more radiant - it doesn't get any better than that. HR, ME - I'm not on the board so I have to rely on you two to move this forward with the RPA??? This HO is no dummy & he's done tons of homework including reading Siggy's book cover-to-cover (well, he IS an engineer too!) and he could not find one single hardwood installer that was comfortable regarding radiant heating under their products. Too many bad experiences with unqualified installers, so they said. He then went to the Hardwood Council & they too refused to endorse radiant under hardwood flooring. If our HO hadn't done his homework, he'd have been turned to the dark side (scorched air) long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away - but I digress! Siggy's book convinced him he was on the right track that hardwood and radiant can be married & unbeknownst to me (until tonight), that's where he gathered the information upon which I was quizzed. Little did I know I was being graded the whole time based upon John's book and information(G). See, going to the RPA conventions and paying attention in Siggy's classes does pay off!

Our next four radiant jobs are all 100% under hardwood flooring!!!! We can't be the only ones willing to go where no flooring contractors have willingly gone(G). Should I withdraw or tell the owners they "can't have hardwood over radiant heating" as was told this HO by everyone but us??? Am I nuts or crazy? - Don't answer that!

Educate the builders too - this one told the HO that bare tubing stapled up in the joist bays were all that was needed & should only take a day to complete!

We should be working hand-in-hand with the various hardwood councils to educate and remove this stigma. Hell, I thought that WAS what WAS being done. But tonight I find the HO's of this world continue to receive bad advice regarding the possibilities radiant heating has to offer - from the ex-spurts no less.

It's all in the controls!

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Dan Peel

as art mimics life

You're not alone out there...... Dan

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DanHolohan

Should we have

a Radiant and Wood Floors table at the Gathering of Wetheads?

Dave Yates (PAH)

Yes suh!

But I want to float about & not be tied to one table as a chair (pun intended).

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Unknown

wood

almost evry radiant jobwe've ever done is under wod flors up here and not that laminate stuff most people here consider it fake and it's hated as much as vinyl siding which some places here have laws against installing!

DanHolohan

no chairs

at this Gathering. Everyone's on the move!

Dave Yates (PAH)

Last one

to the radiant beer cooling table buys the house a round!!!

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Joel

Beer table

Hey this is the home of Sam Adams only 35 miles or so from Marlboro to boston. . The start of the revolution, so we finally had something beyond Bud and Miller to choose from. Now THAT is acompany that ought to sponsor the event!!

Unknown

THE BEST DIALOG YET! TtHANKS TO ALL (nm) bigugh

(nm)

ScottMP

May I cut in ?

Dave what a wonderfull analogy

I think back on customers whose lives we have become involved in, people whom I never would have meet if not for this business. Some have become great friends, some who have inriched my live by there support. Customers who have called up and said, So and So says your are a wonderfull person.

It reminds me of customers who have passed away.

One older woman who told me " your going to think I am proposing, but, would you be my plumber ? ".

I think of the couple who got involved with an unscrupulous contracter and I wound up being the only contractor to stay and finish the job. The wife wound up having cancer and passing away. He has since re-married and is still a customer. We sometimes both remember his first wife while talking in the basement.

I remember the wealthy woman who's family fought over her wealth while she lay dying in the front room. She asked me to sit with her and talk one Saturday, our conversation constantly interupted by her coughing. I sat in the back row of the funeral, with the landscape company and young man who plowed her driveway. Not a member of the family, just a friend.

And I think of the customer who's grandmother passed away and left her a house in our small town. Fifteen years ago she lived in the house while it was renovated, so she could rent it with the idea of " someday moving back to live here ". She and her husband have now retired and we are in the process of removing the old steam system ( sorry noel and steamhead, but a different job ) and installing radiant and Buderus panels radiators with constant circulation.

All of this happened because I "cut-in" on their dance.

I am so wealthy in life experience because of this trade.

Oh Yea, we have done numerous climate panel jobs with hardwood without any reprocusions. Why can't the wood industry see how we help there business.

Scott Milne

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