Craziest thing a customer ever told you

I have an oil leak.

Not such a strange service call being that I worked on oil burners for a living, but this one was a little different.

Picture this: You are a Coast Guard enlisted man in your dress blues. You are 2 hours from reporting for duty. You are going to deploy for 30 days on a Coast Guard Cutter. Your wife and new baby are saying goodbye and as you are ready to get in your car, you happen to see a little rust under a paint chip on your oil tank. Just before getting in the car you decide to flick off that rust. Then a pin hole opens up and oil starts to trickle out in a steady stream. You put your finger on the hole and yell for your wife. She calls the oil company, and within minutes my phone rings.

Here is the rest of the story:

I looked at a boiler install because I was interested as my friend owned the house before the current owner and I was working across the street.

I looked at the boiler that the new owner installed and told him that the installation was incorrect. He said, "I don't want to hear any criticism of another contractor." So, I shut up and walked out, thinking that a more intelligent reply would have been, "Why do you think it was installed incorrectly?" Not crazy, just stupid.

You only have 30 seconds. GO!

I tried to rent boilers to apartment owners. An advantage to customers is that they can expense rent as opposed to depreciating purchase slowly. Tough sell. Later change to business tax was to allow expensing purchase if it "saved energy". But that too was a tough sell.

I don't know if crazy is the correct word but you'd suppose that businesspersons do arithmetic?

Looking back I think I was a little crazy to attempt unconventional enterprises.

MATT, I did get paid after going around and around with Richard.

Was the old one level?

"Yeah just go ahead and do it, I don't care what it costs"

-Easily the craziest thing I've ever heard from a customer.

Sometimes the "go ahead and do it I don't care what it costs" bites you in the butt. You don't get the job in writing and you do what they need and charge them a fair price …not gouging and then Mr. NICE GUY refuses to pay.

@EBEBRATT-Ed

Did you stop and get him milk and TP?

"The check is in the mail." (t was not)

Mattmia, it was level but way out of calibration, the reason we replaced is she wanted one that looked newer as old was really faded plastic finish.

"We paid all this money for floor heat so the floors would be warm and they are cold." Stat was set at 72* with air temp 72*. I said if you are cold turn the thermostat higher. "I don't want it warmer but I want the floor warmer." I said, "Then open the windows."

I tried to explain the floor temp is only as high as needed to warm the room to the thermostat setting. She coudn't grasp it but her husband understood. She told the boss, "I think his cancer has gone to his brain". (I had cancer at the time) That wasn't the only item I couldn't get across to her, but 20yrs later I still do service for them. To my knowledge she never opened the windows for warmer floors!

Oh I had a similar one though I was not the installer and it was sort of backwards, they wanted to know why it was so hot in a room and wanted me to check the boiler installation because they suspect it was overheating the space. they had an entryway into a fairly small living room area and I noticed one of those electric floor heat thermostats on the wall, it was set to floor temp of 95, I think the max it would allow lol They did not believe me when i told them that the floor heat also heats the space and will over temp if left too high, fixed some thermostat time/schedule problems for the bedroom which made them happy. The guy took me out to show me his corvette after and even let me sell them a boiler for a new garage he built to keep the corvette clean, I just told him the floor was not going to be 95 lol He said that was fine because his wife wanted nothing to do with the corvette garage

There was a small 1100 sq ft house with full basement.

The owners eventually finished off 1/2 half of the basement. The 80% furnace and standard WH were in the other half. The wife would come home and start the dryer, exhaust hood and husband would come home and shower with exhaust fan on. The WH was cold the next morning as the pilot got snuffed out.

This only happen after finishing off 1/2 of the basement, the wife would not believe me that all of her exhausting was pulling air down the B-vent chimney.

I told the husband that we should experiment by cracking the basement window in the mechanical half of the basement for a few days.

See how the WH did with that air inlet and if it worked then I would cut in a comb air inlet.

Hubby agreed but wife said "We are not going to leave a window open in the basement or cut a hole in the side of the house!!"

So hubby had to get a second opinion. A week later he called back and said to cut the inlet.

The 2nd opinion guy had added a register/grill in the basement duct, but in the return duct.

The hubby knew this was counterproductive and dangerous.

They now have a 6" inlet with insulated flex hanging down near the WH.

Who's on first??? Mad Dog

Wait a minute! Add a battery which can then run the generator which will charge the battery and power the house.

Perpetual free energy, where do I sign up!
:)

It was fun reading all of these. Thanks, Ray.