Last week, Stefan took advantage of his parents being around and scheduled a heater repairman to come out. We’ve had issues with a couple of our heaters since we moved in…partially because our contractor was an idiot – and also because we never managed to get someone out here who could really tell us what we needed to do. But last Tuesday (when Stefan was coincidentally home anyway after me and Mackenzie kept him up all night at the hospital) a guy came out and had a look at all of our heaters. Some of them have worked on partially for a while (which we assumed had something to do with their not being a strong enough pump for everything we have on this heating system) and one in our guest bath hasn’t worked since we moved in because our former contractor replaced it with a new one…then couldn’t figure out how to get it working so he just gave up.
At any rate, this guy was quite good and seemed to know what he was talking about. He replaced the valves on all the heaters and things were starting to work really well…except for in our living room where it is always immensely cold. The old heater in there just didn’t provide enough heat into the room so it was recommended that we replace it with a new triple-layer heater. Without us even asking, the guy offered us a 20% discount on the price…and said that if Stefan helped with the removal of the old, massively heavy steel heater, they would shave a bit more off the price. SOLD!
So we didn’t hear anything from them but expected that they would make an appointment for sometime this week. Instead, they showed up at our door at 10am unannounced. And instead of just one guy, it was two. Riiiight. So Stefan called the boss-man who said he’d tried to call yesterday but never got through. Apparently Stefan’s Blackberry went on vacation too and turned itself off to receiving phone calls. The boss-man also said not to worry about the second guy because he was not going to charge us for him. Right on. We still get the same great deal on the installation and repair but Stefan doesn’t have to do any work.
Although to be fair, these guys are barely fit enough to be considered two guys. One has to be close to 70…the other is about 60 and just may have tuberculosis. They looked like they were going to pass out when they were carrying the heater outside. Oh, and did I mention it’s snowing outside and just at freezing? Yeah, that makes the job easier for them. Stefan offered to help but they insisted that they had it…and they did manage to get it down the front steps without any incident. We were both thinking a hernia would pop up at any moment but I guess they have done this before…besides, they made sure to lift the thing only about an inch off the ground…less distance to fall. By the way, I have moved one of these heaters with Stefan before myself. Yes, they are solid and heavy…but if you don’t have the combined age of 130, it tends to go a tad bit easier.
Anywho, two hours later, the heater is installed and they didn’t even wake up Mackenzie in the process. Thank God she’s a very sound sleeper…and had just had 3 rounds of breakfast before being tucked into her burrito. We already notice a change in the room temperature of the living room…it’s going to be downright toasty in there soon, which may take some getting used to. Even with it being barely above freezing outside and snowing, I’m not using a blanket. I can live with that.
The repairmen were actually quite proficient and worked pretty fluidly. I think we’ve finally found a heater company we can live with, plus they also don’t seem to be overbooked like the rest of the heater people we’ve talked with recently.
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