Thursday, February 21, 2013

Not a fan

I'm going to go on a mini tirade here.  Yesterday, you might've seen the pic with the hole in the ceiling in our bathroom?  If you don't remember, here it is:


In seeing the rat's nest of wires just kind of hanging out up in the attic and the new fan saying the electrical was on the other side, the Mr knew it wouldn't reach.  We made an appointment with these electricians that we used before and had a great experience so why not use them again.  They knew they would be installing a bathroom fan and running a junction box in the attic.  They had two guys that were here last time, both had no problems shimmying up into the attic so there was no reason to be concerned...until I opened the door.

First off, the guy was 30 minutes late which put me in a grumpy mood to start.  Then when I opened the door, there before me stood an older dude, 5'6", easily in the upper 200's to low 300's with baby T-Rex arms that were NOT going to be able to stretch like the Mr's did.  I thought "oh well, don't judge a book by it's cover, maybe he's still got it going on and won't have a problem."  But I'll admit, I was concerned.  If the Mr couldn't hoist himself into the attic (there's a plywood "chute" all the way around the opening in the attic) then I had no clue how this guy was going to do it unless he had an ejector seat to rocket himself up there.  I go up and show him the fan, tell him to get to it and we go our separate ways.  He's up there fartin' around for an hour before coming down telling me there's a problem.  He said "I can't get up in the attic and that needs to be installed up in the attic."  I said "I know, that's what's on the work order."  He said he'd have to call two other guys to come out and install it because the ductwork was rigid and would need to be cut and re-routed and...well, and then his voice morphed into Charlie Brown adults "wah wah wah wah wah wahhhhhh" until I heard $300-500 and "we'll be here 4-5 hours."  I laughed in his face.  I said "that's not happening."  He said he'd go to Home Depot to get a standard fan for us.  I laughed again and said no because we know what they have in stock and this was our 2nd fan.  I called the Mr at work and had him talk to him.  He told him to install the junction box and he would see if the friend of ours (who installed the one before it) would take a look at it.  He installed the electrical and left.

Thankfully our friend was able to install the box and NO the ductwork did NOT need cut, re-routed, etc and he was done in an hour.  THAT is what ticked us off is that this guy basically lied.  Our friend took one look at it and said we didn't need all of the ductwork and stuff we bought and he hooked it right up.  The guy we paid to be here basically didn't want to do the job or was incapable of doing the job and gave me that ridiculous estimate to scare me away from wanting to okay the job.  I knew the length of time he was saying was a load of crap anyway.  Then the Mr finished the job installing the fan/light.  Poor nugget.  He came straight home from work and into that and was working on it until 8:30pm.  We also felt horrible asking our friend to do that when he was coming straight from work too.  We tried to pay him and he refused and said that's what friends are for.  He's such a keeper!  Not many people like that anymore.

I'll be honest, I'm not crazy about the thing.  It looks like a portal to another dimension.


But I'm proud of the Mr for his part in installing it, grateful for our friend to be able to help us out and even I screwed it to the ceiling so for all of that, I'll live with it.  It's either that or builder grade ugly plastic-y crap and I'm not down with that.  But the Mr has showered and said the mirror barely fogged and there wasn't water all over the walls so that's already reason enough to keep it.

Have you ever had a bad contractor experience?

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14 comments:

  1. I am sooo glad that is over with! I was starting to get too used to the hole in the ceiling waiting for the electrician to come and could not believe it when he said he couldn't do it. Total BS! So we end up paying full price for him to do the easiest part of the job and still had to do the hard work ourselves. Lesson learned I guess.

    I wish I was more handy but I probably wouldn't be as good with computers so there's a trade off and it's all good in the end.

    I am proud that we all got it done together and we are very lucky to have such good friends!

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    1. Me too! It's weird getting used to the quieter fan. Now everyone will be able to hear me pee when we have company. We'll have to put an MP3 player in there..."music to wee by." Hey, I'll take your handiness in computers thankyouverymuch! I've got a little handy gene to a degree but yeah we're not gonna screw with electrical! Yes, we're very lucky!

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  2. I'm glad you had a friend able to help you. Too bad you didn't specifically request the guys that came last time. Or did you and they sent the wrong guy?

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    1. Me too! We didn't because honestly, I thought they were the only two there (it's a very small operation) but the one guy (owner and main electrical dude) had the flu and was going to the hospital. Honestly I would've rather waited a day or two to get them than to waste our time with the guy who came out. Lesson learned. I'll either specifically request someone or take my chances with another company.

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  3. Oh do NOT get me started on bad experiences! But the one that got me was when we remodeled the kitchen and the plumber installed our sink with at least 1/2 an inch of goo showing that it sat on. It bounced. It was hideous. He kept telling me 'this is how you install sinks' like I'd never seen a sink before. I refused to pay him- we had to take it out and scrape all the crap off and install it ourselves. It still doesn't bounce.

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    1. Oh yeah, don't you know that's how sinks are installed now? I call that the "little lady." A nod to old timers who think women should been seen and not heard and certainly have no concept of how simple things work because that's "man stuff." This is why I no longer go to car dealerships...I'd end up jail. Good for you for not paying him. That's total BS!

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  4. I think it looks nice! I hate dealing with contractors of any kind. It seems they all lie and want to rip you off. Is anyone just honest anymore? UGH I feel like that at the dentist too. I feel like dentists and orthodontists are the same way. I take excellent care of my teeth and for years we didn't have dental, so I didn't go to the dentist regularly. When I first went back after a while, she told me my teeth looked they had just been clean. I literally never have tartar build up. Well, last time I went, I had a cavity, which I couldn't even see, but she insisted it was there. I have another friend who every time they go needs work done. The dentist wanted me to meet with the ortho about my 9 year old's teeth. They are a little crooked and we figured he'd need braces eventually. The ortho told us it's mostly cosmetic at this point, but gave us all these options of pulling out his baby teeth, FOUR OF THEM, so the others would hopefully grow in straighter. Then we could get braces on just the top, but he'd need more later. WTF I plan on waiting until he's 12 and dealing with it then when he's got all his adult teeth. I don't want to put him through that, not to mention the cost. It's like you can't trust anyone anymore.

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    1. I suppose it's better than the boob fan that was hanging there. :) Ugh, docs in general tend to run up the cost but I've heard orthos can be the worst!

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  5. oh no!

    My finance installed a bathroom fan & wired it but it didn't work. Well sort of .. when you turned on the bathroom light, the bedroom light would turn on. When you turned on the hallway light, it would turn on the fan, etc, etc. He fiddled with it for about 6 hours, lots of cursing, lots of fighting, etc.

    We eventually hired a referred licensed electrician. He quoted me $175. He ended up replacing some wires (long story) for $25 and it came out to $200. He was at the house for about 2.5 hours. I live in Denver (for comparison).

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    1. I could not stop laughing. That sounded so Three's Company! Yeah that sounds pretty comparable. When it comes to electric, I would rather a professional do it.

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  6. Two thing I can't abide: 1) tardiness without a courtesy phone call, and 2) being lied to or talked down to because I'm a female.

    If we're voting, I like the fan.

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  7. Can you tell me what kind/brand of fan this is? I am in much need of a good bathroom exhaust fan for our 2 bathrooms. One is awful, like a swamp. Ugh! Thanks!

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    1. It's a Hunter brand fan. I can't remember the actual model name but we got it from Lowes. Honestly, it only does a slightly better job with the steam in there...still have steamed up mirrors and shouldn't with the power it has vs the space. So make sure you research all that stuff and get more power than you think you'll need.

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    2. Thank you for the information!

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