So sorry to hear this. My condolences.
But it just reinforces that city kitties don’t live long when they’re outdoor cats.
I agree about the boiler. Is the warranty expired? Also, $500/year for a maintenance call is outright thievery. All the maintenance call does is have the guy check your flue gases, replace your thermocouple, check the pressure on the expansion tank, check your pressure relief valve, and check your firing mechanism and maybe a few other externals. I think we used to pay about $90 for that in the past. It’s more now because we have a heat pump thrown into the mix, but it’s still under $200/year. If you haven’t been doing the annual maintenance, that’s not a good thing, as a qualified tech can spot a problem before it becomes a really big problem. Still, I don’t know why a boiler would crack like that unless somehow cold water was dumped into a hot and empty vessel.
I grew up in an apartment complex and we ever did was call the maintenance guy. So I let my husband handle this stuff because he grew up in a very old house that he and his dad fixed up. It looks like I’m going to have to learn far more about boilers than I ever wanted to know. Ah the joys of an older home!
A properly maintained boiler will easily last 25 years. Our last one was going on 35 years when we sold our house. It was far from efficient, but a new one would have been a minimum of $5,000. The maintenance guy always seemed so disappointed to have to tell us that it was doing just fine, that the refactory was fine, and that it was burning clean. But we always had the annual maintenance done, and I watched the guy while he did it to make sure he didn’t skip anything. One guy got pissed because he told me ‘oh, you don’t really need to check the flue gases’, and I said ‘do it anyway’. Well, I forgot my meter. Go get it. 
Educate yourself about what constitutes a good maintenance check and then make sure everything gets done. And shop around, 'cause these people are ripping you off.
Well, on the (almost) bright side, $500.00 * 9 years is $4500.00. So by avoiding the maintenance, you saved almost enough to pay for the new boiler.
I just had no idea we needed some sort of maintenance on it. I assumed my husband knew what to do each year and that was that. I remember we asked the people who installed the boiler what to do and they said we didn’t need to do anything.
Are we idiots for believing them? I’m still in shock over the whole thing. I know this is the pit but I appreciate any input. The peerless website says they have basic warranties on their products for ten years. Would our boiler still be covered now about eight years later?
And since is the pit, go fuck yourself Texas senator Ted Cruz. Some morons from his campaign have called my house four times today.
You need to call their customer service, explain what is wrong, and tell them you need to know if the warranty will cover repairs. They may not, if you didn’t have recommended maintenance done. Sorry to say that you do border on “idiot” for believing that no maintenance is required (
). Everything mechanical or electrical requires some type of regular maintenance in order to run efficiently and to keep the warranty in effect. The basics of checking the pressure/temperature, cleaning the burners, etc. are the minimum. There are YouTube videos on this and lots of websites to draw on for information.
If the people who sold/installed the boiler told you that you didn’t need to do maintenance, then it seems like this would be on them, especially if you got that (and the 25-year boiler life estimate) in writing.
If it were me I would expect them to repair or replace the boiler and, if a new boiler were put in, I would expect to pay a portion of the cost (perhaps 9/25ths) to reflect the useful time you got out of it. I’m not sure what I would do if they wanted to charge me for repairs, probably negotiate something.
Roddy
I am still, after all these years, psychologically incapable of “packing light”.
I suppose that’s one reason I prefer driving over flying (excluding the TSA “Theater de Security Asinine” business), so that I can carry enough shit to cover contingencies/feel comfortable.
Hell yes I’m bringing a clean change of clothing* for all five days. I hate doing laundry in hotels. It’s also going to be 45 there on Friday with a low of 30, and then back up to upper 60’s before my return, so I need my winter coat/hat/gloves as well as more normal clothing.
- Well ok, two days per pair of pants, daily change of socks, underwear, shirts. Plus one extra set for emergencies or a delay in my return.
We ran into the same issue when we sold our 35 year old house with the original furnace. It appears that it is common knowledge in the house business that old Coleman furnaces just last forever, but home inspectors are required by law to note that the furnace is 35 (or whatever) years old (which our buyers tried to use as a bargaining chip to further reduce the agreed-upon price of the house).
We have another 35 year old furnace in the house we bought, and we’re not replacing it until it breaks. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it indeed.
Kind of ambivalent about such things.
Some people price their house as if it were perfect, expecting the buyer to notice every little thing and nickel and dime them down.
Some people (like me) price the house according to the present condition, and are annoyed by “but this paint is chipped, and that door squeeks, drop the cost by a billion dollars!” crap.
I’m at Wolfgang Pucks in o’Hare. Let me be clear that this is Chicago, not in any way “South”. There is no fucking excuse for ice tea to have peach flavoring! If the damn waitress had bothered to tell me I would have ordered water. Also, tortilla soup should not have the taste and consistency of chili. And if you are going to put sour cream in the soup you might mention it in the menu. Sour cream is a vile disgusting substance! If I could make just one wish it would be that sour cream vanish off the face of the earth!
These buyers were unrealistic (and to be frank, a big ol’ pain in the ass) in many ways. The last straw was when they sent renters over to look at the house before the buyers had taken possession of it, after we had said no, we are NOT open to that (since the buyers had been such a big pain in the ass). I was making dinner and some strangers came up and started looking in my windows!
What was my point again? Oh yeah - we had priced our house competitively and realistically, the buyers had every opportunity to see how old everything was, and we had already negotiated the final price.
Dear guy I met on OkCupid: Okay, I admit, my bad. I thought you could use OkCupid to make friends that you didn’t want to have sex with. I’d just moved here and I had no one to socialize with. However, my signal of ignoring your texts for the past nine months should have been a clear indication that, no, I’m not interested.
Your message today saying, “I didn’t know you RP’d”, however…that is freaky as hell, given that I haven’t talked to you in nine months. If you are Google stalking me, please feel free to knock that shit off, 'cause I am genuinely freaked. Thanks.
How fucking long is it reasonable to be expected to sit around, listening to a conversation in which you’re taking no part? I ask because I’ve been hanging around since 7:30 a.m. (it is now almost 10), listening to my husband and father in law chat. My father in law is a guest (visiting from India) and I really don’t want to offend him, but I’m so damn tired of sitting in the kitchen at the table, saying absolutely nothing except “Ummm, hmmm” while watching a conversation that has nothing to do with me.
Every once in a while I wander away to do something else, only to hear someone say, “Oh, where’s overly?” Goddamn it, overly is bored. Overly has attempted to participate in the conversation only to be quickly steamrolled when I attempt to speak because you clearly don’t give a shit what I have to say anyway. So overly has fuck-all to add to a conversation about people I don’t know, a business I don’t work in, etc.
Can we fucking go somewhere now? Do something? Please?
I know I sound like a little kid, but god fucking dammit. Isn’t it rude to have a conversation that at least one of the parties who’s forced to sit through cannot take part? I honestly haven’t said anything for the last hour but, "I’m right here, " “More coffee?” “let me get that,” “umm, hmm.”
I’m about to stab my goddamn eyes out with a knitting needle.
It was kind of funny as he kept ‘damning with faint praise’. He would tell me it was old and needed to be replaced in one moment and then tell me how nicely everything was installed. Well, yeah it was installed nicely and neatly, they were doing it when they were building the house and didn’t have to contend with all the finished flooring and stuff.
I am actually amending my previous post to the following:
What the hell, Google Hangouts? Why are you randomly sending my conversations to people I haven’t talked to in months? It’s a good thing I keep my professional and personal emails separate, because that could get awkward quick.
It is extremely. And I would suggest that your husband should be:
- Including you in the conversation
- Covering for you with an excuse that you have something to do
- Apologizing abjectly for his parents behaviour and spending days kissing your feet for having to go through this
- Some combination of the above.
People, cologne and perfume are meant to be just a whiff, not your bathwater. I should not be smelling you after you leave.
Hey charity, telling me that you’ve extended my deadline for donating is not going to be an effective way to get donations from me.