Morning Cup Of Coffee And Weather

5 year old Kenmore fridge died today. Compressor is under warranty, but this one was made by LG. Repair guy has the part but has to have a Sears technician diagnosis it to get the warranty honored. Calls Sears Appliance & they don’t have in the area for a few months. Part & Labor are going be $1600. So in addition to our frustration & anger, we are now the owners of a Whirlpool fridge $1899. Made 5 miles from the house in an Electrolux plant, so getting parts isn’t an ordeal or getting warranty work done.

 

Oh my. Unfortunately it sounds like another example of common sense leaving the service industry. I think I would try to enlist someone higher up in the food chain to explain why waiting several months for warranty work to be done on what most people would consider an essential home appliance, should be considered an acceptable level of customer service. I would encourage him to give the repair guy the green light to do the repairs, since Sears is obviously unable to retain an adequate level of staffing to send a diagnostician in a timely manner, and therefore are not honoring their warranty obligations.

 

All you get is a call center when you call Sears & the only thing they do is set up an appointment with technician that doesn’t exist, at least not in my area. Tried the website, same thing. Three local repair shops told us this what they hear similar stories from people having to deal with Sears. The problem is Sears won’t pay for the part until their guy says it’s the compressor. I could’ve had him fix it & paid $ 800 for the part & another $800 for the Labor. New fridge was $1700.

 

Our LG refrigerator lasted less than 6 years. Learned that it had a linear compressor which makes it run quieter. But not known to last long according to the repairman. He actually told us to stay away from linear compressor refrigerators. Very happy with our Frigidaire Refrigerator now even if if moans from time to time.

 

On my bucket list -- I've loved radiant floors since I was put up in a 5 star luxury suite once. Once.

Next time I redo my flooring, if the budget permits, I want to add it.

 

My parents live in a small 2 bed room apartment. Like 12x10 bedrooms and a living room which is just slightly larger. Somewhere in the 700 square foot range. Now, everything is electric. Water heater, stove, and heat. They do keep the house warmer than I would (I keep mine at 68 theirs is in the 70s, but being older I'm not going to press the issue too much.

Thier apartment has one on either side, so they only have 2 externally exposed walls. This winter has been very mild...lows int he mid 20's mostly, and rights in the 40's to even 50's.

All of these should average out --- little warm, but small and insulated....ok...

Their bill last month? $301.08 This is the cost of resistance heating :O Remember 1000 watts of resistance heating is as efficient if it is baseboard, in the floor, or a space heater. Watts in = heat out. The only advantage is you can theoretically heat a smaller zone instead of the whole house.

 

Have you looked at outdoor wood furnaces? My brother in law has one of these and absolutely loves it. If you're "building" phase you can run the tubes under your driveway so you never have to shovel it again

His is about 25 years from his house --- any snow that lands on the ground regardless of temperature doesn't stand a chance Even with this 'waste' it still is cheap heat.

 

Maddening! The worst part is, it's probably the one part you can't fix as a homeowner. Control boards and all that stuff is just a part-slap repair in most cases. But the compressor needs the specizliaed recovery systems to deal with and install new coolant.

With sears in the shape they are today, has someone gobbled up the name yet? Its been months since I looked, but they were completely gone from my state. The number of stores dwindling fast. Its a crying shame the company lost its way, I'm really curious what REALLY happened to them. JC Penny and Macy's aren't far behind.

Ironically, back in the 80's the Kenmore line was all made by Whirlpool, which was the dominant employer in a town in southwest lower Michigan where I grew up....

 

Our frigidaire that we bought in 1998 was still producing cold (OK, removing heat) happily until we gave it to a friend who's fridge died unexpectedly. Its still working today, probably in a garage keeping barely pop cold.

I'm sick to death about what is happening in the world today. Everything is built with a replacement date in mind. Even the "super tank" printers (big ink tanks) are built in a way that the printer itself will fail prematurely....they'll get their pound of flesh one way or another...

Thank goodness for companies like Camp Inn

 

Not sure running the tow vehicle is all that great of an idea -- I've never looked but I think you max out at 6 amps through the onboard charger -- at least with the one I have. I could be wrong, it might be more.

With a hybrid it might make sense --- you're pulling from the 12 volt battery which is being charged by the high-voltage battery. The gas engine only would need to run to charge it --- and to recharge with shorter "run" times since the high voltage battery can charge so much faster. I dunno --- I'd need a EE with free time to tell me that

I can say these little inverters are amazing. I've got 2 -- 2800 Yamaha and 2200 honda. My only regret is I have no way of getting 240 volt off of them --- so in a power outage I'm water limited since my well needs 240.

But either one of those generators will keep the minimum viable power in my house. With all of my lights and electronics running, I pull 1600 watts of 110. The freezer, fridge, heater blower and water pump are all the 240

The "sense" energy monitor is a cool tool - I don't know why, but its nice to know that down to the kWh, I can tell you how much I used yesterday, not to mention it is monitoring for stalled motors and other problems that can occur.

 

Winter doldrums are here. I'm feeling like I'm in a jimmy buffet song, except shooting six holes in my freezer might cost too much. We got a little blue sky yesterday - but the long-term forecast are showing grey skies, cool (seasonable) temperatures, and little opportunity for outdoor fun. To warm and no snow for winter activities, and too cool for warm weather ones. Cool I can take --- its snow/rain/salt that I can't abide.

BUT! That said, the Crossroads of America gathering was formally announced -- a little late this year - all the way into September but fortunately, not bumping into CICO. But it will mean taking vacation time so I can go to both AND maybe make it a "slow ride" between the two sites and back.

I booked up my weekend excursions for the next 6 months. Mostly in May through July. April is too unpredictable to plan that much for, and most people aren't even thinking about camping until May. For May through mid-July, I was shocked! I was able to get spots with reasonable ease, and even grabbed some "premium" locations I can almost never get.

I'm curious if the camping craze is cooling off a bit more this syear. I know RV sales are and that used RV prices are dropping like rocks.

I know site availability is not a leading indicator, its trailing (rim shot please!) -- I'm just curious the trend is going to lead to campgrounds being less full. I have mixed feelings about a pullback. I hate to see negative economic impact, but I also HATE not being able to camp or to be next to rude people

Rude people are the worst.

 

Yes, I've had to replace the control board in our bottom freezer Amana fridge about every 1-2 years over the last decade or so. Takes about 5 minutes and cost's about $30-40 for the board on Amazon or eBay, instead of $200 for the board and another $200 for a service call+ labor. It would be nice if they had quick connects on the compressors. Wouldn't help in case of a leak, but a burned out compressor could be a diy project then.

 

Thats the other side of the coin --- its become cost prohibitive to hire a repair person. People have to make living, I have NO problem with that. But $200 just to have them drive to your home is a bit much. I don't think they are interested in doing individual work any more, and just work as factory repair - I dunno.

Sad part is, I know from experience, the warranty repair doesn't pay that well. I suspect the repair shops are trying to maximize profits on those who are basically helpless to do any kind of repair themselves. Just be thankful that we aren't helpless and can do this ourselves

Friend at work -- paid a plumber to replace the valve cartridge on a delta faucet. Its those people that really make me scratch my head...ESPECIALLY when youtube has a video for just about every problem you'd ever have like that. <Shaking my head>

 

....for sure, there are two ides to every story, and the repair guys do need to make a living too, but like you say, with a YouTube video on how to do just about anything, it's kind of hard to pay someone to do something that you can relatively easily do yourself, not to mention the wait time for them to do it.
When we got down to our place in AZ in Dec. We immediately noticed that there was a strange intermittent rumble when ever the heat came on. I called an HVAC company to do an HVAC "tune up". A week later when he got here, he introduced himself, and told me what he would be doing, and invited me to observe if I was interested, which of course I was very much so. He asked if there were any problems with they system, so I said it apparently was heating and cooling OK, but we noticed this rumble when the forced air heat was running, and I wondered if possibly a bearing might be going out in a fan motor.
He was a super nice guy, explaining everything as he went along. He went up into the attic, where the furnace is located, and opened the furnace shroud, got out his clamp-meter, and started checking currents and resistances, etc. and said we had one run capacitor that was reading low. I asked if that would cause the rumbling we heard. He said it could, and he did have one on his truck. I asked if the motor bearings seemed ok on the two blowers in the system?He turned them by hand while I watched, and said they seemed to be turning nice and easy, and he didn't see a problem with them. So he replaced the capacitor and said since he had the furnace open already he wouldn't charge any additional labor, which I thanked him for. When he finished up he gave me the bill, and charged the agreed advertised price of the "tune-up" plus $65 for the capacitor. I paid him, and he left.
However shortly thereafter when the heat came on we noticed the same familiar rumble. After a few more days of it I decided to do some investigation myself. I went into the attic, removed the shroud taped the safety switch down so that the furnace could be run while un-shrouded. When I turned the furnace on I could hear the rumble, so started feeling for vibration on various furnace surfaces, and found that the vibration seemed to be coming from the blower motor that fed fresh induction air into the furnace. I took a pic of it, went online found a replacement for about $100, it came a few days later, I installed it, and low and behold, no more rumble. While I was looking online for the replacement blower motor, I also looked up the capacitor that the serviceman replaced (which I kept) and found it was readily available from multiple places for about $14-18.
I called the HVAC company, and asked to talk to our serviceman. They said he wasn't in right then, and asked what I was calling about. I explained what had happened, and they asked if I wanted someone to come back out. I said no, I've already taken care of the problem, but that I just wanted to use this as an educational call for their serviceman. They asked I would like his cell number, and I said sure. I called him, told him the story, and he too asked what I would like him to do. I said nothing, that he had done what I paid him for, and I had already fixed the problem, but I just wanted him to learn something from my experience. If he had taken the time to run the furnace while he had it unshrouded, he would have most like found the same thing I did once the motor was under a load, rather than just free wheeling it by hand, and possibly he could have sold me a new motor and some labor, instead of just a capacitor. He seemed a little dumbfounded, but thanked me and we hung up.
This got way longer than I intended, but it explains a little why I try to DIY things as much as possible. You learn a lot about how & why things work the way they do, and what simple thing may be wrong that you can fix faster than it takes to call someone. You also sometimes learn how hard some things can be, why the service people get what they do for that job, and a little about what you might not want to tackle on your own.

 

I would have done the same thing. "Loading the parts cannon" isn't a good way to do repairs. I would have been more upset about the fact I had to clean up an incomplete job after I made complete payment. We all miss things and sometimes have missed diagnosis. But its a shame the repair wasn't verified...

On the appliance note, Its the unreasonableness of the price stricture that I bristle at -- a $200 service call just to get them to your front door. Get rich! I Love to see people succeed! Just don't try to do it on me...all at once. Businesses need to be profitable -- absolutely. Its the reason businesses exist. The pricing structure just seems to be a bit aggressive in some industries, and appliance repair is one of them...

 

I finally got my driveway clear of snow. I think we received about eight inches but with the drifting it was two feet deep in places.

Black Rifle coffee in my cup.

 

Yeah, I was initially a little irritated that he didn't find the source of the rumble during his visit, and if he hadn't been such a nice guy, invited me to follow along as he worked, and explained everything he was doing as he went along, I probably wouldn't have bothered calling him back about my findings. But he was nice, I think he was actually trying to do a good job. He went through the rest of HVAC system and seemed to think it had a few good years left, and I think he was worth bothering with to help him be more successful in his trade....and besides, I probably saved $3-400 finding and fixing it myself, rather than him finding it LOL.

 

Big tin neighbors --- this is why I like state parks. Even when I owned "big tin" I hate being so close. The State Parks usually put about 1/2 the rigs that the same area would be optimized. I think the worst of those was the pigeon forge KOA. A place that made me HATE the chain. They converted back-ins, which used to be zippered (half would back in from 1 road, the other would back in from the next road. Now, since campers have gotten so large -- 30 foot plus...these now back in the full length and share a common 10 foot or so patio. When I would step out of my side door, the side door of the other patio as adjacent. No privacy -- horrible.

Luddite -- I wish I could get that disease sometimes. I like my internet access. If I could do it all again, I'd never have sold by 2012 --- which had a TV/DVD. I could take a stack of DVD's with me at still have "something." I never watched TV, I relied heavily on disks. I had to be very selective. To this day, when I hear the theme song to "Burn Notice," I am almost transported to that trailer The media server works fine, but having to use a laptop to watch it...just makes it too tempting to reconnect with the world. The flip side is with the internet, I can work from anywhere there is an ATT tower which is relatively common these days. Most state parks.

I'm landlocked for the foreseeable future. 6 weeks, perhaps? We'll be getting our first snow of the year (season for that matter) mid-week --- if the forecasts hold 8-12 inches of wet heavy stuff. I'm looking for a march trip...just a 1 week there and back...March is tough - transition month. But it may be my last chance for a little while...

I was looking at Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge --- but there seems to be a moratorium on campsites near there that are not private hells, and Florida still has its perpetual "No vacancy" sign lit.

Oh, to sit by a campfire enjoying the vanilla and fruity finish to a good scotch, and maybe enjoying a little "Moontrance" in the pipe... beginning daydreaming now ...