Looking over the new home plans in order to provide the builder with pricing, I noticed there was no chimney included. Way out in the country, where no natural gas was available and the owner had specified an oil hot-water Burnham boiler with Slant Fin Fine Line 30 baseboard and five zones for the 3,500-square-foot home. You best figure on placing the inside basement-level oil tank early on, rather than deal with cellar steps after framing would be complete. Have you ever regretted taking on a job because the owner turned out to be a major horse’s ass? This was that job.
Mr. Short Fuse was an extremely nasty character, and the mason was first to receive the full measure of Fuse’s wrath. Deer hunting season was upon us and, here in Pennsylvania, that’s an assumed right. More than a few future employees brought that up during their interviews and assured me they would quit if not given time off to go deer hunting. The mason told Fuse he was taking the next week off, and Fuse blew his top. The home was in the middle of farm fields with the only other house being Fuse’s father and mother. As we would soon learn, senior Fuse was every bit as nasty, so the poison fruit had not fallen far from the tree.