Dave Yates: Contractor’s Corner

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Troubleshooting tank-style two-element electric water heaters is relatively simple once the operation is understood. 

I knew my day was going sideways when it was going to be necessary to change into a bathing suit and get wet in the customer’s master bath in order to find out what was causing a leak into the basement. 

As Texas settled into a deadly-serious Polar Vortex, you could predict the pattern emerging based on your own past experiences with bitter-cold sustained weather conditions: No-heat calls inundating your emergency calls; heating systems not able to keep up with demand; heating systems stressed to the breaking-point; followed by frozen water lines, water services and water mains; and then biblical flooding and damage once thawing temperatures arrived. 

If you have never been face-to-face with a run away boiler, I can assure you it makes your sphincter pucker!

I always hated the business side of being in business. After a hard day’s work, we would retire to our home office to do billing, write checks and fill in the books. 

Remember the wall-vented, gas-fired space heaters with standing pilots? 

I have far too many memories of freeze damage in "winterized" homes where the winterizing procedure consisted of shutting off the main valve, opening a basement drain in the potable water system, opening all faucets, flushing every toilet, adding automotive antifreeze to traps and toilet tanks/bowls, and turning off the heat. 

I was revisiting a boiler bid with customers for whom we've done other work in the past, and we were going over the two-year-old bid to replace their aging beast in the basement. 

Let’s be honest: More than a few customers have champagne tastes but exist on a beer budget. 

Forty-eight years ago, as a plumbing apprentice, we used ABS schedule 40 piping and fittings for DWV work.