Movin' on up

[Matterhorn Fan]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Money well spent (even if it did mean having to write a check to "Greg's Good Ream" ).

Worthy of quoting for no apparent reason than that I got a good laugh.

I hope you continue to hand CP the phone book to look things up.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Wow am I glad these last few days are over. A lot of good and a little bad, but all very draining.

The good: We have our bedroom set and it's gorgeous. We have our kitchen counter and sink installed, the dishwasher is in and not leaking (yay me!) and there might even be space to get it out in an emergency. The dryer has been fixed.

The bad: Getting the counter installed turned into an 11 hour day. Seems one of the install crew called in sick so they were running late...but did they bother to call me about it? No. So I waited through my 3 hour window, and they didn't show up. After calling the company (which at one point couldn't even get in touch with the crew), they finally showed up 2 hours after the window. And then, being one man short, took 6 hours to do the install. I complained to Home Depot...they gave me a $50 gift card .

More bad: the dryer is currently working, but the repair guy said that the vent is clogged and that if we don't get it cleared (~$200 service call), the dryer will continue to break down. Grrr. Maybe we'll find someone who has a plumbers snake we can borrow.

Bad: The plumbers we called in to install the sink (yeah, I could have done it myself, but it would have probably taken a week and energy I just don't have with all the other crap I need to do) were kinda lame. Fist off, they tried to sell me a brand new disposal even though we kept the old one. Which wasn't too bad, 'cause it is a really old disposal, but what pissed me off is that the guy said, "Why not, we're just going to charge it to Mr. Sloan." I AM Mr. Sloan, you jerk. Seems he was under the impression that "Mr. Sloan" was a landlord and I was just renting from him. As if that's justification to just start charging anything they want to him. Of course, the good news is that the guys who pulled the sink out (from the same company) managed to lose part of the disposal, so it couldn't be reinstalled...so they gave us the new one for free. Yay.

Bad but good: After everything got installed, we moved the old range back into place. It's old, it's sticky, it's ugly...but it cooks our food. Except, the ignitor switch (electric ignition) for the oven seems to be jammed, so while all the burners are fine, the oven is out of comission. We took the switch apart yesterday to see if we could fix it oursevles. No luck. So we're looking at this, realizing that getting it fixed is easily a $200 service call, while a brand new one is about $300. A quick look at the budget...and we're off to buy a new range today. Yay!

But anyway, things are progressing. Next up is painting the kitchen cabinets. The new sink and counter are absolutely perfect, but we can't wait until it all comes together with the new paint. It will be heaven.

[wendybeth]

Doesn't €uro have a plumber's snake? I seem to recall an episode where he was terrorised by one, but perhaps that was a hired snake.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by wendybeth

Doesn't €uro have a plumber's snake? I seem to recall an episode where he was terrorised by one, but perhaps that was a hired snake.

Indeed, with our semi-annual plummbing calls, we ought to just buy one - but we're talking Dryer vent here right? so you've an abundance of lint? Ordinarily I'd think this an easy job to do, but I know in a condo, such vents might snake it's way through a building and have numerous twists and turns to navigate through. Considering the several hours I spent under our house one summer to make an "easy" repair on our dryer vent - I'd call a professional.

[MouseWife]

Hee hee...I say keep handing CP the yellow pages.

Ya know, in all of the years of renting, no repairman has ever said that to me. I wouldn't appreciate it if they had and I KNOW you definitely did not.

Well, karma on them when they had to give you one for free....

It all sounds so nice. Even the crappy stuff.

An ignitor switch costs how much???? Damn. Well, a nice new stove is on the way.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by MouseWife

An ignitor switch costs how much????

Quiet, you!

Yeah, yeah. We could just go buy the part and install it without calling a repair guy (that would be the $200 I guessed, which seems to be about the standard minimum to get anyone to your house to do anything). But screw it, it's a 20 year old piece of crap that doesn't match our kitchen. This was a good excuse to find room in the budget.

What we're finding as we go through doing the few little improvements that we had planned is...the previous owners were lazy turds. Everything they did was done half-assed. Things like the new floor just being slapped over the old floor. Or the fact that anywhere that should have 2 screws holding something on only has 1 screw. Most of the stuff is cosmetic, so it's not a big deal, but stil. So I'm really glad we're doing such a complete overhaul on the kitchen so at least one area of this place will have been done with an entire ass.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

The vent is built into the concrete under the building and comes out on the patio. There's no "underneath" for us to crawl into. I glanced at a book detailing how to clean out a dryer vent using a plumber's snake the other day - I'm going to have another look and weigh our options.

[MouseWife]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

The vent is built into the concrete under the building and comes out on the patio. There's no "underneath" for us to crawl into. I glanced at a book detailing how to clean out a dryer vent using a plumber's snake the other day - I'm going to have another look and weigh our options.

Would a blower work? Or is it too long of a space?

[DreadPirateRoberts]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

The vent is built into the concrete under the building and comes out on the patio. There's no "underneath" for us to crawl into. I glanced at a book detailing how to clean out a dryer vent using a plumber's snake the other day - I'm going to have another look and weigh our options.

If the vent is built into the concrete, it probably doesn't have many twists and turns. I'd get the plumber's snake and give it a try. Do you see lint at the outlet? I wonder why so much lint would be getting in the exhaust vent, sounds like the lint screen isn't doing its job. Maybe the lint screen doesn't fully seat?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by DreadPirateRoberts

Maybe the lint screen doesn't fully seat?

Could be a few things. Mostly I'd bet it's the previous owners being lazy and never having the thing cleaned out. Probabloy 33 years worth of crap in there. Secondly, in a bit of idiotic design, the vent outlet is on the patio at ground level, so I'd imagine a lot of crap gets in there from the outside.