expensive lesson

Golfgar4 · Aug 29, 2003

( He walked into the half bath by the front door, pressed the GFI switch in the bathroom outlet, gave me a bill for $65, and left.
)

Well I hope at the very least that HE thanked you!! /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

snowman · Aug 29, 2003

I actually didn't feel too bad about it - he told me that he gets a few of those types of call each month. Lesson is to check all of the GFI outlets if somethine doesn't work!

Inspector507 · Aug 29, 2003

Short story..............Lady moved into her first new house. One outlet in each room didn't work. Called me out at 6PM to flip the switch in each room on.

mountain_man · Aug 29, 2003

On the last house we sold, we agreed with the buyers to move out within 48 hours after closing. After closing and moving out all our stuff, we were giving the house a thorough cleaning. While we were cleaning, we even kicked on the self-cleaning cycle on the electric oven (newly remodeled kitchen). After about an hour, the oven died - no heat, no light, no clock - dead. I checked the breakers, pulled the wall oven out and confirmed it was still getting juice. After troubleshooting further, found an "over-temp" sensor "thermodisk" had failed. Of course no local appliance parts dealers had the part, so I had to drive half-way across the state to pickup the part since we had a hard deadline to meet. Anyway with the $25 part and 8 hours of driving later, we barely made the deadline (and ended up cleaning the oven the old fashion way...).

Golfgar4 · Aug 29, 2003

( Lesson is to check all of the GFI outlets if somethine doesn't work! )

I learned the exact same lesson, except it didn't cost me $65.00.

I have a friend who is an electrician, and when all of my outside outlets lost power, I called him and asked him what the problem might be. This was about 2 months after moving into our new house.

He suggested I check the GFI outlets to see if they needed to be reset. I said O.K. Thanks.

So I go out to the garage, where I knew the outlet was and check it. Hmmm. It's not tripped. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

So I call him back, and he very politely asks if I checked all of the GFI outlets. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

"What all of them? Where are the others?" I ask.

"In every bathroom and near any sinks." says he.

oh. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Yup, the one in the half bath, off of the laundry, all the way in the back of the house was tripped. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Problem solved - never to occur again!! /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Bird · Aug 29, 2003

Did we all learn about GFI breakers the hard way? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif The first house we had with a GFI breaker didn't have the little reset buttons at each outlet; just one GFI breaker in the breaker box in the garage. Everything was OK for a couple of years, then it got to where if I just turned on my electric razor that darned breaker would kick off. I couldn't figure anything else that might be wrong, so I went to Graybar Electric to buy a new breaker (talk about sticker shock when I found out what that thing cost /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif). So the counter man asked me why I needed one, I told him, and he explained a few things to me while telling me that I probably didn't need a new breaker. I went home, removed the outlet covers on the two outside outlets (front porch and back patio), blew the cobwebs out with my air compressor and everything was OK. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif At least it didn't cost me anything but embarrassment.

Of course that's a long shot from being the only time I've been embarrassed by someone who knew a lot more than I. When I was a lot younger and bought our first house (an old one), I had to replace the kitchen sink faucet; simple job, right? Well, I hooked it up and unhooked it a half dozen times, and simply could not make the connection quit leaking, so I finally gave up and called a plumber. The guy showed up promptly, unscrewed the fitting, screwed it back on, and no leak. Expensive lesson, but at least the guy was obviously the right plumber to call. He said he had to charge for an hours labor (and hadn't been there 5 minutes) so he'd check everything else in the house and replace all the faucet washers if I wanted him to and it wouldn't cost anymore (I wanted him to). /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

yonahforge · Aug 29, 2003

Had a good one when we moved in our current house. Hooked up the icemaker to the existing line, and about half of the time the ice cubes would be hollow - just a shell, paper thin. Other times they would be solid. Checked everything, could not find anything wrong. Water for icemaker was hooked up to the cold (right hand) side of the water line... right? One day we had been washing dishes, and I looked once again at the plumbing - why is the cold line hot???? Evidently when the house was built 35 years ago, someone didn't hook the water up in the "expected" pattern, and the previous owner assumed that hot was on the left, cold on the right. This drove me crazy for about 3 weeks. Any time the water had been run in the sink, the icemaker would not have time to completely freeze the ice cubes...

Sometimes it's the simplest things that get you!

Gary_in_Indiana · Aug 30, 2003

I got to play 'hero' when some friends of mine experienced the same problem with their outside outlets. He'd checked breakers and all to no avail and called the electrician. When he told his wife she asked, "Did you call Gary?"

She picked up the phone and called me and I suggested she try the GFCI's in the first floor bath and kitchen. She called back in about five minutes to tell me it worked and that she'd cancelled the electrician. She also said she wasn't sure if she was going to tell her husband how she fixed it or not. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I don't know if she ever did. All I know is he's never mentioned it one way or the other and I haven't either.

Macroman · Aug 30, 2003

A few years back my old 220V air compressor motor in the barn started acting up. Nothing appeared to be wrong but the motor would not start properly. I thought the compressor was seizing and it had too much friction to start. I finally gave up and bought another one.
I needed a motor for something so I removed the motor from the old compressor and looked at it. Finally I took it to the repair shop. The tech took off the back case and removed the dirt daubber nest from the starter points and put it back together only 20$ not counting the broken ego and the new compressor.

Docsknotinn · Aug 31, 2003

I went through the same thing with the GFCI but it didn't cost any thing but frustration. My wife couldn't get the coffee pot to work /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif Ahhhhh! no Coffee ! So I spent half the day tryin to figure it out. For some reason they tied a GFCI on the deck to the kitchen /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif oh well. got back this morning and the ac is still not working right, a few more kicks and no luck. lol I guess I gotta call the service guy...gulp. There goes my log splitter plans. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif Dave