She's gonna blow Captain!

To survive this economic debacle, we must "think outside of the box"

I call it an economical debacle because I've lived through two recessions, and as bad as they were, neither one was as long and as persistent as this recession. I have witnessed too many sad things in the last six years. I have seen friends and even some family members lose their homes, and I have seen a few of my fellow contractors go under. This economy has put some of the strongest businesses in troubles path.

Is this what's next?

In the first two years, I was hoping that this major downturn in the economy and the bursting of the housing bubble would weed out all the weak and bad contractors. It did get some of them, but sadly for a lot of people the economy is still in the tank, and it seems that there's more economic punishment ahead for us. So what can we do to survive? We need to reinvent the wheel......think outside the box......learn to diversify!

That's what I chose to do....Diversify..

Through my years in business, I tried to keep growing. Not just in the amount of men, and equipment, but in the things that I can offer. I didn't want to become that guy....you know..."jack of all trades, master of none".
But I wasn't happy just doing one thing. So I did grow in the things that I offered to my customers. Most importantly and the point of this story, I became a Dealer and Installer for a whole house water filter system and Salt Free water softener, You can see it here:

 This was the perfect add on to my business. I was not only selling these systems online to anyone in the country, but I was also selling and installing them in my local service area.......which brings me to my story........

About  two years ago I get a call at my office for a full system. The guy, Joe, left a message that he was very interested in purchasing the system but he wanted to talk to someone with some knowledge of how the system worked before he committed to our system. I called him as soon as I returned to my office.

Joe was interested in the "big" system we sell. 

The Pelican Whole House System

That was good, but when he told me that he lived in New York state, I was a bit disappointed, but I figured that I would at least sell him the system and make my commission from the sale. I try and stay within an hour of my shop, and he was about a two hour drive. He then tells me that he would be willing to pay extra for travel time, because I was highly recommended by the main company. To be honest here, I really didn't want to travel that far, and I tried to overprice the extra travel time to a point that Joe would find it too expensive and look for a local plumber to install the system.

Joe was Happy to pay the extra but before he committed, he wanted to "see" the system.

"Do you have a customer that I can go see their system?" Joe asked in his high pitched, kinda whiny voice.

"I can't give you a customers address, but I actually have the system installed in my own home and you are welcome to drive over two hours to see it" I replied.

"Okay, can I come by tomorrow?, what's your address? And if I like the system, I'll leave the deposit.....Okay?....How's that sound? " Joe screeched.

I thought it sounded weird, so I told him that I would ask my wife if that was okay with her. Which it was, and Joe made an appointment to "see" the system the following day. When I got home the following day, my wife told me that this guy Joe had stopped by and he was "very weird". He asked a bunch of questions, and when he was showed the system, he went about giving it a detailed inspection. He left the deposit, and I ordered his system.

Joe's  system arrived, and I got it all prepped and ready to go. 

Seems that I have every fitting I need!

Before I left my shop I wanted to make sure that I had everything possible for the install. I didn't want to be that far away into unknown territory, not having everything I needed for a successful installation. I left with total confidence and headed off to New York.....to Joe's house.

After a little over two hours of driving, I was pulling into Joe's driveway. It was a nicely kept two story
colonial. The grass was very neatly cut, and I could tell that Joe was a bit of a perfectionist by the way he kept his home. I respect that.

Joe greeted me at the side door, and I have to admit that I had him pegged from just our phone calls. He was a small skinny guy, and he had a nervous twitch about him. I reached out to shake his hand, and he laid his hand in mine like a princess would, and I almost thought I should kiss it instead of shake it. I followed him into the finished part of the basement and he showed me the closet that we were to install the system.

I got started right away. I turned off the main water supply, made my cuts into the system and figured out my piping. While I was doing this I heard a strange noise, so I stopped and listened. It was someone upstairs pacing back and forth right above where we were working. I thought that was very strange, but went ahead with the installation.

Every once in a while I would feel a presence and look behind me to see Joe just standing there. I didn't hear him come down, he would just "be" there and he would and ask how things were going. I assured him that all was going well. I could tell he was nervous. He seemed the kind of person who didn't like change.

We were now into the third hour of the install, and almost finished. I asked my helper to get one of the fittings out of my truck, and cut it to a certain length. When he brought it in to me, it looked like the cut was wrong. Sure enough it was! I was pretty upset because now I had to try to find a plumbing supply store to replace that fitting! I called upstairs to Joe who was pacing back and forth above our heads and asked if he knew of a plumbing supply store that was nearby. Joe came running down the stairs as if there was a fire, eyes bulging, and he started to panic and asked in a very concerned tone,

"What's wrong? Is everything okay? Oh Geez, maybe you should put everything back the way it was."

Joe...

I explained that everything was fine and I just forgot to bring a fitting. He was reluctant, but went upstairs to get me the address of the nearest plumbing supply store which was about twenty minutes away.  While he was upstairs, I told my helper to prime and glue all of the fittings up to a certain point, so when I get back all I had to do was glue in the last fitting and we'd be finished.

It took an hour and a half to get the part and get back to Joe's house.

I was not very happy at this point as I should have been heading back to my shop by now. So I went in with a new found determination to get this thing done and get out of there. My helper was in the driveway when I got there, and I confirmed that he did in fact prime and glue all of the fittings....he said yes, of course!
There wasn't much left to do at this point, I made sure to make the cut myself, as not to have any more mishaps. I primed and glued the last fitting and firmly held it in place for several seconds. Finally! I was finished, and I had my helper clean up the working area, and put away the tools.


Now I always find it nerve wracking when I'm finished with a system and ready to turn the water main back on. I found out from my licensed plumber Ken Kunich, that all plumbers secretly have that same oozy feeling in their stomachs. I told my helper to go ahead and turn the shut off valve to the open position, and in a very load voice exclaims...."Okay, here we go!"..... Which is why Joe stopped his pacing and came running into the basement to "see" the starting up of his new system.

Okay.....just a bit of an exaggeration...but close!

I looked around at the fittings like I always do to make sure of no leaks. All three of us were standing there when all of a sudden, a load bang, and an instant soaking shower!!! It was a shock to say the least! I yelled over to my helper to turn off the main shut off valve. I looked behind me to see a water soaked Joe, who was in what seemed to be a state of shock. I was SO embarrassed that this had happened, and at the same time intensely curious of how this could have happened.

"Oh Geez Dominick.....I don't want this system in my house now" whined Joe "Look it ruined my walls, and the door is soaking wet, and..."

Nervous Joe

I stopped him there..

"Listen Joe, I'm not taking anything apart. The system is in and that's that."

What had happened was my less than brilliant helper did not glue one of the fittings, although he did prime everything which was why I didn't notice. For those who are not familiar with pvc piping, the primer is purple, and the glue is clear. You will always see at least a bit of purple at all of the joints. I explained to Joe that it was human error, and sadly that happens. The good thing is that there was no damage to anything as we had dried up the area (the only damage was to my pride) and glued the fitting back on. This time I inspected EVERY joint to make sure that it was good to turn the pressure on again......it was.

Turned the water on again, and Joe was standing next to me with a plastic bag in front of his face. This time there was no exploding pipes, and the system ran proper. It was now 5 pm and I was dying to get out of there, but Joe wasn't going to let me out of there that easily. He came over with a flash light, a sock and a towel, and proceeded to SLOWLY check each and every joint in the system. that took around twenty minutes. When he was satisfied that there were no leaks, I handed him my bill and asked for a check so I could go home.

"Well I want to check all of the toilets, and sinks before I pay you"........ I have to admit, I had a bit of a "vision" with my hands around his throat.....I explained that this was completely unnecessary, but Joe was insistent, and proceeded to spend another 35 minutes checking anything that had anything to do with water.  
It's now almost 6pm, and this is when Joe tells me he can only pay me through PayPal.....WHAT THE.....! At that point I was so frustrated that I didn't care anymore and all I could think of is that it was gonna take me three hours to get home, which it did.

It took four long days for Joe to finally send me the money...... 

I guess there are a few lessons to be learned here. First is never trust an idiot. I should not have taken for granted that my helper did the right thing. I learned a valuable lesson that day and I now always double check everything. The second lesson is stay close to home......it figures that it took almost triple the time to do this job than it should have taken. And the final lesson, if Joe ever calls again.....just tell him that I moved to another country!

TIP OF THE DAY: 

How to glue PVC piping....without any explosions!

Purple primer is applied to PVC pipe fittings and pipe. When dry, PVC cement is applied and the pipe inserted into the fitting while rotating a quarter-turn.

• Apply some purple primer to the hub of the pipe fittings.
• Then apply primer to the end of the pipe.
• Let the primer dry for a minute before applying cement.
• When the primer is dry, apply some clear PVC cement to the hub of the pipe fitting.
• Then  apply glue to the end of the pipe.
• (By applying glue to the hub first, I can set the fitting down and not need to worry about the glue touching the work surface.)
• Then  push the pipe into the fitting WHILE turning the pipe about one-quarter turn.
• BUT... keep pushing the pipe into fitting. Often the pipe will "bounce" out of the fitting part way, so  keep the parts held together for a minute until the glue has a chance to harden.
• While holding the pipe and fitting together,  wipe off the excess glue

 

See you next time......from beyond.........