The Home Machinist!

LIALLEGHENY wrote: ↑Sat Nov 24, 2018 12:54 pmOver the years I've learned how to do everything myself so I don't have to rely on anyone.

Ditto. There are a few things I won't do, but not too many.

Trees and ladders. I have plenty of both but dang !

I still do everything, but would like to do less in the near future.
I just don't trust anyone to use my 4 ton 80HP grass cutter without wiping out small trees and shrubs.
And I have a language problem.

So it's DIY until I drop.

Well, I finally got fed up enough, waiting on a service man....these people beg and beg for your business, and to support your local businessnen, but they are big responsive in returning phone calls, and don't even show up for appointments....so i said,heck with them....I called the manufacturer directly, for the parts ordered at 1/3 the price, and had them send me a ups tracking number and emailed receipt. Scanned the receipt and price, emailed it to the service man company, and said choke on it

That's okay to a point. Gas valves and pilot registers are things where you don't want to burn the bridge too much. I understand. I've replaced a few furnaces and hwhs but these things do need some maintenance. I got really chapped when I hired a company to clean my gas furnace, vacuums and blowers. Instead of actually vacuuming in and around the heat tubes in the beginning , he stuck a blower in there. Stuff was going everywhere while he was trying to vacuum around the top of the furnace. My lathe was fair new then and covered with soot. I figured that I could do better than that.
Gas valves require the flue and boiler sections clean. The gas valve itself can't get too hot by lack of maintenance.

Well when you can't get a piece of glass for a fireplace door for over a month, and I call the factory and have it in 2 days, at 1/3 the price..yeah, I would say I'm fed up with service company's .

LIALLEGHENY wrote: ↑Sat Nov 24, 2018 12:54 pm Why is it when a friend or family member needs help with something, your there to help, but when you need a helping hand ,everybody disappears or gives you every excuse under the sun why they can't be there. Over the years I've learned how to do everything myself so I don't have to rely on anyone.

Nyle

There is always a lot of excuses or reasons not to help or even do a certain job but if one puts his mind to do something nothing will stop him from doing, certainly if the job is possible to be done. I also do have these kind of problems in getting some company to do a job for me, they always say OK we are going to do, at the end I usually pick the item and do it myself and tell them:
Don't promise what you can't do.
As you can imagine they get upset and even say you came here because you wanted. I can't understand how one can keep a business with this kind of atitute.

I asked for a price to erect 350 yards of fence.
Guy said he'd figure it out and get back to me.
After a couple of weeks I gave up on him, ordered 140 fence posts and 7 rolls of wire fence, and got to it.
A week or two after I finished, he called with the estimate.