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Dec. 9th, 2006 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickSo, the tenant upstairs at 321 has finally hooked up his propane.
I told them when they rented the place (summer) that they would need to get the propane hooked up because the place *has* a gas furnace and does not heat with little electric space heaters. It's not SUPPOSED to heat with little electric space heaters. It has a fucking furnace and very nice radiators.
I told them the month after they rented the place that they would need to get the propane hooked up because the apartment could not be heated with little electric space heaters. I also mentioned that it was now August and a great time to get the propane hooked up because of the warm weather and long days.
I told them roughly the same thing in September and in October, with added Winter Is Coming emphasis to motivate them.
In November, I pointed out that they really needed to get a move on because if they didn't, it'd get cold all of a sudden and then they'd be calling my ass out in the dark on a non-work day to fix0r their heating system that they had not tended to in a timely fashion despite lots o' warnings about the needfulness of doing so.
Friday night, as I was going toSt. Ives a friend's house for the evening's entertainments, the phone rang. It was the upstairs tenant at 321, who had finally gotten a propane tank and was getting it filled. Oh frabjous day! At 7:30 PM on a weekend night, no less. I don't know about other folks, but where I live, it's pitch fucking black at 7:30 in December. It was also around twenty degrees out.
While they initially wanted me to help them put things together outside in the dark and cold on Friday night, uncommon sense prevailed -- they got the parts and then adjourned the heating assembly until the following morning at 9 AM, a time by which it would be solidly daylight and (hopefully) hella warmer than fucking twenty.
Saturday morning, we hooked up the line and bled the air out and lit the pilot light (it's an older furnace. New gas furnaces do not have pilot lights.) and turned up the thermostat to see if the furnace would go *WOOF* and make with the heat. It did. Huzzah. Yes. I am competent. I can fix0r. And then I said, "Well, let's see if the circulator is working -- I just want the return pipe to be warm and then we'll consider it fixed." (When the cold-water return pipe gets warm, the hot water is all through all the radiators and the apartment has heat.)
The return pipe did not get warm. In fact, I didn't think that there was any water in the system. The radiators upstairs wouldn't bleed the air out, which they should have if the adds-water-automatically thing was working. I couldn't see where to fix that, so I gave up and called Dad to come save me. Dad got there and we determined that (a) the adds-water-automatically thing was not working and (b) someone had cut the 3/4" malleable copper lines going from the main loop to-and-from three of the upstairs radiators. They just left the naked, open ends of the pipe hanging in the basement.
I am never, ever going to get any better at this shit. My there's no heat troubleshooting model did not heretofore include Examine the pipes to make sure that fucking junkies haven't stolen all or part of them, so I was totally unaware that the holes in the pipes (I'd seen them, mind) meant that someone had stolen sections thereof. (All ya'll know how much I enjoy looking like a damn fool in front of my dad.) It's fucking pipe. Who the hell steals pipe? (Junkies. Junkies steal pipe.)
I spent the vast bulk of my Saturday playing Steppin Fetchit for my dad as we reattached radiators to the heating system in the basement of 321. This was not particularly the Saturday I'd had in mind and I'm rather pissy about the whole thing.
About two hours after I got back from the pipe adventure, I did the (previously scheduled) evening out with my cousin Heather. That went well enough, despite being an event held outdoors in the bitter cold that included a painfully earnest rendition of I'm Getting Nuttin for Christmas. *sigh* The whole day was pretty long and by the time I got done with everything on my plate, I was thoroughly tired of interacting with flesh people, so I went straight home to be surly. That, at least is going well.
I told them when they rented the place (summer) that they would need to get the propane hooked up because the place *has* a gas furnace and does not heat with little electric space heaters. It's not SUPPOSED to heat with little electric space heaters. It has a fucking furnace and very nice radiators.
I told them the month after they rented the place that they would need to get the propane hooked up because the apartment could not be heated with little electric space heaters. I also mentioned that it was now August and a great time to get the propane hooked up because of the warm weather and long days.
I told them roughly the same thing in September and in October, with added Winter Is Coming emphasis to motivate them.
In November, I pointed out that they really needed to get a move on because if they didn't, it'd get cold all of a sudden and then they'd be calling my ass out in the dark on a non-work day to fix0r their heating system that they had not tended to in a timely fashion despite lots o' warnings about the needfulness of doing so.
Friday night, as I was going to
While they initially wanted me to help them put things together outside in the dark and cold on Friday night, uncommon sense prevailed -- they got the parts and then adjourned the heating assembly until the following morning at 9 AM, a time by which it would be solidly daylight and (hopefully) hella warmer than fucking twenty.
Saturday morning, we hooked up the line and bled the air out and lit the pilot light (it's an older furnace. New gas furnaces do not have pilot lights.) and turned up the thermostat to see if the furnace would go *WOOF* and make with the heat. It did. Huzzah. Yes. I am competent. I can fix0r. And then I said, "Well, let's see if the circulator is working -- I just want the return pipe to be warm and then we'll consider it fixed." (When the cold-water return pipe gets warm, the hot water is all through all the radiators and the apartment has heat.)
The return pipe did not get warm. In fact, I didn't think that there was any water in the system. The radiators upstairs wouldn't bleed the air out, which they should have if the adds-water-automatically thing was working. I couldn't see where to fix that, so I gave up and called Dad to come save me. Dad got there and we determined that (a) the adds-water-automatically thing was not working and (b) someone had cut the 3/4" malleable copper lines going from the main loop to-and-from three of the upstairs radiators. They just left the naked, open ends of the pipe hanging in the basement.
I am never, ever going to get any better at this shit. My there's no heat troubleshooting model did not heretofore include Examine the pipes to make sure that fucking junkies haven't stolen all or part of them, so I was totally unaware that the holes in the pipes (I'd seen them, mind) meant that someone had stolen sections thereof. (All ya'll know how much I enjoy looking like a damn fool in front of my dad.) It's fucking pipe. Who the hell steals pipe? (Junkies. Junkies steal pipe.)
I spent the vast bulk of my Saturday playing Steppin Fetchit for my dad as we reattached radiators to the heating system in the basement of 321. This was not particularly the Saturday I'd had in mind and I'm rather pissy about the whole thing.
About two hours after I got back from the pipe adventure, I did the (previously scheduled) evening out with my cousin Heather. That went well enough, despite being an event held outdoors in the bitter cold that included a painfully earnest rendition of I'm Getting Nuttin for Christmas. *sigh* The whole day was pretty long and by the time I got done with everything on my plate, I was thoroughly tired of interacting with flesh people, so I went straight home to be surly. That, at least is going well.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-10 05:10 am (UTC)My father once ran the team that built a new structure on church grounds in one of the bad parts of Philly. The junkies kept climbing a fifteen foot stone wall, crawling through razor wire atop the wall, and then getting onto a second-floor roof to steal the copper flashing off the roof of a church.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-11 12:06 am (UTC)yup. hell, that happened to MY house when i was living in a GOOD part of philly (19th & lombard).
they also stole the next door neighbor's central air unit - cement slab and all.