The new kitchen faucet only lasted a little more than 27 months before the spout corroded through on the underside and began spraying water from the break. I ordered a replacement that I thought was better, but put off installing it as long as I could.
I was going to do the work over my most recent week of vacation. Didn't happen -- I was sick all that week and a few days more. I'm still recovering, productively coughing and sneezing far less often but it hasn't stopped. And I get short of breath very easily.
Chemistry and physics don't care. Neither does entropy. The spout kept getting worse. I tackled it today and the job is no less awkward than last time.
Next time, I'm going to buy longer armored flexible connectors, those fancy hoses that run between the pipes and the faucet. The ones I used last time are just barely too short to hook up both sides of the new spout above the sink where it's easy. The hot side barely reaches and cold requires an awkward crawl-and-reach trick. But the new one's in, it works, and so far I'm not finding any leaks.
The bad news is that it's the same model as last time, only in brushed nickle instead of bright chrome. It's probably going to fail again in a couple of years. Indiana water is hard.
On the dishwashing front, on the one day of activity I managed over my vacation, I found the exact dishwasher I wanted and priced out installation and hauling the old one away -- and it was pretty cheap. Hooray! Except they only had the floor model and it wasn't for sale. "You can go to our Carmel store." Yeah. You bet. Like I had time, wanted to deal with the inevitable snotty Carmel attitude, and futz about with some plumber who was having to burn up an hour or more in travel time to do the job. They weren't interested in shuttling one between stores or ordering one from the manufacturer for me. So I haven't bought a dishwasher yet. I'm still doing dishes by hand.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
5 comments:
I'm in retail. Having a model on display for a dishwasher style you don't intend to sell doesn't make sense to me. You might find it worthwhile to call the store manager Monday...
Jeffrey Smith
I agree that putting a little more effort into getting the floor model might be worthwhile. Nowhere near the heft of a dishwasher is the wastebasket that I found, in use in the paint department of the local WalMart. It took some talking, but I got them to empty it and sell it to me. (Still in use 20+ years later.) It may not work, and you may also have exhausted your patience with the "talk 'em into it". If not....
I was in the home-improvement store on the Tuesday morning of my vacation, the last stop in a tour that included the drugstore and five and dime. picking up stuff for what I assumed would be a few days of a cold. I did not look or sound my best.
A recurring problem for me is that I simply don't look like anyone who could afford to buy a large-ticket item. Sometimes that's fun, like when I'm paying cash a car; sometimes it's not, like when I'm trying to get the attention of a car salesman in the first place. I dress very plainly, in work clothes, and quite often wear a disreputable-looking hat. They tend to send out the junior salesperson and to rid of me. So they're not highly motivated to make a sale they doubt will even happen. Since I'm not highly motivated by salesmanship, this is not a problem unless selling me something would take a little more non-BS effort on their part: being sure I'm not going to spend any money, they don't want to put in any effort. If I have time to prepare, this is easily diverted by counting out hundreds. But I hadn't and couldn't; I was going to put it on my credit card.
I'll try again later.
I'm reminded about the story of the long-haired freak brothers who hit a Mercedes dealership in the early 70's, and were passed down the line until they finally got someone junior enough to give them the time of day.
of course, it so happened that those freaks were Francis Ford Coppola & George Lucas looking to spend the "Godfather" bonus money on a 600.
There's a similar story about Grace Slick buying an Aston Martin with $100 bills too.
The good salespeople tend to collect these sorts of stories, while the bad ones wonder why they're not doing so hot.
So...Halloween is your day to go shopping...the day when you dress up like the above-average-income, commanding presence you need to be in dealing with salespeople. Those salespeople who go by looks miss out on a lot of business, I'm sure! Sorry your salespeople are so antediluvian.
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