Home owner work during heavy up outage

[hornetd]

While I had all power off to a home to perform a heavy up the customer changed out some switches from standard toggle to decora. She left out a jumper between two switches which de energized a large portion of a circuit. Calls me on Saturday to fix it on Sunday. I find the break and repair it. I inform home owner that I will charge for the service call and homeowner seems upset. Any suggestions for handling the matter?
--
Tom Horne

 

[peter d]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

She was upset because you fixed her screwup??????

[ October 07, 2005, 01:16 PM: Message edited by: peter d ]

 

[sheldon_ace]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

Originally posted by hornetd:
I find the break and repair it. I inform home owner that I will charge for the service call and homeowner seems upset. Any suggestions for handling the matter?
--
Tom Horne

Tell her you are not a "not for profit business" and that your time does't come for free. If she does't like it, go back and remove the jumpers and tell her to fix it herself.

Im so sick of people wanting something for nothing!!

 

[Leitmotif]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

Yeah BUT
It took only 5 minutes to fix it.

Lets not worry about
the drive time back and forth.
the time it took to identify what was wrong

Dan Bentler

 

[peter d]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

Ask her this: "When you go to Wal Mart, do you expect them to give you everything for free?"

"When you get your car fixed, do you tell the mechanic to do the work for free?"

You get the idea....you can ask any number of questions along those lines.

 

[growler]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

Tom, I find that if you take those tear soaked checks and put them in the oven at low temperature they will dry out and you can deposit them with no problem. I find very few people that really want to pay for repairs.

 

[jimwalker]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

Reminds me of a service call i made back when i did TV repairs.I drive to the mobile home 20 minutes away and drag in my tool box like normal.I see a totally messed up screen.This was back in the late 70's when they had knobs.Turned and adjusted them and within a few seconds all was well.She looked at me like what did i do.I nicely suggested that her rug rat (i did not use them words)had turned played with them.She was happy that nothing was broke.Then i wrote out a bill.Her comment was why are you charging me if it wasn't broke.She paid

 

[JES2727]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

You went to her house on a Sunday to fix her mistake and she's upset about paying for your service?? Wow. Granted, a little forewarning might have been appropriate. Perhaps you could have told her before you went there that you would have to charge her if the problem was caused by anything other than the work you had just done. Regardless, you went to her home on a Sunday and fixed her problem. Collect your money and don't feel bad about it.

 

[charlie b]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

Since no one else has asked, I'll show off my ignorance. What does the phrase "heavy up" mean?

 

[peter d]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

Originally posted by charlie b:
What does the phrase "heavy up" mean?

A service upgrade. For example upgrading from an old 4 circuit 60 amp fuse panel to a 20 circuit 100 amp breaker panel.

 

[peter d]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

FWIW, I have never heard the term "heavy up" used in my area, and I the first time I heard it used was in David Shapiro's "Old Electrical Wiring."

 

[jeff43222]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

Originally posted by peter d:

Originally posted by charlie b:
What does the phrase "heavy up" mean?

A service upgrade. For example upgrading from an old 4 circuit 60 amp fuse panel to a 20 circuit 100 amp breaker panel.

I'm not sure I'd call a 20-slot 100A panel "heavy." That's more of a bump. Or a tweak. Possibly an uptick.

Now if you're talking about ramping things up to 200A and 40 slots, then I'm on board.

 

[peter d]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

Originally posted by jeff43222:
I'm not sure I'd call a 20-slot 100A panel "heavy." That's more of a bump. Or a tweak. Possibly an uptick.

Well, if you only had 4 fuses and 60 amps, it's pretty darned heavy.

In my area, 100 amps is more than sufficient for most dwelling units. (heavy post-war housing stock, mostly small homes with gas or oil heat and hot water and no a/c)

 

[jeff43222]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

I was just thinking that 100A service is the minimum you can put into a single-family dwelling these days, so I have a hard time thinking of the minimum as heavy. True, 100A service is plenty of juice for lots of occupancies. I only have 100A in my house, and I have no plans on heavying up, no matter how bored I get on the weekends.

 

[gudguyham]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

I have been doing electrical work for about 15 years, I just heard the term "heavy up" last April from one of the GC's I do work for. That was the first time. I didnt ask him what he meant because in the course of the conversation I knew what he was talking about. But that was the first time in all those years. We were going from 100A to 200A in conjunction with other house improvements. Louie

 

[hornetd]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

Originally posted by growler:
Tom, I find that if you take those tear soaked checks and put them in the oven at low temperature they will dry out and you can deposit them with no problem. I find very few people that really want to pay for repairs.

Do you recommend 200 degrees or just 150?
--
Tom Horne

 

[growler]

Re: Home owner work during heavy up outage

About 150F should do it. I was just trying to find a humorous way of saying that unless you advertise a free service call with every service change, then you have to charge. It's just business. People get upset all the time and they get over it. Not long ago I had a customer get upset because she called an appliance repairman to fix a disposal and he told her to call an electrician ( after charging her $90.00 ). I replaced a bad switch and charged around $170.00 for the service call ( twenty miles each way in heavy traffic ). Now the lady has $260.00 in a $4.00 switch ( Heavy Duty ) and about 15 minutes of labor. She wants to know why my bill is higher than the appliance repairman's bill. I explain that she is only paying the minimum charge and the fact that she had to give the appliance repairman a minimum charge has nothing to do with it. I told her that if the repairman had wanted to be a nice guy that he could have legally changed out the switch ( considered minor electrical). She said it was against his company policy to touch anything electrical. I said that it was our company policy to have a two hour minimum charge and seems to be the industry standard. As she writes the check I can see that she is holding back the tears of frustration. As I'm driving away I think maybe I should have given Mom a break, No , business is business.
( The Mom part is fiction but the rest is true, just making the story more interesting).