It is the small things in life, that left unattended, cause the largest problems. You never notice that your Heating and Air Conditioning system, which happens to be the most expensive appliance in your home, is working hard every day to maintain a comfortable indoor environment; that is until the system breaks.
Were you aware that the number one reason that Heating and Air Conditioning Systems break down is due to not changing the air filter?
Changing the air filter in your Heating and Air Conditioning system is akin to changing the oil filter in your car. It is a mandatory maintenance procedure that often goes unchecked resulting in an unexpected repair bill.
Here is where Filter Fairy can make your life easier. Filter Fairy will send you a friendly email or tweet reminding you that it is time to change your air filter. All you need to do is let Filter Fairy know that you exist.
Upon signing up for Filter Fairy to remind you that your air filter needs to be changed, you will begin to help Filter Fairy on her quest to banish filthy air from the households of the world. If you like, she will even deliver the filter to your doorstep at a cost that is out of this world. Join the Filter Fairy team.
With the recession looming over all of us, we are forced to look for ways to save money anywhere we can. With our shrinking budgets and growing grocery bills, the last thing that we need is for something to go wrong with our plumbing or air conditioner. It is in these times of conservation that we must arm ourselves with knowledge to navigate through the uncharted waters of calling a plumber safely. Since we are the unofficial experts on plumbing service, at the moment, I will attempt to let you behind the curtain and enlighten you with knowledge while steering you clear of myths in regards to maximizing your dollars spent on service. We are going to call this feature “Secrets of Service”. I know, real creative. If you can be more creative I challenge you to let us all know. For this purpose please place your “better” feature name in the box provided at the bottom of the post.
When you make the decision to call a plumbing or heating and air service technician, you are more than likely either in over your head on an ill fated home remedy or knee deep in an inconvenient malady. I have yet to meet the person that is overly joyous at the thought of having to call the plumber out to clean the sewer line. I rarely overhear people talking at the coffee house of their weekend plans that culminate with the visit of a service plumber.
As this feature grows we are going to eventually be able to offer a searchable database of frugal advice. Today we are going to test the myth that purchasing your own parts for the plumber to install will ultimately save you money because those plumbers rip you off on material.
Here is my advice. I suggest that you allow the plumber to provide the parts to install at your home. There are a few reasons. First, you are insured that the part will be correct. Second, the part will carry a contractor warranty. Third, the part will be of a quality that is sturdy enough for a professional to use.
I will make no bones about the fact that the part is probably going to be cheaper for you to go and purchase at the hardware store, but what if you choose the wrong part? Then you would not only be out the money spent on the part that you purchased, but you would have to purchase the plumbers correct part. Not to mention the icing on the cake of having to brave the return desk at the hardware store that you purchased the part at. The small amount of money spent in the grand scheme of the repair to assure that the part will be the correct part is well worth it.
The parts that a service plumber installs carry a contractor warranty. The part you bought from the hardware store might carry a manufacturer warranty, but I would be surprised if the plumber honors that warranty. If they did honor that warranty, you would probably be on the clock for the plumber to then execute the warranty, by going to the hardware store that you purchased the part at. By purchasing the part from the plumber you are assured that upon failure of the plumber’s part it will be replaced at the expense of the service plumber.
You might be thinking that the plumber would be crazy to offer such a wide spread warranty on parts installed. The reason that the plumber is able to do this is because the quality of the parts that he/she uses is very high. The seasoned professional does not bow down to the allure that cheap parts of substandard quality offer. If they do, they run the risk of taking money out of their pockets in the form of a call back, which is basically working for free. With the laws of basic economics still intact, working for free equals going into debt.
With all that said, I hope you feel better about purchasing that part off of the plumbers truck. Your trust in the service provider to install the correct part is the reason that you chose them in the first place. At the end of the day, the basic component of the relationship with your service provider is trust. If you don’t trust that your service provider has your best interest at hand, then find a new service provider. Trust me there are plenty to choose from.
So until next time, this concludes your first lesson of becoming a jedi in dealing with service providers in the most efficient manner. The force is strong with you.
[form 2 “Secrets of Service”]
We have an opportunity to communicate with people at blazing speeds through the advancements of social media. Just in the past six years we have all been witness to the mass migration from dial up internet to broadband access. In this latency pilgrimage we have all built out our own online persona through the various social media outlets. These networks we are creating are becoming more and more refined and searchable. So much that our thirst for the answer is becoming faster and less accurate.
Our perception of time has become warped. We no longer have patience for that few extra seconds that it takes for the page to load, or the account to post, or the attachment to attach. We are fast becoming an overcommunicated society. I might have made up that last word. Maybe overcommunicated is a stretch, but we must have industry leaders take the helm and help to steer the ship of knowledge to avert the icebergs of misinformation.
So you are asking yourself, what on God’s green earth is this plumbing and heating company blog writing about the speed and accuracy of communication? That is a good question. Here is another question to answer your question. How does our service industry begin to embrace social media technology with accuracy? I mean we could litter your Twitter feed with inane quotes, facts and quips regarding plumbing, but that doesn’t really hold any value. More so, it would be annoying. By the way, do you follow us on Twitter? If not, why? I promise we will not litter your Twitter.
It is this desire for amicable personal customer interaction that we decided to foray into the Facebook realm and attempt to create a community around our plumbing and HVAC service company. What sort of media would the consumer like to be able to either access, or interact with through this new social media wave? The exchange that we will share is going to be the x-factor in this new business world. We would appreciate some input from those of you that have chosen to ride our crazy train of knowledge. What do you want to hear about? What do you want more information on? Would you be into a question/answer application? When does the service company come too far into your home or life?
Leave your comments either here on the site or hop over to Facebook and post for the community to see. Don’t be afraid to start the discussion.
On a more technical note, we have some pretty cool and useless technology that is going to be coming down the pipe soon. The cool is a Facebook app that I dare not say the details because they are too foggy in mind, which means that I have no idea what I want to do, but I want to make a Facebook application. The useless is the Twittering toilet, which is currently in R&D and fast moving from paper to the production floor. This will be a cool experiment to show the effect that a toilet flush has on our water supply and possibly help make an argument for the implementation of waterless urinals as a standard in stadium and arena construction. A boy can dream.
Technology is fascinating. The trick is harnessing the power without flushing the value down the toilet.
Here we are in a day and age that Facebook can reach into 200 million people’s lives therefore adding validity to the fact that the taboo of communication online is breaking free from its infancy and entering adolescence. What does that mean to people? Basically it means that now that the medium is being embraced by your mothers and fathers and even some savvy business’. OK, but why I am reading this on the Pinasco Pipeline and not on a far more techie site such as Mashable or Lifehacker?
Let me explain why I am placing this on the Pipeline. This form of communication is essential to making business better as we are able to catch our customers (you) at their convenience and indulge on a personal level to better understand your wants and needs. The stigma of “only the weird people” are communicating online has finally passed. This medium is just like going out there and making relationships in “real life”. There must be an exchange. Consider this post to my olive branch to the community.
A friend of mine (@garyvee) gave me an interesting outlet on the web. Think of the web as a large convention hall full of people that are all talking at once. You are left to filter out the noise and focus on the content that is relevant to your interests. Slowly but surely you will build a corner of the hall that is essentially comprised of the people and business’ that provide the sort of content that your heart desires by listening and interacting with people. We are over in the corner talking about home plumbing, heating and air conditioning technology and hacks. The reason that you are reading this is because you in some way are interested in what goes on in the mind of the home service professional. So you have come over to shake our hand and listen to our spiel. This is where the exchange comes in.
We at Pinasco Mechanical Contractor want to know what is on our customer’s minds, so light that comment board up. We will still offer you blazing hot content regarding the tips and tricks to decoding your plumbing, heating and air conditioning questions. We just want to make sure our audience knows that this is a two way street, you can ask questions and actually are encouraged to.
Let’s get out there and shake some hands. We are all in this game together.
So you have gone all out and swore off the corporate world of specialty coffee shops and high end tea houses and decided to make a go of it on your own at home. There could be different motives that might have driven you over the edge and feet first into your new endeavor. It could be the silent protest of corporate greed in America, or maybe your budget has forced you to decide between designer morning go juice or diapers. In most cases the diapers win, but I digress.
- You stand over your faucet filling the coffee pot or the tea kettle in hopes of getting those bloodshot eyes open and filling your heart with the passion that it takes to get out there in this mad, mad world and just win.
- You mill around your house waiting the standard time that you would if you were at an esteemed caffeine vendor, just without the happy smile of the barista.
- Ding, the process is complete. Soon you will be enjoying the sweet nectar of hustle that you so longingly desire.
- Sip, pause, WTF.
Your drink is tainted with the metallic, sometimes salty, highly oxidized taste that you weren’t expecting. Some call it bitter coffee face. What to do? Well, in my travels through the plumbing universe I have found a remedy to this unfortunate malady. It’s a pretty scientific and technical, and I could really bore you with the nuances of the process, but for this articles sake we are going to steer clear of the tech and leave that for the scientists at the links below. Two words: Reverse Osmosis.
Reverse Osmosis basically makes water pure through a series of filtering. This is optimum when you are attempting to recreate the taste of the half caff, non-fat, soy milk mocha latte with room for cream at 140 degrees, in your home just the way Conner at the local ‘bucks does. The impurities and additives present in municipality water and well water provide you with the off flavors that you are trying to avoid.
The Reverse Osmosis units themselves are fairly inexpensive when weighed next to your caffeine habit, which means they will basically pay for themselves over a period of time. They are also pretty readily available at your local plumbing supplier.
Installation of a unit by yourself might be a little tricky. Luckily there are local plumbers that could help you, hint, hint. You might lose a little bit of room under the counter, or where ever you decide to place the little holding tank. The unit requires a point of use faucet, so you might need a hole on your counter. Al Gore and his band of merry green pranksters might get a little peeved with you as the process takes about 4 gallons of city or well water to produce one gallon of pure water, however there are some sustainable options to re-use the otherwise wasted water, so back off Al. Below you will find a link that shows you where the wasted water goes and how it is re-used.
Have I talked you out of this yet? If not here are a few links so you can do some of your own digging.
How it works (scientifically speaking)
Reverse Osmosis for Dummies
Examples of units that I have come into contact with
AquaPure (the one that I have)
Watts Zero Waste system (take that Al Gore)
Welcome everyone, to this thing we call the Pinasco Pipeline. This is a little experiment I have been thinking about for some time and decided to let the public decide if they really cared about the countless new technologies for the home that have flooded the market in recent times. Frankly, I don’t believe that the public is being treated very fairly when I get phone calls at my office demanding the installation of a tankless water heater to replace the existing standard tank style heater, all in the name of reducing their carbon footprint. Come to find out my customer is being told what to do by Martha Stewart. No knock on Martha, because I have to admit that I am a closet fan of her amazing home making skills, but I just think that whole story is not being told. The consumer deserves an opinion on the matter from someone who gets pumped about the new line of State water heaters. This is what you will get with the Pinasco Pipeline.
The Pinasco Pipeline is beholden to no one and only has one goal, inform the consumer. We are not afraid of technology nor want to discourage the advancement of the industry. We actually thrive on the subject and love testing the new products ourselves. We just want to make sure that the technology works, and that our customer will have the proper information to make an educated decision.
Think of us like the ace card that is hiding up your sleeve. Our job is to educate and empower you as the customer so that our relationship will blossom into a beautiful symbiotic thing.
I know, I know, you are thinking, I have hit the mother lode. Well I am not going to tell you otherwise, because essentially, you have. Welcome to my world. I love the internet and I love home building technology. My name is Andy Pinasco and I will be one of the guides that will usher through the glut of information that is new building and home technology. In coming posts we will tackle issues such as:
- Tankless versus standard water heaters
- Toilet flushing technology (yes this exists)
- Integration of your computer and your air conditioner (one of my faves)
- What to do when your water heater springs a leak
- What you should expect from a service technician
- and many, many more
So keep posted and check in often. If you haven’t already, join up our Facebook group, or follow us on Twitter to stay on the cusp of what you need to know about your home. We are all on this big ball of dirt together, so why not take the time to help each other out. Thank you for taking the time to read and we look forward to interacting with you.
Keep it real.
~Andy Pinasco
