Rain stopped play

What a miserable week (weatherwise) last week was.

It rained, and rained, and rained, and then it rained some more. My plan had been to complete the basement porch. Someone must have heard about my plan, and smiled. Then that someone let it rain for forty days and forty nights... No, that was someone else, wasn't it? It just felt like forty days and nights.

What I did manage to do was catch up with other workloads.

I've changed several light fittings, renewed sockets, switches, and a cooker hood, replaced washers on literally dozens of taps, rehung a couple of doors, restored two of my customers computers to fully functioning former glory, replaced a hand rail, built some flatpack, custom built a kitchen cabinet to hide a boiler, hung some curtains, and wired up a door bell. The one thing I didn't do last week was stop and offer a lift to a young teenage girl standing at a lonely bus stop in the pouring rain.

Why not?

Prejudice and cowardice!

I'm a 55 year old man driving a builder's van.

She was about 11 - 16 (who can tell?) and drowning at the bus stop.

Driving along the road, I was approaching the bus stop and saw her standing there, trying to hide behind the bus stop pole for protection against the rain.

I started to slow down, intending to offer a her a lift.

The windscreen wipers were having difficulty keeping up with the rain.

In the same second as I started to slow down, I made the decision to continue on without stopping. I don't think she even noticed me or the van.

Twenty years ago I would have stopped.

Ten years ago I would have stopped.

Five years ago I would have stopped.

But last week I didn't.

As I prepared to slow down, my thoughts were purely selfish.
She'll think I'm some sort of pervert.

She'll be afraid.

She could accuse me of something afterwards and I will have no defence.

and many other scenarios filled me with disquiet.

I have found the whole thing strangely sad.

She will never know that it made me feel wretched.

What has happened that we have developed into a society where I, and people like me, don't do what comes naturally (to offer help), because we are afraid of what might never happen.
Am I getting older and wiser, or simply older and more afraid?

Flatpack and customer service

I had three calls from regular customers today, all needing flat pack assembled.
Two of the items were standard flat pack type furniture units; simple and straightforward enough.
The other one was a "self assembly" fitness bike.
You know the things I mean...
They stand in many a home, unused, except in the first flush of enthusiasm.
Thereafter they become silent clothes horses.
Well this (next year's clothes horse) needed to be assembled first.
"It's for my daughter" she explained.
The man who sold it to her said it only needed four pieces put together to complete the assembly, and yes she would be easily capable of doing it.
Well I am here to tell you that the salesman had either no idea what he was talking about (in which case he is at best a nitwit), or else he was maliciously mendacious.
It took me the better part of 30 minutes to sort the thing out.
It would have taken the lady, by her own admission, more than 30 hours!
In another life I was a highly successful Direct Salesman.
For those of you who don't already know direct sales is a feast or famine game.
Some weeks you'll feast on roast chicken
other days all you'll have to eat is feathers.
The pressures to perform and reach targets are unrelenting.
It's a very exciting way to live.
The temptation to dupe is huge and ever present.
It is purely down to an individual's personal integrity which way they go.
My erstwhile mentor in sales was a guy called Greg Barnes.
He used to say that the "tools" of the salesperson and the "tools" of the con artist are the same....

The ONLY difference between a sales person and a con artist is intent!

A salesperson does things to help a customer reach a decision that is good for the customer.
The con artist does things to make the customer reach a decision that is good for the con artist.
People with good intent and personal integrity, aren't those the type of people we all want to deal with?
The lady has said she will never go back to that shop again.
I think she's right to think like that, don't you?

Outside lights

This evening I had arranged to fit an outside light for a home owner.
The old unit had given up the ghost.
The homeowner was an electronics researcher, who in daily life gave presentations at conferences on electronics, but freely admitted that he preferred not to handle screwdrivers if he could possibly avoid them. It seemed somehow strange to fit a simple light for a research fellow in electronics, but I've done many strange things in my life, so one more mildly surreal thing simply didn't faze me.
In the course of conversation we did discover that we both had a healthy disdain for "designers" and their apparent lack of common sense. It takes just as long to design something well, as it does to design it poorly, so why do so many designers (and architects) design so poorly?
Is it malevolence, ignorance, or stupidity?
If you want to see what I consider a prime example of ghastly design go down to the corner of Whitley Road and St Philips Avenue. There you will see a large building (St Philip's Church of England church) that is "architect designed". How could anybody associate themselves with such a miserable confection - unless of course they wanted to become known for poor quality prison punishment block design? It is at best an eyesore - but I suspect it is probably feted throughout the designer community, as what can be readily achieved with the right level of complete disregard for one's own self respect.
Professionals!
I think not.

Well that's my rant for the day

Oh by the way. the light works now.

Kids, Jet Skis, Handrails, and Door Closers

Well after the last post, lets get back to the real world.
I had a nice light day today. Fit an electric shower, put up two handrails on a very steep stairwell, install an automatic door closer, and put up a couple of floodlights. All in a days work. The installation of the shower was almost a carbon copy of the last shower I put in yesterday. Same issue different house. Why?
My second call of the day was to a great lady who seemed to have similar ideas about kids as me. It's not the children who are to blame for poor schooling or discipline, it's the parents. The teachers have the responsibility for the kids for 40 hours a week max. Parents have them for 128 hours a week. I'm lousy at maths, but common sense tells me, simply by looking at the ratios of time, the fault MUST lie with the parents. Here's a quote I saw somewhere -- "What we do to kids now, they will do to society later". (Whoops, I'm on my soap box again. Sorry!) Where was I? Oh yes! Putting up lights. I had three sets of lights to put up, and was given three cups of tea -now that's what I call a GOOD ratio. I asked why she needed so much light and she said she needed it for her jet ski - ask a simple question, you'll get a simple answer.
A pig's ear handrail ( that's not a moan - it's called a pigs ear because in profile it resembles a pig's ear.) is a doddle to put up. The most difficult bit was manoeuvring a 4 metre long pole into a narrow stairwell at the end of a room filled with bone china, glasses, and other highly breakables. It only took about an hour to install them both, but now it has made going up and down a cellar stairwell much safer. I should be in line for a halo soon!!!!!!
The door closer finished off the week. This weekend we've got family over from France and I need to have a chat with my son in Germany. Oh yes, we're very EUropean in our household.
Can't get over the Jet Skis.

Malice in the loft

I was up in three lofts today changing ballcock valves. Two of them were simple. Turn off the water, undo two nuts, change the valve, reconnect, turn on the water, check for leaks and function, job done. Nothing challenging about that is there? Ten minutes, and you're on your way. Normally that's the case. Simple job, simple transaction, everybody happy.
But not if one of THOSE tradesmen installed the cold water tank.
You will seldom hear me talk badly of others - I don't like to do it. It's just that sometimes, just sometimes, I believe that the occasional tradesman(?) has an ignorant streak. Either that or they're just plain stupid. Imagine if you will, a 50's build house with classic timber cut pitched roof, a loft the size of a tennis court. An old, disconnected, galvanised cold water tank, lies empty and discarded to one side. At some time in the late 90's a plumber ( so the old lady home owner informs me) of, I believe, dubious parentage had installed a clean shiny black plastic cold water tank. So far so good. Now remember this loft is almost the size of a tennis court. Over in the corner, as tight under the rafters as is humanly possible, the tank has been installed. No real problem just strange. But now comes the crunch... It had been connected with all connections on the the roof line side. In order to get to the ballcock the tank had to be moved!!!!! Yes, in many lofts there is precious little room to move but in this one there was loads of space. It wasn't as if
they had taken the shortest horizontal route. There was no apparent logical reason to have done what they did. To me it seems as if it was just pure malice. Ignorant, or stupid you decide.
Ignorance is man made and to be despised, stupidity is God given and therefore no fault of their own. I still don't know if they should be despised or pitied. What do you think?

Growing older

I live in Pevensey Bay. I like Pevensey Bay. One of the reasons I like it is because if you're under 55 in P Bay you're considered a teenager. As you know, I have a lot of very nice customers. Many of them are elderly, and many live in P Bay. One of the many things I'm asked to do is take out baths and fit shower cubicles. Often the customer can no longer get his or her leg over the bath edge, or can't sit down, or they can get in, but can't get back up . There are so many different solutions and they can often be tailored to suit individual circumstances.

Without exception, all of my elderly customers were once young, fit, and healthy.

I can't begin to know what they feel, but I can only think it must be frustrating getting older.

I found this article in a book I read quite often - - I think it says a lot on the subject of getting older, sometimes when I read it I can see myself.

If we are getting older it will be harder to acknowledge that we have not been called to spectacular service, that we are unlikely now to make a stir in the world, that our former dreams of doing some great healing work had a great deal of personal ambition in them. A great many men and women have had to learn this unpalatable lesson - and then have discovered that magnificent opportunities lay all around them. We need not go to the ends of the earth to find them; we need not be young, clever, fit, beautiful, talented, trained, eloquent or very wise. We shall find them among our neighbours as well as among strangers, in our own families as well as in unfamiliar circles - magnificent opportunities to be kind and patient and understanding. This is a vocation just as truly as some more obviously seen as such - the vocation of ordinary men and women called to continual, unspectacular acts of loving kindness in the ordinary setting of every day. They need no special medical boards before they embark on their service, need no inoculation against anything but indifference and lethargy, and perhaps a self-indulgent shyness.

How simple it sounds; how difficult it often is.

Clifford Haigh, 1962

If you need some ideas about showers and baths, for yourself, or someone you know, pop along to the new showrooms at Plumbase Unit 12, Hawthorn Road, Eastbourne, Tel:01323 746666.

Have you ever put up ceiling lights?

Designers. How I would love to strangle a designer. Especially the ones that design light fittings.

I've just put up a Chandelier - it replaces what was there before. Have you ever tried standing on a platform with a part assembled light fitting in one hand, a screwdriver in the other, trying to get a ridiculously small screw into a badly machined hole on the side of a ceiling rose with your other hand. Wait a minute I hear you say I don't have three hands!.......... Now here's the rub. Neither do lamp designers. So why in the name of everything that is holy do they design such diabolical fittings. On a good day it can take 5 minutes to put up a lamp, but it can easily become half an hour, or even an hour... Once you've got it up, then the fun really begins.... dozens and dozens of tiny little dangly bits, need to be hung on hair like wire clips, threaded through virgin size holes. All this and then you've got to go out and get a specific type of light bulb which normal shops in the area don't stock !!!!!!!!!!!

It is my fervent hope that all designers everywhere heed this message, If you do not mend your ways, I will invoke a leather-winged demon of the night to tear itself, shrieking blood and fury, from the endless caverns of the nether world, to hurl itself into the darkness with a thirst for blood on its slavering fangs and it will search the very threads of time for the throbbing of your heartbeat. Just thought you'd want to know that. :)

The floor was sinking fast - rotten wallplate

I don't work on Saturdays, well, not normally. This weekend I've had to make an exception (I quite often make exceptions for lots of things). The workload is very healthy and I need to stay on top of the new work coming in. Norman the P & D, is doing all of the painting and decorating he can handle. Oliver the electrician is as busy as ever. Jeff the gas man sighs when I phone him with another customer. Graham the plasterer is on a huge job. And I'm running around doing the bits I like to do. Yes the workload is very healthy.

As much as possible I like to do the small "No job too small" stuff. I used to do the big stuff, but nowadays the body groans when I even think of heavy work, and so I now choose to do the small stuff. Wherever possible, then and there. Saturday was full of small stuff. I started off in Milfoil Drive. Bathroom doors are notorious for sticking. You can probably boil it down to a couple of factors. Humidity, and poor quality doors, badly hung. This one had all three! The low quality (superstore/cheap) knotty pine door had been poorly fitted and badly sealed.

The door didn't stand a chance.

(Where's my soapbox - it's time for a rant!)

You CANNOT - buy cheap - and get good.

Or as Confucius says

Cheap thing no good

Good thing no cheap

Please write it a hundred times.

Wooden doors are living, breathing things.

They expand and contract with humidity by a very surprising amount

If they are not protected by coats of of oil, varnish, or paint, they will warp - guaranteed.

Especially if they were cheap....

End of rant...

In the short term, I've solved the lady's problem by planing the door enough to stop it sticking, but not so much as to make the door too small when the humidity decreases.

There are a number of other small jobs that need to be tackled around the house, but they will have to wait until Thursday.

Having left Milfoil Drive, I headed down to my next call in Channel View Road. Here was a new small problem. The living room floor of this edwardian terrace house had sunk by two inches in the front corner. Visions of huge repair costs were floating in front of the lady's eyes.

I suspected that the wallplate that the floor joists sat on was rotten. We decided to lift a floorboard to see what the problem was. Lo and behold, the wallplate had disintegrated and left the floor joist (which was rotten at the end where it had sat on the plate) hanging in mid air held up only by the floorboards it was meant to support. The lady was thinking terms of hundreds of pounds. I told her it would be about twenty pounds in materials plus a bit of labour plus two cups of tea. We struck a deal, and I went off to get the materials. Within an hour the job was done, the floor back in place and safe to walk on. I was on my way, leaving yet another lady with a smile on her face!

The other two jobs of the day were electrical - replacing a broken socket and changing a light fitting. I was home for three and able to put my feet up for the weekend.

Drains sinks and other fascinating things...

While surfing the web last weekend I found a couple of new toys . I'm always interested what the weather is going to be like and so I tried this out. An Eastbourne Handyman link. I put up a webcam in a matter of seconds using Eastbourne Handyman link. It’s an evaluation program that's not only free to use, but dead easy to set up. If you go to Eastbourne Handyman link you can see out of my study window!

Today was a plumbing day.

Kitchen sink taps - who designs these things?
If anybody out there is a designer of ANYTHING, this is for you.

Pleeeeease, after you've done the "getting in touch with your feminine side" bit, fit what you have designed, yourself. Not on a workbench or in a controlled environment, but in a few real life situations. Then you will find out for yourself, why fitters the world over, think designers are plonkers! If you can't fit the stuff yourself, how in the name of God do you expect others to fit it? Please THINK before you commit pen to paper.
Is that so hard to do?

Anyway back to what I was about to write before I interrupted myself!

Changing a kitchen tap is fairly straight forward (If you want to do it yourself, try this link Eastbourne Handyman link). This one wasn't quite so straight forward. Plastic pipework, copper pipework, six different types of plastic, brass, and copper connectors, and four of them weeping quite badly. (Badly enough to have already ruined the kitchen sink cupboard). So much goes on under there. Sink, waste disposal, washing machine, dishwasher, all need connecting, and then the water has to be drained away, and all that in a shoebox sized cupboard.
It's no wonder that so many household disasters happen there.

It took the better part of two hours and two cups of tea to sort it all out. Now the new tap is all bright and shiny, the WM & DW connectors and all the pipework have been changed, the expectant mum's world is back in order. In a couple of months I'll probably have to take it all out again to replace the cupboard that is going to fall to bits because of the previous weeps.

Jane is a very good friend of mine. Seventy-five plus, ex-school teacher, warm, charming, and gifted. She, and her husband John, are Quakers. (By the way, so am I) She has one of those voices that you want to listen to, no matter what she's saying. When she reads poetry, verse or prose springs to life in front of your eyes. Despite all that, she still had a blocked up basin waste pipe. Jane can work miracles with the spoken word - but I know how to clear a blocked waste pipe. Clear the trap under the basin, a couple of judicious taps with a hammer along the pipework and the decades of limescale breaks into little pieces and is flushed away to the sea. Moral: We should all specialise in the things that we're good at, and always use the right tool for the job.

What I do

I work as a general handyman and am able to do a wide variety of jobs.
Although I have the skills and knowledge to build you a house,I no longer choose to undertake any large projects. Many customers tell me I am particularly good at problem solving.I can custom build wardrobes and bookcases, hang doors, assemble flat pack, make wooden windows open that have stuck for years, install cat flaps, fit washing machines/dishwashers, fix leaking taps, toilets, and ball cocks, in fact there are not many jobs I cannot do.

My skills
My skills cover most things carpentry, plumbing, or electrical
Please note I am not a registered plumber or electrician
All electrical work carried out by me will be approved by a fully registered electrician If and when certification is applicable he may charge a fee for the certificate.

Other Trades
I do not do Gardening, Painting, Decorating, Plastering, Tiling, Central Heating or Gas, but I do know reliable tradesmen that do. These tradesmen are known to me and have been tried and tested by my many customers. The people whom I introduce, or whose numbers I give you, are completely independent from my business. Make sure that you feel happy with them and negotiate with them for their work directly.


Estimates
Any estimate given whether verbal or written will be for my advice, labour, and expertise only and does not cover unforeseen circumstances, additional works, or work to be carried out by any other tradesmen.

All materials are in addition to the estimate and must be paid for in advance. If you wish I can take you to my trade suppliers, where you can take advantage of my trade discount accounts.


Rubbish clearance
Any rubbish will need to be placed in your general household rubbish bin, if a large amount of rubbish is expected then I would advise that you arrange a skip to be on site. Alternatively I can give you the telephone number of a man who does rubbish clearance.

Payment
Method of payment will be agreed before I commence work. I do not give credit in any form.

From January 2010 the new home page of "Jim'll Fix It Services" will be at www.rwjsear.com. As always, whatever you need I'll be able to help.
Be it help with property maintenance, or computer help give me a call on 07930 335 937.
If I can't help - I'll know a man who can!