Oil company makes amusing clerical mistake
 

Right now in the process of closing on a 2 family residence. Both units are oil heat, and after a decent inspection, I have a couple letters from the oil company (that the inspector was from), offering me a special deal on a one year furnace replacement free of charge on the existing equipment in one of the units if I sign an oil contract with them, and not extending the offer on the other side.

The amusing part, is that they mixed up the floors and the addresses that relate to the specific unit. The reason this is amusing is they have accidentally offered me this special deal on an original vintage coal furnace from the late 1920s that was converted to oil heat sometime in the 50s, and is coated with 3 inches of glorious asbestos.

They have specifically denied the offer for the other side, an early 90s oil furnace in great shape. :D

Im tempted to take them up on the offer, but I don't think there is anyway I can make it stand up once they figure out their blunder (since the inspector went on and on about it, amazing that the thing was functioning 70-80 years later). Yes, I would be very happy if they removed that monster that costs fortunes to run (that still has coal tools hanging around it amazingly) and modernized the house free of charge.

go for it............

But keep the coal tools for display, or sale as antiques on eBay.
People are shocked when I tell them my furnace is 45 years old!

Happy Motoring, Mark

Our first house was built for the foreman of the good year rubber plant locally in Ontario around 1914. They had a belt and mine pipe manufacturing facility there. It had a converted gravity coal furnace that was actually or seemed efficient at the time.

Of course energy was also cheap so quoting costs of operation would not be relevant. I forget anyways but it was an incidental amount.

I can't believe they are still there. This building was built as a rental unit 80 years ago, and has probably had a thousand tenants at this point, and its still going to be a rental unit after I modernize a few things, like the 1975 interior decorating. The stuff is still there, no kids have taking them to dig holes in the yard, no one has taken the coal tools out to poke a fire pit and left them, ect.

Amazing to me that they still remain.

Thieves don't steal tools.

Well, that depends. Tell that to my friend who had all his stolen from his truck a few years ago.

Happy Motoring, Mark

I think the saying is they steal shiny tools more than non shiny tools.

Take them up on it!:D

heres what this dinosaur looks like, tools still hanging on the brick behind it-

Energy star rated?:D

2 black holes :)

Looks fine to me. Could be reconverted back to coal if necessary.

Wanna bet on that :D?

That is actually referred to as 'The Crow Effect' since crows like shiny things. The story taught in biz schools is that the reason industrial tools are flat black was cut down on the theft of the tools.

I think that's Hooey. I would bet that flat black tools cost less to make and the entire crow effect was invented by tool makers to sell a tool that is cheaper to make at the same price as a plated one.

Actually it seems relatively efficient, certainly heats up quick

The low water cutoff is broken, which is a Very Bad Thing. Getting the plumber to look at it, if it costs a couple hundred bucks to fix that, I might as well do the gas conversion plus rebate, which will end up being a few grand. Last apartment I did that on was for rent under 12 hours, people were so excited about a new efficient furnace. I had my pick of the litter for tenants.

Color certainly seems to change theft in a way. Used to work with a truck tech who had dipped most of his tool handles in pink enamel. No one ever took his stuff, even the notorious tool thiefs in our shop. Obviously, it was pretty easy to tell who had it if anything wnt missing :D

Yeah! Someone made an innocent mistake- so f@*k them and make them do tons of work for peanuts and lose money so they can raise the rates for everyone else. Might as well stop working and get as much free money from the govt and charities for rent, phones, food and anything while you are at it.

they were both joking.

however, even if I were inclined to play that sort of game, never gonna happen. Local oil company, not some huge monster looking to make a name for them in customer service by honoring silly blunders.

Im sure if I had called and tried it, they'd laugh their a$$es off and tell me to go take a long walk off a short pier. However, I did call and get them to correct it officially, as I do want the coverage on the other furnace. We had a good laugh about it, I did say that if they want to honor a free replacement contract on an 80 year old furnace, they get no argument from me. :D

Is that R2D2's father???

That is bad, but swapping in a new one is not that difficult if it's like mine. It's just an external loop on the boiler with an electric float switch of some kind.

Its a "Richardson B&W" with a "Beckett" oil burner retrofit

awesomely the company that built the thing is apparently still in business, they build nuclear power stuff now-
History


therfore, It must be R2D2's father

He may be able to fix the existing unit. The plumber I use is a deliberate and pragmatic individual, if its a waste of time, ill be hearing an earful about it. :D

If its not, he'll bust it out with only a few hundred muttered oaths

Go gas.

After converting our building from steam boiler to gas units almost 4 years ago, and my father following suit at his house not long after that, I wouldn't hesitate. The conversion in our building (just over $60K) paid for itself in less than 2 years.

My father's heating bill is 1/3 what it used to be with the coal->oil boiler and he heats the house entirely to 70 degrees (used to supplement with a wood stove and thermostat was set to 64). His new furnace was less than $5K and takes less space than a dorm-sized fridge. They converted all of his steam radiators to accept hot water and it's worked well.

Although I suppose if the tenants are paying for H/HW there's far less of an incentive.

It would be pretty cool to have a nuclear boiler...

It's far more common than you think (apparently) when people say they are joking about something and they follow through because they can and it nets them a few bucks. Neither of them said they were joking btw. In addition there are plenty of unscrupulous people who do what's in their power or find some lawyer who will make the other party honor the "amusing mistake". People screwing other people doesn't happen in your world?

^^I'm calling this post out as a copyright violation. Can we lock the thread already?

sure, it happens all the time. In fact the city of Providence has such a huge history of organized crime, you constantly have to be vigilant that you aren't involving yourself in some kind of shady outfit accidentally when you hire contract services. Fortunately the lions share of this blatant activity has been stamped out, but there is still a city wide "youse scratch my back, I scratch youse back" feel to the area.

As an outsider (originally from CT) its particularly visible when hiring contractors who are local and dealing with inspection officials. Its hard to put my finger on the mentality, but its less of a screwing you thing, than a contractor might want to "do you a favor" and in return expect some kind of favor.
Usually this takes the form of not submitting permits or documents, cash deals, not paying in any form that can be traced, hiring a brother, ect. Its irritating. This is one of the reasons I like my current plumber, he complains about this mentality every time I see him. His favorite comments are "just get the !@#$ permit, its easy to do it legal!". He usually says this when he sees some ridiculous repair that was designed around avoiding a building or mechanical permit.

Having said all that, my trying to enforce a clerical mistake locally by hiring a lawyer and getting all offical would be laughed at by the oil company, the lawyer, and the judge who is probably their customer/hunting buddy. :D

So in some ways, the shady buddy system serves to eliminate the whole "im going to sue you" nonsense, I guess there are benefits, and its pretty workable when you nail down good people.

Tenants are definitely wary on how things are heated these days, especially after this winter. :D Having a new gas furnace is a huge draw for people.

I definitely want to do it as the building already has new double pane windows in it and is pretty tight as far as drafts. Plus national grid is running a great incentive and rebate on gas conversions from oil heat.

I already took advantage of this once, brand new gas furnace to run steam radiators installed was about 5k discounted, with a rebate of nearly 1500 dollars mailed back in the form of a credit card, and I sold the iron 50s furnace from that property for scrap on top of that, was nearly 800lbs of metal with all the bits. All said and done I think my investment into the gas conversion was between 3500 and 3900 dollars.

Tenants told me their heating bill was slashed in half doing this.


tell me about the converting of the steam radiators to run hot water? is this more efficient than retaining the steam arrangement? ill have to ask the plumber about it.

Tweedledee and tweedledum are here removing this SOB.
Its about 90F with 100% humidity and they arrived 20 minutes ago yelling at eachother pissed off about a job this morning apparently.

First thing the guy does is tear off the asbestos without a mask and stuff it in a trash bag....
Now they are screaming at eachother about the plugged drain in the lower part of the furnace and it still being full of water.

So they're leaving asbestos dust all over your basement? You're screwed, they're screwed, your tenants are screwed. Have you ever seen a professional asbestos removal? Great pains are taken to sequester the area to prevent the migration of asbestos dust into other areas.

Yup. And i specifically requested a legit removal from the plumbing contractor who subcontracted this part of the job to these guys. This will be involved.

Boiler weighs approx 1200 lbs. Watching them maneuver this out of the basement up a narrow staircase has been interesting

Staircase carved in bedrock?

One could take a sprayer and soak the asbestos wearing a good breathing mask, then bag it and put it in the trash. Perfectly legal for you to do your own. I'd also rig a good blower to exhaust the area in question for a few days to blow out all the particles. Then I'd go to bed and sleep like a baby.

Or you could hire a proper removal contractor and try to get the contractor to pay for it.

When we removed the 1.5 million btu boiler in my building basement after the asbestos removal contractor did his magic we simply took sledges and beat it into small enough bits to carry out....wearing eye protection.

They broke it down some, but still had one 600ish lb piece that had to be moved. Stairs handled it, but they did crack two steps

I think they did get it wet and soak it down. Maybe the removal was slightly more intelligent than i thought. Still cant believe these guys didnt even bother with masks. He did tell me he takes it to be properly disposed of, but im sure that was some BS because i was pissed off once i learned how they were doing this. (Was outside repairing the garage for the building)

Of course we had the standard cash vs check debate at the end as well. Drives me nuts how many times i have to have this same discussion as a small business owner with other small businesses looking for unreported income opportunities.

At least he had a good line-
"uncle sam? We aint ****** related"

Too much hazard in trying to move a six hundred pound object out of a basement for two people. Maybe winching it up on a skid might be okay.

We once moved a similar weight with four of us. It may have even been heavier. Once we got on the outside porch I went through it. Fortunatly it was only a foot or so underneath so I managed to keep my corner up. Had it been further I might have landed up with all the weight on me.

Yikes!
its amazing what you can move with a big HD appliance dolly and a triple strapped object. They had more trouble negotiating the tight corner of the staircase than actually getting the thing up and over each step with some timber being used as a prybar. He alzo said they usually have 3 guys, but one guy flaked out for the day. Still, they never directly lifted anything. Despite the asbestos malarkey, these guys definitely know how to move heavy crapola.

Makes me consider a bulkhead entrance for this building. Things like a washer and dryer just barely fit down the width. Guys would have been done in 2 hours instead of 5.

They told me about another appliance dolly they managed to bend in a 45 degree trying to move a safe by hand. He said he gave up on that one.

safes are heavy!

Well, so long as he didn't inhale...!

Happy Motoring, Mark

I always remove at least the bullion before I try to move any of mine. Coins also if Ihave to go up or down stairs.

MV