Friday, July 14, 2006
Ummm ... could I get some service here please?
We have only had one service turned on in this new house that didn't require an extra phone call (or several extra phone calls) to get working properly. And that one service is the gas, which is sold as a commodity in Georgia, from Gas South.
Everyone else can suck a dick!
We closed on the June 19th. The water was shut off on the 20th. After many phone calls, getting hung up many times, and finally J just going down to the meter and cranking the valve with a set of vice-grips, we finally got water back. I took a trip down to Dekalb County Water & Sewer to have a little talk with them (they can't hang up on you when you are in their face) and, while they were very apologetic, refused to reduce or remove the setup fee. I might just have to write an editorial to the Dekalb Neighbor.
We were supposed to have phone on the 9th of July (yeah, a Sunday ... I thought it was odd too). July 10th, no phone. I finally called. They said the phone signal was fine. I decided the problem was with Alex's old "property of Bell South" phone. After a trip to North Dekalb Mall I discovered the Radio Shack is no longer business there. I then go to Home Depot and Lowes only to find that Home Depot only sometimes has cheap corded phones and Lowes never has phones at all. Finally, I give up, and I run to Wal Mart to buy the $6 GE Slimline phone. I go back to the house after wasting a couple of hours and the new phone doesn't work either. I call Bell South back, they send a tech the next day. The tech does a great job and after a few hours of quality time with the tech in the crawl space of the house I have a working phone.
In the mean time, the guys from DirecTV come out, step out of the truck, talk some south-Atlanta jive, tell me I can't get service, and drive off. After MANY calls to the local installer and DirecTV's main line, I get the installer's supervisor out the very next day, which was even his day off. Not only did I have a direct line of sight (what the initial tech said I didn't have) but I actually have several. We now have DirecTV with 150 regular channels, some HD channels, and 50 XM music channels. Needless to say, the install supervisor was not happy with his crew, and would have made them come out to do the install ... but, I already had their crew number and had requested they never come on my property again.
We also signed up with Bell South for DSL (we signed up for phone, DSL, and DirecTV though Bell South all at the same time for a reasonable discount). The DSL stuff was supposed to be here on the 11th. I called today, the 13th, to find out why our DSL stuff has not arrived. The guy tells me that DSL in our area is new and actually won't be turned on until the 17th. Someone actually lied to me -- probably due to a system of bad information -- at Bell South about when we'd have DSL. The 11th and the 17th are actually a little different from each other. I don't think we'll actually have DSL on the 17th, but when I don't I'll be all over their ass.
And now, the kicker. We did not have any problem at all with Georgia Power. In fact, Georgia Power, as you are about to read, did a great job. The electrician, however, that our contractor used left much to be desired. Now, I could go into the details on why we had a contractor here in the first place, but, in short, it has to do with Georgia law and how they work out things when there are problems on an inspection when the house is sold. My first problem with the electrician was that he miss-quoted and instead of getting an upgrade to 200A service from 125A, we only got 150A (which is actually fine for us). But they called while I was in Indy to tell me they needed to put a hole in my wall and a hole in the main beam of house. My first response, my second response, and my third response to their request was "no." After several minutes on the phone and a discussion on how things were stapled to the studs in the house, I finally gave into their request (we had one aluminum wire in the house that needed removed and replaced with copper). After thinking about it, and talking with Alex about some other issues, I realized the electrician could not have possibly done some of the work that was required of him. Once I got back to the ATL, I pulled the cover off the panel to discover that my suspicions were correct. I then called Georgia Power to confirm he had never had the power turned off to the house or filed for any of the required permits to do the work he did. I then called the main contractor and told him we had a water leak (we had a small drip off of a valve) to get him out here the same day (the state of Georgia is soooo messed up. Electrical problem, ah, don't worry about it -- if it was too bad your house would have burned down by now -- but a water leak, hold the phones, that's a real problem). He came out, fixed the valve, then I started in on the 20 questions about his electrician. After I could conclude that the contractor and electrician were not in cahoots, I gave the main contractor the low down on what the electrician had done. Needless to say, the original electrician will not ever be back this property without risking the chance of gun shot wounds. The new electrician has had to return more than once to fix problems what the original guy did wrong.
The original electrician was just and idiot. First, I am an electrical engineer. Granted, electrical engineers and electricians are very different, but an electrical engineer that doesn't have his/her head up his/her ass (too few of us really) can see a bad wiring job from Indy to Decatur. Second, even if I wasn't an electrical engineer, I'd obviously already ran cable, speaker wire, and phone wire through the attic, and half a run of 120v through the crawl space myself before he ever even came out here the first time. And the 1/2 run of 120v I'd done I still had to complete. In completing my 1/2 run I found even more of his shoddy work. I mean, come on ... I had to finish the run, I was obviously going to see the wiring hanging down, against code, into my crawl space. I really want to turn this guy into his local union but the main contractor is against it. Instead, he will 1) put out a bad word, 2) never use him again, and 3) dock the electrician's pay for every thing the new electrician has had to come and fix.
If the movers actually come and move our stuff like they are supposed to on Friday I think it will be a miracle.
I don't want to make all of this (or myself) sound too negative. The tech from Bell South and the supervisor from DirecTV both got "thank you" calls from me to their corporate offices. Now, to do this actually takes quite a bit of time. There is no option for "press 10" if you wish to report good service. I had to wade through and wait on the phone for quite a while to put in a good word for these guys. But I'm glad I did. As quick as I am to climb up someone's ass if they do a bad job, I also want to complement those out there doing good. The new electrician also got good marks from me, is now the go-to guy for our main contractor, and is on ReMax's list of electricians due to some of my remarks.
Everyone else can suck a dick!
We closed on the June 19th. The water was shut off on the 20th. After many phone calls, getting hung up many times, and finally J just going down to the meter and cranking the valve with a set of vice-grips, we finally got water back. I took a trip down to Dekalb County Water & Sewer to have a little talk with them (they can't hang up on you when you are in their face) and, while they were very apologetic, refused to reduce or remove the setup fee. I might just have to write an editorial to the Dekalb Neighbor.
We were supposed to have phone on the 9th of July (yeah, a Sunday ... I thought it was odd too). July 10th, no phone. I finally called. They said the phone signal was fine. I decided the problem was with Alex's old "property of Bell South" phone. After a trip to North Dekalb Mall I discovered the Radio Shack is no longer business there. I then go to Home Depot and Lowes only to find that Home Depot only sometimes has cheap corded phones and Lowes never has phones at all. Finally, I give up, and I run to Wal Mart to buy the $6 GE Slimline phone. I go back to the house after wasting a couple of hours and the new phone doesn't work either. I call Bell South back, they send a tech the next day. The tech does a great job and after a few hours of quality time with the tech in the crawl space of the house I have a working phone.
In the mean time, the guys from DirecTV come out, step out of the truck, talk some south-Atlanta jive, tell me I can't get service, and drive off. After MANY calls to the local installer and DirecTV's main line, I get the installer's supervisor out the very next day, which was even his day off. Not only did I have a direct line of sight (what the initial tech said I didn't have) but I actually have several. We now have DirecTV with 150 regular channels, some HD channels, and 50 XM music channels. Needless to say, the install supervisor was not happy with his crew, and would have made them come out to do the install ... but, I already had their crew number and had requested they never come on my property again.
We also signed up with Bell South for DSL (we signed up for phone, DSL, and DirecTV though Bell South all at the same time for a reasonable discount). The DSL stuff was supposed to be here on the 11th. I called today, the 13th, to find out why our DSL stuff has not arrived. The guy tells me that DSL in our area is new and actually won't be turned on until the 17th. Someone actually lied to me -- probably due to a system of bad information -- at Bell South about when we'd have DSL. The 11th and the 17th are actually a little different from each other. I don't think we'll actually have DSL on the 17th, but when I don't I'll be all over their ass.
And now, the kicker. We did not have any problem at all with Georgia Power. In fact, Georgia Power, as you are about to read, did a great job. The electrician, however, that our contractor used left much to be desired. Now, I could go into the details on why we had a contractor here in the first place, but, in short, it has to do with Georgia law and how they work out things when there are problems on an inspection when the house is sold. My first problem with the electrician was that he miss-quoted and instead of getting an upgrade to 200A service from 125A, we only got 150A (which is actually fine for us). But they called while I was in Indy to tell me they needed to put a hole in my wall and a hole in the main beam of house. My first response, my second response, and my third response to their request was "no." After several minutes on the phone and a discussion on how things were stapled to the studs in the house, I finally gave into their request (we had one aluminum wire in the house that needed removed and replaced with copper). After thinking about it, and talking with Alex about some other issues, I realized the electrician could not have possibly done some of the work that was required of him. Once I got back to the ATL, I pulled the cover off the panel to discover that my suspicions were correct. I then called Georgia Power to confirm he had never had the power turned off to the house or filed for any of the required permits to do the work he did. I then called the main contractor and told him we had a water leak (we had a small drip off of a valve) to get him out here the same day (the state of Georgia is soooo messed up. Electrical problem, ah, don't worry about it -- if it was too bad your house would have burned down by now -- but a water leak, hold the phones, that's a real problem). He came out, fixed the valve, then I started in on the 20 questions about his electrician. After I could conclude that the contractor and electrician were not in cahoots, I gave the main contractor the low down on what the electrician had done. Needless to say, the original electrician will not ever be back this property without risking the chance of gun shot wounds. The new electrician has had to return more than once to fix problems what the original guy did wrong.
The original electrician was just and idiot. First, I am an electrical engineer. Granted, electrical engineers and electricians are very different, but an electrical engineer that doesn't have his/her head up his/her ass (too few of us really) can see a bad wiring job from Indy to Decatur. Second, even if I wasn't an electrical engineer, I'd obviously already ran cable, speaker wire, and phone wire through the attic, and half a run of 120v through the crawl space myself before he ever even came out here the first time. And the 1/2 run of 120v I'd done I still had to complete. In completing my 1/2 run I found even more of his shoddy work. I mean, come on ... I had to finish the run, I was obviously going to see the wiring hanging down, against code, into my crawl space. I really want to turn this guy into his local union but the main contractor is against it. Instead, he will 1) put out a bad word, 2) never use him again, and 3) dock the electrician's pay for every thing the new electrician has had to come and fix.
If the movers actually come and move our stuff like they are supposed to on Friday I think it will be a miracle.
I don't want to make all of this (or myself) sound too negative. The tech from Bell South and the supervisor from DirecTV both got "thank you" calls from me to their corporate offices. Now, to do this actually takes quite a bit of time. There is no option for "press 10" if you wish to report good service. I had to wade through and wait on the phone for quite a while to put in a good word for these guys. But I'm glad I did. As quick as I am to climb up someone's ass if they do a bad job, I also want to complement those out there doing good. The new electrician also got good marks from me, is now the go-to guy for our main contractor, and is on ReMax's list of electricians due to some of my remarks.
# posted by chilort @ 12:50 AM 
