Saturday, September 29, 2007

Beautiful Colonial Old Wethersfield Connecticut

Thursday's second job (to which I was about two hours late) was in perhaps the coolest all around house I have been in. And that is saying a lot, since I have been in freakin' multi-thousand square foot mansions around Avon, etc.

This was a great old house in Old Wethersfield, CT. It was from like 1740 or something, and it showed. There was also a "new" part of the house, which couldn't have been less than 50 years old. But it was all together awesome, in the truest sense of the word. The old house was perfect. Kitchen was all new features, but old structure. The stairs were incredibly narrow. Original WIDE floors showed in many places. All sorts of crazy closet type spaces. Wak up attic. All so cool. Plus the lady was so chill and nice. It was a great reprise from all the challenges of the week up to that point.

Thus are the ups and downs of the dryer ventilation business. I wonder what's in store for next week?

Tough Week

This past week has been extraordinarily difficult for me as a clothes dryer vent cleaning professional.

I had three jobs that each took me over three hours to complete. Normally, they're like an hour or so.

The first was a replacement where I couldn't get at the vent space because it was behind a ceiling and wall and stuff. But I pulled it off. Or I should say I pushed it in. It was sweet. It seemed like it wouldn't work, but in the end it worked awesome! Replaced plastic vent with straight pipe, and it worked like a charm! Plus the customer was a great joy to hang out with while working on the job.

Second one was a bit less victorious. The vent outlet was shared with at least two other dryer vents, possibly with three bathroom and three stove vents. Really really bad. First I thought the vent outlet would be on the roof. After putting a ladder up to someone else's deck, and up to the roof, I found NOTHING up there. Then the customer pointed out a vent outlet on the side of the building. One vent outlet. His was completely clogged and soggy wet. I had to clean it from the inside, and what a mess. Plus his dryer wasn't working, so I couldn't really verify operation at the end. And it took me about three hours. Of course, the guy was cool... I knew him from high school, where we weren't friends, but we got along great this week. It's just that it is hard to do a good job when the vent is so bad.

Third one was...um... a disaster. Fixed price (low cost) repeat customer with a major issue - water, clog, drywall all wet in the living room...uggh! Plus I made a pricing error on the phone with the owner, and was quickly corrected by the real Dr. Dryer Vent. But it took me HOURS and I was really late to the second appointment (which fortunately was normal).

But three jobs each taking over three hours was demoralizing. Should get better soon. Email me for more details if you are interested in a long sob story.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Business Banking...uggh!...I mean YAY!

So my first local customer, my first Dryer Ventilator customer, wrote me a check to Dryer Ventilator. So I had to figure out how to cash that check.

Turns out you need a business banking account to do this. Also turns out you have to go to the secretary of state in CT to get forms to do this. It's not like you just go to the bank and say "hey, I'm Dryer Ventilator" and then they give you a business bank account and let you cash a check.

All in all, I visited three different branches, and went to SOTS twice, but I now have my fancy business banking setup. Plus Bank of America gave me a sweet line of credit. Now I can go get that F-350 work truck I NEED.

So after all the pain, it is so worth it to have the business bank account. It makes me feel so important and cool to have this.

Local Customer!

A few weeks ago was a memorable moment I really should have posted right away, but you know how it goes...

Anyway, I got my first LOCAL CUSTOMER! Coogan and Gildersleeve referred me to a great woman living in Noank Connecticut. Turns out she was the owner of a two-family and her tenant was having problems. She lives in the other half, and also wanted me to clean out her vent while I was there.

It was actually a really challenging couple of vents. For the tenant, I had to do a replacement of a completely clogged plastic vent. There was a bird's next in the vent. It actually had eggs (old dried out ones) and everything. The vent inside from the bird's nest was all wet and really not safe. But by the time I was done with it, everything was awesome! Hard straight pipes and elbows - all perfectly clean.

For the owner, I couldn't reach all the way up to her vent, and it turns out my wife's Volvo XC70 doesn't have a ladder-capable rack on it (it is missing bars across, and even if they were there, it might have been questionable). Fortunately, I could reach the vent from the bedroom window. Of course, this was its own challenge. But the best part was when the brush got all bound up in the vent. Turns out the main vent was just basically pushed together in the middle, and that came apart under the power of the brush, and the brush got all tangled up in it, and it was chaos. Even better, the main vent was virtually completely concealed, mostly behind the fridge which had like an inch of clearance on all three sides. I had to pull out the fridge with my bare hands and get behind it to repair the vent issue there. I was just praying that the electric cord was long enough (I figured they installed it, so there must be enough cord length) and that the water lines were long enough (again the "if they installed it..." thought).

In the end everything turned out great, and both vents were totally cleaned and in perfect shape. I was really proud of the job I did. It's great to know that you leave someone so much safer and better off than when you came.