Saturday, September 22, 2007

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.

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