All hail Ikabai-Sital! Destroyer of worlds and mender of toilets My toilet is working again. I’m sure regular readers are overjoyed to learn this, and I extend a particularly warm welcome from me and my toilet to those reading this Saturday morning’s column while eating breakfast. That first celebratory slash of relief following three consecutive weeks of toilet withdrawal symptoms was …
"Actually the *real* mistake was to not figure out a cunning way of lifting said seal "
It is a lot easier to remove the seal altogether and any trace of glue, then "They must have forgotten to put the seal on".
What the eye cannot see the heart doesn't grieve over!
""Nice try, but that's the only thing we check ..."
FTFY."
Nope, that neglects to check the front for cracks, the removeable drives to make sure they work, and any other misses. The sticker may be there to detect internal tampering, but they're still obligated to field returns for external defects, so anything obvious gets sent back to the line to be repaired.
"The sticker had no business being on a device such as an IBM-type PC which was deliberately designed to be opened in order to add network cards etc (hint; the PSU is in a separate enclosure)."
I had a Compaq machine once. The tower case design was really nice - undo a couple of clips, and case would slide off, allowing the user to get at the insides. A joy for those of us who like to expand the computers ourselves...
...until you looked more carefully. Drive bays and so on had a slatted frame around them, riveted in place - all designed to make it as difficult as possible for the punters to do much of anything themselves, and instead encourage them to pay Compaq a premium for upgrades etc.
A drill and some care later - that problem was sorted.
"Sod the warranty seal. If you've bought it, it's your property, and you can do what you damn well want with the thing."
Sod you back. What you describe carries the caveat that if you monkey with stuff you're not supposed to, you're on your own. IOW, if it's YOUR property, it's no longer THEIR businesses to help you. Warranties normally DO NOT cover mishandling.
The purpose of a "warranty" is usually to attempt to limit the rights of the consumer. The implied warranty when you buy something is at least 12 months*, but I understand there is case law that says it should be three years for things like electronic goods.
For a supplier to refuse to repair something under the terms of the implied warranty, they would have to prove that the purchaser had caused the fault, not just that he'd removed a sticker.
Since the IBM PC architecture is designed to be extensible, anything that limits your ability to extend it, such as a sticker, effectively renders it unfit for purpose.
* In the UK. May be different in less civilised jurisdictions.
"The purpose of a "warranty" is usually to attempt to limit the rights of the consumer."
You assume the consumer has rights in the first place. In the US, that only applies to serious defects that goes well beyond "not fit for purpose". In many cases, unless life or limb are under threat, caveat emptor is the operative rule.
No, the warranty in these cases is meant to keep the customer satisfied since few things scare a seller like a defector who tells his/her friends. But since savvy customers will try to stretch warranties as far as they can, they put limits as a CYA move. It's their way of keeping the terms to, "If it's broke, we'll fix it...but not if YOU broke it."
So how much did you pay him Mr Dabbs? Because I find how much is the hard thing to determine when one of these guys gets the job done where no one else could. Quite often they undervalue themselves too because they are thoroughly decent people who actually set out to help you rather than fleece you. Your mind says you should pay them for actually fixing it when no one else could but then the other part of it tells you that he isn't an 'expert' so shouldn't get or expect expert pay. Quite clearly they should though but it's often a dilemma in itself.
I had this dilemma a couple of times recently. My somewhat elderly shower died, on a Sunday morning (of course), so I went next door & spoke to my neighbours son who is quite handy but not an "expert". He advised me on what to get, then came in & fitted the new shower unit for me. I then had to almost force some money on him for doing the work.
My other neighbour asked to borrow a corner of my garage to store his recently bought vintage motorcycle while he built suitable housing for it. I was very embarrassed when he asked me what I wanted for the storage, and after he forced me into giving him a figure he doubled it!
>> So how much did you pay him
I never asked for a quote and paid him what he asked for. Before he offered to help, I had been expecting to fork out £200-300 on a new Crapper plus the same again on "expert" labour to take out the old one and out in the new one, what with my old loo being cemented into the floor.
Well I'm glad he told you a price and saved you the awkwardness. I often fixed people's home and even home/work IT problems out of the goodness of my heart as I didn't have the balls to ask for anything or any idea of what my time was worth. I did get money forced into my hand though sometimes at least by nice people such as Corrine above.
"[...] or any idea of what my time was worth."
I always refuse "time" payment from neighbours for IT problems by saying "you can't afford me". If it is for their kids then it all comes for free as part of my contribution to rearing future wealth creators.
If you charge them a token amount - then you find a queue of their friends and relatives wanting to use "this marvellous cheap chap".
You can also suggest the "pay it forward" philosophy for them to do something similar with their competences for other people.
They may also repay it with help to you when you need it - which is the essence of being good neighbours.
I've been one myself though not by choice - someone who had a support contract with our company for one of their servers was experiencing trouble, but the relevant division had already closed and I got volunteered. A site visit with lots of poor quality bluffing (my first experience) and frayed tempers eventually resolved the problem but not until after I the cause was a third (and more up themselves than most) division of our company who had somehow done a long sequence of repeated accidental typos that were completely someone else's fault (hence bluffing, had to avert lawyers). I don't think they bought it TBH but maybe they didn't want lawyers either. Lesson: learn how to stay calm.
As for toilets, I do know someone with experience of 'experts', the toilet in a flat kept blocking, expensive work recommended because 'not enough draw on the pipe' (only since new toilet installed, i.e. bollocks), turned out someone had adjusted the cistern water level to bare minimum, thus guaranteeing the horizontal bit across to the downpipe would keep silting up. Also not helped by being modern and 'eco', i.e. smaller cistern. Oh, and something about the letting agency manager having the same not-common name as someone involved with their preferred maintenance contractor. Solution : fix water level, have plunger available. Lesson: don't be scared to lift the lid and look.
The plunger --
A small investment gains a set of drain rods including a big plunger thing.
We are blessed to have Tolouse (not such a great trek each time) but the most comfy seat is also the one that blocks easiest.
All it takes is one decent shove on the stick and I am a smug git as I've just saved more than it would cost to get an 'expert' out. As for the rest of the drain rods --occasionally, someone in the flats next door manages to flush a nappy or an entire box of wipes and the shared 3 metre deep manhole begins to fill. No need for a powerflush as once the water is released it's a bugger of a job(bie) to stop the rods being sucked in to the main.
That's another £200 saved.
(as a young lad working as a labourer at a builders, I'd get given the task of finding which of several manholes was the main blockage -- usually just aftera proper fry-up breakfast. It stood me in good stead later on as changing nappies never seemd as bad as people made it out to be)
" I'd get given the task of finding which of several manholes was the main blockage -- usually just aftera proper fry-up breakfast."
In a community there was a woman who was the site plumber. Some of the newcomers felt she had too easy a job - "it is only a question of remembering that water flows downhill". An old hand reminded them "Ah - but it's not only water that flows downhill".
Too often the 'expert' solution is to keep changing components, at the customer's expense, until the problem goes away
My missus has a VW. It developed a problem - total loss of power with no warning.
The stealer - from whom she'd bought it brand new - cleaned the throttle body, changed the coolant temperature sensor and changed the lambda sensor. One each on successive returns. And charged for each "repair". They kept making a big deal about how they had VW diagnosticians they could call in - but refused to, because apparently it wasn't a serious enough problem.
On the last visit, they decided it needed a new throttle body. Definitely. And if it wasn't that, it would need a new ECU. This was the point at which I told them they would need to repay those costs[1] if it turned out not to be the cause of the problem[2]. They wouldn't go for that. So I fixed the car[3]. It took me about half an hour, and used no parts...
Vic.
[1] We'd already spent over £800 on the fault, and then next two things were going to cost £2500.
[2] A problem that moves around like that is *always* interconnect, and I'd even told them it was an interconnect problem.
[3] It was an interconnect problem...
"[3] It was an interconnect problem..."
You probably have a good case to take them to small claims for bogus repairs.
I know someone who spent over £2000 on mercedes repairs because "computer says" -- it turned out to be a jammed-open thermostat and the C220 vehicle diagnostics couldn't cope with a stone cold engine.
A person who says "I know a bit about it" is likely to be either (a) modest (i.e. cultural effect) or (b) overestimating the ability of others (i.e. Dunning-Kruger effect).
My company rates people by asking them to self-rate. However, for a British chap of a certain age this is actually impossible. If I read someone's claim to "know a lot about" something, my ranking of possibilities goes in the following order:
a) s/he is American, and knows a reasonable amount
b) s/he is American, and actually knows a lot
c) s/he is American, but knows very little
d) s/he is British, but is a totally incompetent numpty
e) s/he is British, but knows a reasonable amount
f) s/he is British, and actually does know a lot -- and probably has Aspergers
"Onto the chipboard floor."
Twenty five years ago chipboard in bathrooms was deprecated. Marine plywood was the best composite floor material to survive a sustained leak. Possibly some chipboard now includes something to stop it crumbling like a biscuit when soaked through - but the material's structure makes it far weaker than any plywood of the same thickness.
"Twenty five years ago chipboard in bathrooms was deprecated."
My first house had chipboard floors throughout, including the bathroom.
This wouldn't have been such a problem, but the toilet cistern valve would stick open so that there was always a bit of water flow. This of course meant the water was always pretty cold, and the porcelain cistern formed lots of condensation to drip onto the floor.
The embarrassing thing about that was that my mother was convinced I couldn't aim properly.
Mother's solution: buy me plastic floor covering for the bathroom
The proper solution: Buy and fit a new valve assembly that actually worked
Is having a piece of paper that is allegedly a qualification does not necessarily make one an expert.
I have a number of fancy pieces of paper qualifying me to do all sorts of things as an 'expert' but quite a few of them are now so old and the subject of them so long untouched by me, that I could only honestly claim to be an IKABAI SITAL at best.
In my experience an 'expert' is generally someone who, before an event, can tell you exactly what is going to happen, when it is going to happen and why.
After the event s/he will be able to say exactly what didn't happen, possibly what did and that fixing it will require a sharp intake of breath and a pile of money!
I definitely want the T shirt!
Is that there's at least as many (well-meaning) peeps out there who are as bad or worse than the "Experts", that easily can make a minor annoyance into a disaster.
I do this kind of Saving the Innocent "work" on a semi-regular basis for people I like, usually after the Handy Cousin or Neighbour has had his mitts on [stuff] already, and some of the results I encounter would bring a grown man to tears, or pre-emptive Darwinism if the perpetrator hasn't managed to reproduce yet.
One of the easiest ways to tell if you've got the Real Deal, is to find out what his/her* tools look like. If they're all new and shiny: GTFO. Good tools are used and look the part, and the owner obviously knows how to use and maintain them.
* The ladies, at least in my experience, tend to be less interested in the plumbing/construction stuff, but more in the interior finishing side of things. Things like tiling and plastering have their own expertise, and power tools, and I know a couple of ladies who are fiendishly good at them. Something to do with eye for detail, and Patience.
Or as one of them once said: "You lot build the House, we build the Home."
On Good Friday, I found the kitchen ceiling a foot closer to the floor than usual - turned out the plumber supplied by B&Q had cracked the pipe leading into the cistern, and just wrapped it in PTFE tape rather than repair/replace it properly, so after a while it started watering the floor underneath.
To cap it all, the "professional" plumber had to borrow one of my screwdrivers at one point - there was a narrow gap involved, and his was too big to fit through. I left him to finish the job, and eventually found my screwdriver sitting on the window sill - with the bit removed.
A month later, the replacement cistern started flushing constantly - apparently there was a component missing, so it got stuck after the first N uses. The words "trading standards" and "lawyer" got involved at that point, so they fixed it properly this time.
Back on IT, a friend managed to get a free laptop with my help - it had an odd BIOS bug which prevented Windows running properly. After a few visits back to the manufacturer, they admitted defeat, sent a replacement and said he could keep the faulty one as well - which I fixed by switching to the other HAL, at which point it worked fine. (Buggy ACPI implementation, as I recall - it's been a few years now.)
"This meant I was forced toa penny more than once – probably nearer £0.37 in total – in the downstairs sink, which I discovered is uncomfortably high for a diminutive man of five-foot-six."
Reminds me of an old joiner my brother used to work with, when they worked away he would test the sink in the lodgings and if it was comfortable to piss in would declare it "Council Height" apparently councils had a specific height sinks must be installed at, oh and he was about 5'6". Those old standards where there for a reason, come such emergencies :-)
"Council Height"
That is interesting. My 1970s functional bathroom has a pedestal sink at a convenient height to use it to wash my nether regions. Visiting my sister's very plush modern bathroom the sink was inset in a commercial unit - and I had to stand on tip-toe.
My height of 5' 8" used to be the UK male average - but the subsequent generations seem to have gained at least 4 inches in height. Did the "Council Height" get updated - or were the bathroom units imports from a country with taller people?
"That is interesting. My 1970s functional bathroom has a pedestal sink at a convenient height to use it to wash my nether regions. "
My 2015 bathroom has that functionality built into the loo. But I now have a new potential fault to watch for: low battery on the remote control. Easily fixed.
Seriously, given what people spend on cars and how often it gets used, a Japanese-style superloo is an excellent investment, and avoids the awkwardness of washing bum in sink.
I put 'Ikabai Sital' into Google about 3p.m. (7 hours after the story was published, it reported 1,700 finds! All[1] seem to be pointing to The Register article.
I wonder does El.Reg. use the snake oil that is SEO?
[1] 'ikabai-sital -register -hail' gives only one hit which doesn't have 'sital' on the page
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