Steamed Up, Part 12

How hard is it to do a decen tjob?
Really, how hard can it be?

We face sheer uncaring stupidity every day, and not just other drivers. My cellphone has no “redial” button. Imagine that! (It does however play ring tones in “superphonic” mode.) Sony’s instructions for hooking up its digicams to Macs, if you can find them, are essentially “you’re on your own.” Nothing in the Knowledge Base, by the way, about the iMovie update that lets their digicams work with Macs… and we’re not even talking about inane software decisions. And then there are cars. Do we really need to go further? Doesn’t anyone drive or test these things? Why did the Volkswagen Phaeton leave its turn signal lights on semi-permanently if you shut off the engine while the turn signal was on - and why did it have a cheap door buzzer with its up-to-$120,000 price tag?

Now, steam.

Geez, you’d think these guys would know what they were doing. Let’s count the ways.
1) Joints glued together…
2) Using gas joints, not steam fittings
3) No real Hartford Loop - a terribly simple device that admittedly I still can’t figure out myself
4) Exhaust stuck into a hole but not all the way into the chimney
5) No horizontal headers
6) No condensate return at the header
7) Wires bulging or dangling
8) No cleaning (as promised, by the way)
9) Haphazard attachment of pipes
10) Steam pipes tilted the wrong way

There are more, I think, but those are enough. I got a bunch of money back - not as much as I should have but enough - and hired an older steamfitter who knows his trade to fix it. That is, to replace all of it and start over.

Lessons learned were stated before, but really - it took them NO LESS EFFORT to do a completely WRONG BOTCHED-UP job. All they had to do was READ THE #@$&*^! MANUAL.

And it’s not as though that never happens at car dealers or independent mechanics…]]>