A bad leak

I mentioned not long ago how I would love to have someone take over my home maintenance responsibilities, and part of it was that right then I was going through an unusually bad time with it.

It all started with a wet spot in the family room. It was right by the dogs’ water bowls, so our initial though was that it was a spill, but it kept on being wet after Mom had shampooed the carpet and it had time to dry. Uh-oh, there appears to be a leak.

Now, we had just had an issue where the washing machine was not completing cycles, because it needed the belt replaced. We went to the Maytag site, and scheduled maintenance, he diagnosed the issue quickly and replaced the belt, and all was well. Yes, I did have to deal with the service call and the expense, and the wait between scheduling the service call and them arriving, but it seemed fine.

Now there was a leak, and it was not obvious where. That seemed like a good time to call a plumber, and we have one company that we always work with, so we called them and they came out. He checked the washing machine and the water heater and did not find any leaks, and what he finally decided was that the dryer was not venting properly, so the built-up moisture from the clothes was coming out.

Okay, that did sound a little weird, but we have had problems with the dryer venting before, and this was a professional, and I called a professional because this is not my forte.

A friend came over and looked, and the dryer was indeed not hooked up properly to the hose, but that was not the source of the water, and he thought that the drain line for the washer was leaking. However, those would be easy things to fix, and both machines were Maytag, so I went back to the Maytag site, typed in a request for having the dryer hose and the washing machine drain line replaced, and the first availability was AE, much like it was with the belt needing to be replaced. I set up another service call, though that first ability was five days away.

This one went wrong from the start. First of all, the guy had no idea what the call was about, so he did not have a new hose or new drain line, though I had specifically asked for those things. He said when you call in it’s a big call center, and they are not even around. I used the web site. Oh, that’s even worse. We don’t get that information at all, he said, except that he then brought up the appointment on his scheduler, and he read that off to me.

Okay, there were no parts, so he could order those and we could set up another call. How about just hooking the existing dryer hose back up? No, we don’t like getting in back there, I would have to charge you for a new call. Basically, his service consisted of him filling up the washing machine twice to prove that the drain line didn’t leak. During this time, I heard him get a call from someone else where he was explaining how at the previous call he told the customer that it was not their fault, it was something the installer did, and they would have to call the installer, and the customer said that was fine. I apparently had gotten the most work-averse service person available, though he said he could work on anything.

Other irritations of that call were my credit card being declined because it set off red flags on their end that the charge appeared to be coming from a Sears in Indiana, and after I had finally gotten rid of him, he came back because he forgot to replace a tie he had cut.

At this point the friend came back, and he reattached the existing dryer hose, and accepted that the drain line was not leaking, so the only other possibility we could come up with was snaking the drain. He gave us a recommendation from Angie’s List, and they could come the next day.

They wanted to do some diagnostics too, and he did, and he found a few things, but he did ultimately snake the drain, as we wanted, and that fixed the problem. The diagnostics revealed that there is one pipe that is not level, which probably explains why the washing machine sometimes backs up into the sink, and that we do not have a P-trap or an auto-vent on the line by where the utilities hook up, which could increase the odds of more backups. Those things can be fixed, but it would be about a four-hour job and $600. (I do want to fix it, but it will have to wait. Since the house has gone 42 years under those conditions and the drain only needed snaking now, I hope we can manage a few more years.)

So there was that to think about, plus I was completely dissatisfied with the first plumber and with A&E. I have not named the first plumber, because they had a good history, and I called and explained the issue and they gave me a full refund for that call, and so I do not have a bad opinion of them, and I don’t want anyone to get a bad opinion of them from reading this.

As far as I am concerned, you are perfectly welcome to have a bad opinion of A&E. I made my complaint to them, and they said he followed policy. I then complained to Maytag, and they were a little less dismissive, but still not helpful. If you want parts replaced, you need to call in advance and get an order in and then they will come out. Well, if the web site said that, it would be one thing, but also, the guy’s attitude was horrible. I am glad I heard the other call but it was very unprofessional that he let me, and it reinforced that he was the laziest, least effective service tech ever.

Later on I did some searching and I found a lot of complaints about A&E, and I wish I had checked that first, but the Maytag site led you to them—that’s one of their approved providers. That’s why I complained to Maytag specifically; I thought they might care about how they were being represented. Obviously I will never use them again. With Maytag, I haven’t decided yet. They’re good machines, but they’re not the only good brands out there, and support is really important.

Obviously, a lot of the frustration is that I am out of my league here. I need to trust the professionals that I call to accurately figure out the issue and resolve it without cheating me. Actually, I did take a class on home repair, so I do know some things, but there is so much to know, and then throw in appliances, and, yeah, it gets frustrating. And a lot of them do treat women worse, because they think they can get away with it, I guess. So a lot of my friends just let their husbands handle the repairmen, but I can’t do that.

So I have some frustration here, and there is another event that I will write about tomorrow that adds to it. For now, I will just say that yes, I am a clueless female, but I will say this for myself. I do the jobs I get paid for and I don’t cheat people. I value that. Also, I am signing up with Angie’s List myself, and I am looking forward to adding some reviews.