The Gas Fiasco
As of 6:30 last night, we have gas service restored! What a trip this has been. Whoa. The new plumbing company we used was wonderful. Friendly service, FAST, and a decent price...all with the added benefit of discussing with a knowledgeable plumber. If you are a local friend and need plumbing work done, call Crown Plumbing! So, the plumbers started work on Wednesday. I came home to find the most beautiful looking trench that I've ever laid eyes on in the backyard, progress! They got the line replaced and the new up-to-code valves installed on Wednesday night, but when they pressured tested the line, gas was still being lost somewhere. We have (well, HAD) two old-school gas wall heaters in the bathroom...Josh didn't mention them to the plumber, because the guy from John Moore told him they were not important for this. Turns out, he was WRONG, they were important AND they were leaking gas. Because the new plumber wasn't prepared for working on these, he had to get additional parts and come back the next day. The heaters were removed and the lines were capped off (and now we are sporting some wicked-fancy holes in our sheet rock) and he retested the line. It was STILL loosing pressure, so he went in search of more leaks. He found on in the cubby in BubTar's closet that houses the furnace. There was a leak at one of the 90 degree turns in the line, so he fixed that...then he found another...and ANOTHER! Three leaks up there, one in each of the bathrooms, in addition to the line itself detaching. Even though they were probably minuscule leaks without full pressure in the lines, it is still a little unsettling to discover! He fixed everything on Thursday morning. Thursday afternoon, a city inspector came out and said it was in working order and they would release the utilities so the gas company could return our meter and turn our service back on. That evening, a worker from the gas company came out and refuse to install our meter because the trench was not filled in yet. It seemed like a total BS excuse since the neither the plumber nor the city inspector mentioned that was a problem. Alas, what can you do? So he left and we still had no gas. Friday morning, the plumber had the diggers come fill back in the trench and we called the gas company back. I stayed home on Friday until it was time to take KayTar to therapy, at which time Josh came to sit at the house just in case they showed. They did show, but got called out on an emergency and said they couldn't say when they would be back. I just picked the kids up after therapy and brought them home to wait. It was Friday afternoon and we did not want to go another weekend without gas! He showed up at about 6pm and got us fixed right up. He said lines are snapping left and right in our city and he had been called out on 3 just that day! He also said that when people ask him what plumber to use he says, "I can't tell them who they should use, but I tell them who they shouldn't use and that is John Moore! Call John and pay more!" He also said the guy that had come out the night before will do ANYTHING to get out of working and there was no reason he couldn't have reattached the meter with the trench open. Siiiigh. More incompetence. It is all good, though, because we have gas again...after 16 days without it! A hot shower in my own home has never been as luxurious as it was last night! :)
KayTar + Nexium
KayTar started Nexium 2 days ago and it has been encouraging so far! The first day, she ate 2 pieces of bacon, most of her Pringles, an entire hot dog (hold the bun) and asked for a second at lunch, 3 mini-popsicles, and 2 still-frozen nuggets at dinner! This morning she has already had 2 pieces of bacon, a jar of baby food peas, 4 pepperoni, and a mini-popsicle. She told me that she hasn't thrown up in her mouth for 2 days! :) I'm feeling very hopeful about this medication switch!
Insurance Drama
Last Friday, I spent almost the entire day on the phone.The insurance issue with the new clinic and her current health plan has reached an impasse and we are going to have to switch. I first called the state to inquire about how I would go about changing health plans, since we never have, and I was assured that it was a simple phone call and we would be squared away. But before I made the switch, I called EVERYONE to be sure they all take the prospective new plan. I talked to probably 25 customer service reps...every clinic, doctor, pharmacy, HHC, therapist that KayTar receives services from was on my list. They all accept this health plan, so I called the state back. This time I was told we were no longer able to switch, because we had been on our current plan more than 90 days. We could appeal this decision in writing, but even if approved it wouldn't go into effect until after the first of October (at the earliest). Siiiiigh. I told her what the previous rep had told me and she said that was not the case. So I said okay, and then called back to try to reach the original rep. Except, you can't actually do that. They give you rep ID numbers, but they are useless because they do not have extension or someway to connect to do a specific rep. So I used this third rep as a tie breaker of sorts (or a tie creator? seems like the phrasing here is wrong, but you get the idea), and she said the same thing as the second rep, so I submitted a letter in writing...now we wait! As a little bonus to this story, I received a letter in the mail yesterday saying that the kids might lose insurance coverage at the end of October. I promptly had a series of small heart attacks while dialing the state HHSC to find out what was going on...only to be told that the letter was sent in error and we would be receiving a corrected letter in about 2 days. WHEW!
KayTar + head pains
Poor KayTar is having a lot of headaches/pains lately. She had at least 2 last week and one every day this week. We were talking about it a couple of days ago and she said, "I have head pain EVERY day." but she said it with a DUH tone of voice, like this was obviously something I should already know. They are not incapacitating and often she just wants an ice pack, but it still doesn't sit right with me. She complains of pain over her right eye on her forehead and in her eyes themselves. She has an ophtho check on the 27th, so if it is a glasses issue, we should know then. Otherwise, I'm not sure what is going on! Maybe sinus pain from allergies? We have her on Benadryl and Claritin, and her allergies seem well-controlled. Maybe headaches from transient desats? I honestly don't know. We see pulmonology on October 11th (since we had to push it back due to the insurance drama) and we see the new geneticist that day, too. Hopefully one of her doctors will have a helpful suggestion!
KayTar + OT
Yesterday was KayTar's first OT appointment in over a month! She was doing feeding therapy and with the gut changes and decreased feeding tolerance, we just took a break while we went through testing for that. Because it still isn't under control, we are taking a break from feeding OT and switching to more traditional OT for her fine motor strength and coordination. We have known for sometime that she has weaker hands than her peers, but we just have not focused on it until now. The therapist did testing with KayTar yesterday and WHOA, her hands are weak! She was tested with a hand gripper equipped with some sort of pressure guage, and she scored a 6 with one hand and a 7 with the other...normal for her age is 28-29! That is significant weakness. That combined with the inefficient way she grips her pencil and the EXTREME force she uses to push the pencil to the paper, it is no wonder she fatigues so easy during writing assignments. Until we are able to get her back to "regular" feeds, we will be doing all fine motor work in OT, and if we get her gut issues under control, we will add in some texture/feeding work, too...just not as much as before. Oh, and the OT really noted her new breathing pattern, too, and commented it was not nearly that bad the last time she had seen her. She wants the pulmonologist to make sure things are okay with her airway before we start back with the feeding stuff, too.
Showing posts with label gas leak. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gas leak. Show all posts
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Still no gas...
I spent Friday at the house, waiting in vain for the city inspector and plumber to come by. We paid the plumber $300 on 9/1/11 to pull the permit and had absolutely nothing to show for it. On Tuesday, 9/6/11, the city inspector came by, but the plumber did not call us to notify us so someone could be here. The city inspector left a sticker to show that he had been there and that the plumbing company needed to reschedule. All week long, Josh had been placing calls to get someone to come back out and so the inspection so we could get work started. Friday was more of the same. I decided that if Josh's frequent calls were not enough, they needed to hear from me, too, so I started calling around noon. I was PROMISED someone would be out between 1 and 4pm. I told the customer service rep that I generally pick my kids up within that window and he told me to make other arrangements because someone would be coming by for sure. I left a note on the door when I left and picked the kids up in the office to save time. NO ONE CAME. I called the plumber back to complain and was promised a call back and never got one.
I had to cancel KayTar's pulmonology appointment yesterday (long story for another day), but since I had planned to miss class, I stayed home anyway. KayTar's feeding pump was in need of service, so I stayed here to get the pump taken care of and to wait for someone from the city/plumbing company to get the inspection done. I kept the pump at home with me, because I didn't know exactly when the tech would come by, so after I got an ETA from the company, I left the house for 30 minutes to bring it to KayTar's school so she could get her feed and I could then bring it home to be serviced. I left a note on the door saying, "HHCName/PlumberName/City of CityName, if no one is home call CellNumber. Will be right back!" When I got home, there was a sticker from the city on the note...but no one had called me. AGH! So Josh got on the phone again with the plumbing company and raised some hell. They assured him someone would come back out after 12:30, so I made plans to stay home for the rest of the day.
At 2pm, a city inspector arrived and said, "Yes, I'm here to do an annual foster home inspection..." I didn't even realize what he said at first, I was just so happy to see him! I brought him to the backyard and he said, "Is this a foster home?" I said, "No? This is a residential home with a broken gas line." He said, "I am here to do an annual inspection for a foster home." WHAT?! The stupid plumbing company had pulled the wrong permit, in fact, NO INSPECTION NEEDED TO BE DONE until after the work was completed. This was maddening, because we asked the plumbing company how the city was going to inspect/test a clearly broken gas line, but they kept telling us it had to be done. So absolutely nothing has been done because we have been waiting on this supposedly mandatory inspection. The city inspector was nice and helpful and pretty disgusted by the apparent idiocy of the plumbing company. He went ahead and looked at our in-house gas apparatus to be sure it was up to code so we wouldn't face another delay after the work is completed...and it wasn't up to code. Of course. We need all new valves, too. At least we know on the front side, though, I can only imagine how long it would have taken if we found out about it after the rest of the work was done. He left a business card, as well as detailed notes on what needed to be done and told me how to get the permit switched, in case we wanted to choose another more competent plumber to do the work. He was the first competent person we have spoken to about this whole mess in the 12 days we have been without gas.
Yesterday evening, the plumbing company sent someone new out to look at what needed to be done. They blamed the error with the permit and delay on the person they sent out to do the original quote. Whatever. You would THINK that in the 12 days we have been calling and asking for assistance and complaining about the lack of work, someone would have actually bothered to read the notes on our order and realize it was a broken gas line and an error had been made! The new guy gave us a new quote...SIX GRAND to replace the line. The first guy they sent out said it would be $300 for the permit and $200 for the work. First, they pull the WRONG permit and now we were being told SIX GRAND for the work?! The other option was basically a patch job with no warranty for $2300. They needed half of the payment up front, too. We are not the type of people to have thousands of dollars lying around waiting for something like this...we are the type of people who have two kids at home...who have had to take a pay cut to qualify for the ONLY insurance that will cover our child with complex medical needs...who are both university students...and who have one job between the two of them. We do fine, I'm definitely not complaining, but we don't have piles of money lying around, unfortunately. I suggested to Josh that it wouldn't hurt to look around a little, because it isn't like anything was happening QUICKLY to resolve this. We were both a little dumbfounded about it all and I griped on Facebook, as I am prone to do, and a friend saw it and put us in contact with a plumber they know from church. He told them to have Josh call last night (even though it was 9pm) and he seemed intelligent, helpful, competent, and told us he could come out this morning between 8:30-8:45am (a fifteen minute window!) to look at what needed to be done. He came by this morning, inside the time window he gave us, and quoted us a price for a total line replacement and new valves that was less than the patch job we were quoted last night. He will have diggers out here tomorrow morning to get this going and we will not need to be here until he is doing the indoor work and the inspector needs to come back. He will keep us posted so we can plan on when we need to be here, and we can reach him personally via cell phone, if needed. It still isn't going to be a cheap fix, but I feel a million times better paying this guy for the work than I would have paying the original company. We may actually have a stove, oven, and hot water by the end of the week...fingers crossed!
The moral of the story is that the John Moore jingle did ring true in our experience. If you call John...you do get Moore...more headaches, more waiting, more debt, and more incompetence. Learn from our mistakes...even when there is a seemingly emergent situation, do not just go with the first name/company you know in the field. Shop around. If we had gotten multiple quotes when this first happened, we'd probably have gas by now.
Disclaimer: This post is meant to relate my personal experiences and opinion, it is not intended to malign any organization, company, or individual.
Edited to add: John Moore did release the permit like we asked, so we didn't have to file paperwork with city hall. They also refunded us the $300 we paid for the permit to be pulled originally. So we lost 12 days to this fiasco, but at least we didn't lose any additional money!
I had to cancel KayTar's pulmonology appointment yesterday (long story for another day), but since I had planned to miss class, I stayed home anyway. KayTar's feeding pump was in need of service, so I stayed here to get the pump taken care of and to wait for someone from the city/plumbing company to get the inspection done. I kept the pump at home with me, because I didn't know exactly when the tech would come by, so after I got an ETA from the company, I left the house for 30 minutes to bring it to KayTar's school so she could get her feed and I could then bring it home to be serviced. I left a note on the door saying, "HHCName/PlumberName/City of CityName, if no one is home call CellNumber. Will be right back!" When I got home, there was a sticker from the city on the note...but no one had called me. AGH! So Josh got on the phone again with the plumbing company and raised some hell. They assured him someone would come back out after 12:30, so I made plans to stay home for the rest of the day.
At 2pm, a city inspector arrived and said, "Yes, I'm here to do an annual foster home inspection..." I didn't even realize what he said at first, I was just so happy to see him! I brought him to the backyard and he said, "Is this a foster home?" I said, "No? This is a residential home with a broken gas line." He said, "I am here to do an annual inspection for a foster home." WHAT?! The stupid plumbing company had pulled the wrong permit, in fact, NO INSPECTION NEEDED TO BE DONE until after the work was completed. This was maddening, because we asked the plumbing company how the city was going to inspect/test a clearly broken gas line, but they kept telling us it had to be done. So absolutely nothing has been done because we have been waiting on this supposedly mandatory inspection. The city inspector was nice and helpful and pretty disgusted by the apparent idiocy of the plumbing company. He went ahead and looked at our in-house gas apparatus to be sure it was up to code so we wouldn't face another delay after the work is completed...and it wasn't up to code. Of course. We need all new valves, too. At least we know on the front side, though, I can only imagine how long it would have taken if we found out about it after the rest of the work was done. He left a business card, as well as detailed notes on what needed to be done and told me how to get the permit switched, in case we wanted to choose another more competent plumber to do the work. He was the first competent person we have spoken to about this whole mess in the 12 days we have been without gas.
Yesterday evening, the plumbing company sent someone new out to look at what needed to be done. They blamed the error with the permit and delay on the person they sent out to do the original quote. Whatever. You would THINK that in the 12 days we have been calling and asking for assistance and complaining about the lack of work, someone would have actually bothered to read the notes on our order and realize it was a broken gas line and an error had been made! The new guy gave us a new quote...SIX GRAND to replace the line. The first guy they sent out said it would be $300 for the permit and $200 for the work. First, they pull the WRONG permit and now we were being told SIX GRAND for the work?! The other option was basically a patch job with no warranty for $2300. They needed half of the payment up front, too. We are not the type of people to have thousands of dollars lying around waiting for something like this...we are the type of people who have two kids at home...who have had to take a pay cut to qualify for the ONLY insurance that will cover our child with complex medical needs...who are both university students...and who have one job between the two of them. We do fine, I'm definitely not complaining, but we don't have piles of money lying around, unfortunately. I suggested to Josh that it wouldn't hurt to look around a little, because it isn't like anything was happening QUICKLY to resolve this. We were both a little dumbfounded about it all and I griped on Facebook, as I am prone to do, and a friend saw it and put us in contact with a plumber they know from church. He told them to have Josh call last night (even though it was 9pm) and he seemed intelligent, helpful, competent, and told us he could come out this morning between 8:30-8:45am (a fifteen minute window!) to look at what needed to be done. He came by this morning, inside the time window he gave us, and quoted us a price for a total line replacement and new valves that was less than the patch job we were quoted last night. He will have diggers out here tomorrow morning to get this going and we will not need to be here until he is doing the indoor work and the inspector needs to come back. He will keep us posted so we can plan on when we need to be here, and we can reach him personally via cell phone, if needed. It still isn't going to be a cheap fix, but I feel a million times better paying this guy for the work than I would have paying the original company. We may actually have a stove, oven, and hot water by the end of the week...fingers crossed!
The moral of the story is that the John Moore jingle did ring true in our experience. If you call John...you do get Moore...more headaches, more waiting, more debt, and more incompetence. Learn from our mistakes...even when there is a seemingly emergent situation, do not just go with the first name/company you know in the field. Shop around. If we had gotten multiple quotes when this first happened, we'd probably have gas by now.
Disclaimer: This post is meant to relate my personal experiences and opinion, it is not intended to malign any organization, company, or individual.
Edited to add: John Moore did release the permit like we asked, so we didn't have to file paperwork with city hall. They also refunded us the $300 we paid for the permit to be pulled originally. So we lost 12 days to this fiasco, but at least we didn't lose any additional money!
Friday, September 02, 2011
It must be Community Helpers week.
On Monday, I found out my credit card had been cloned. Awesome, right? Last week, I tried to buy something in the school bookstore and my card was declined. No big deal...our credit union card is notoriously bad at not scanning correctly. Later in the day, I tried to get lunch at Smoothie King and the card was declined again. I called Josh to be sure there was money in the account and there was plenty. The next day, I tried to get gas and the pump gave me attitude about going in to see the cashier. I was alone, so I did...and the charge went through just fine from inside. I chalked it up to another bad scan. I bought groceries this weekend without issue. Then on the way to the GES on Monday, I stopped for gas. It didn't take my card again, but I had KayTar with me so I just paid with a different card. Then in the parking garage it didn't take my card, but that one only takes my card once out of every 15 scans...so it wasn't odd. Then we stopped at McD's for breakfast on the way home and my card didn't work. I had them try a second time...no dice. So I called Josh, who called the bank, who told him my card had been used in Ohio last week and was shut down due to suspicious activity. Oy. How did I not notice it?! Because I usually use debit and that was working fine, only the credit section had been locked down. So places that auto-run it as credit were the places that it was being declined. When I went into the gas station, I paid with debit. When I bought groceries, it was debit....and so forth. Monday night we had to go to the police department and file a report so the bank will give us our money back. Thankfully, they didn't go wild with it, because our financial aid had just been deposited and they sure could have done some damage. Instead they spent $70-something at a feed store and $6-something at Walgreens. Big spenders!
Yesterday, on the heels of an already rough afternoon involving my asthma/traffic/nearly running out of gas/being late to pick up the kids, we walked into the house after school and I thought I smelled gas. I called Josh, who is out of town and couldn't be of much assistance, and then called my dad. He came right over and said he didn't really smell anything, but he checked the gas outlets in the house and then headed to the backyard. He came back in and said, "Grab the kids and their stuff and get outside." YIKES. We had a major leak back there, the drought has caused the ground to shift and it pulled the gas line completely away from the pipe that goes into the house and gas was just pouring out. My dad backed his truck out of the driveway and took the kids to sit in it while I frantically grabbed important KayTar things like her pump bag, feeding bags, and formula. I went to sit with him while my dad unhooked my garage door from the automatic opener and backed my van out. I tried called our gas company while my dad called the fire department. It took me forever to get a REAL PERSON on the phone and then they kept passing me around. Finally, in a loud and exasperated voice said, "I HAVE A MAJOR GAS LEAK AT MY HOUSE AND NO ONE WILL TALK TO ME!" She apologized and took my information, but by that time the fire department was already pulling up. My dad told me the fire department had reported it already. I guess the gas company will actually take calls from the fire department! I begged my dad to run in for KayTar's blankey as she was getting hysterical about it being in the house. As we were sitting in the car, our cat Peanut ran in the house and poor BubTar started crying. I went and brought the cat out, but our guinea pig, dog, and snake were still inside and BubTar was so worried about them. I tried to reassure him that the firemen were taking care of the problem and the animals should be fine, but I was going through a few list of things that I desperately wanted out of the house in case it was all going to go KA-BOOM at any moment, so my reassurances were probably a little strained. Evidently my internal list of priorities is: the kids, KayTar's feeding pump and formula, KayTar's blankey, the animals, alllllll of our photos from my hard drive, KayTar's meds, and my camera. The fire department shut off the gas and checked the house for gas levels and we got the all clear. WHEW. The gas guy arrived and took our meter away. We have to have new piping laid from the fence where the meter is to the back wall of the house where the pipe comes out of the ground and enters the house. The plumber said that they have to pull a permit before starting work, so hopefully it will get done later today and we will have gas restored in a day or two. It was frustrating and a little frightening, but it could have been worse. KayTar flipped the lights on before I smelled the gas (which is a no no) and I just cringe to think what could have happened! We are all safe and sound, though, and very thankful things played out the way they did.
But seriously, if we could get through the rest of the week without any additional run-ins with community helpers, I'd be pretty pleased.
Yesterday, on the heels of an already rough afternoon involving my asthma/traffic/nearly running out of gas/being late to pick up the kids, we walked into the house after school and I thought I smelled gas. I called Josh, who is out of town and couldn't be of much assistance, and then called my dad. He came right over and said he didn't really smell anything, but he checked the gas outlets in the house and then headed to the backyard. He came back in and said, "Grab the kids and their stuff and get outside." YIKES. We had a major leak back there, the drought has caused the ground to shift and it pulled the gas line completely away from the pipe that goes into the house and gas was just pouring out. My dad backed his truck out of the driveway and took the kids to sit in it while I frantically grabbed important KayTar things like her pump bag, feeding bags, and formula. I went to sit with him while my dad unhooked my garage door from the automatic opener and backed my van out. I tried called our gas company while my dad called the fire department. It took me forever to get a REAL PERSON on the phone and then they kept passing me around. Finally, in a loud and exasperated voice said, "I HAVE A MAJOR GAS LEAK AT MY HOUSE AND NO ONE WILL TALK TO ME!" She apologized and took my information, but by that time the fire department was already pulling up. My dad told me the fire department had reported it already. I guess the gas company will actually take calls from the fire department! I begged my dad to run in for KayTar's blankey as she was getting hysterical about it being in the house. As we were sitting in the car, our cat Peanut ran in the house and poor BubTar started crying. I went and brought the cat out, but our guinea pig, dog, and snake were still inside and BubTar was so worried about them. I tried to reassure him that the firemen were taking care of the problem and the animals should be fine, but I was going through a few list of things that I desperately wanted out of the house in case it was all going to go KA-BOOM at any moment, so my reassurances were probably a little strained. Evidently my internal list of priorities is: the kids, KayTar's feeding pump and formula, KayTar's blankey, the animals, alllllll of our photos from my hard drive, KayTar's meds, and my camera. The fire department shut off the gas and checked the house for gas levels and we got the all clear. WHEW. The gas guy arrived and took our meter away. We have to have new piping laid from the fence where the meter is to the back wall of the house where the pipe comes out of the ground and enters the house. The plumber said that they have to pull a permit before starting work, so hopefully it will get done later today and we will have gas restored in a day or two. It was frustrating and a little frightening, but it could have been worse. KayTar flipped the lights on before I smelled the gas (which is a no no) and I just cringe to think what could have happened! We are all safe and sound, though, and very thankful things played out the way they did.
But seriously, if we could get through the rest of the week without any additional run-ins with community helpers, I'd be pretty pleased.
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