Stupid powerhead croaked

[Paul B]

I can't believe it, this powerhead that runs my reverse UG filter stopped. I don't know if it stopped for a day, week or month, but it stopped.
I don't know why, It is only about 20 years old, I am sure I removed it for cleaning or something maybe 10 years ago but it was all the way behind the rocks and not easy to get to and I could not see it. I just assumed it would work forever like it should.
It just needed a little cleaning out of tube worms. Those things build those glass like shelters in the stupidest places, I mean if you were a tube worm, would you build a home right next to a rotor in a dark, noisy powerhead? Stupid animals.
Anyway, I cleaned it out and it is as good as new and I hope to not have to see it for another ten years, unless more worms move in.

 

[mnat]

Hopefully it is still covered under warranty.

 

[Paul B]

I once bought a new Jeep Cherokee and the first day my wife got stuck so they towed it back and told me a bunch of things they fixed. The car had 7 miles on it. The third day she got stuck again and they towed it back and told me another bunch of things they fixed, the car had 15 miles on it.
The 4th day she got stuck so I said, don't call them. I found the problem in five minutes which was a 100 pin wire connecter that had a bent prong and was not making good contact. It was on the side of the dashboard so I made a big cardboard sign shaped like an arrow and I taped it to the dashboard pointing to the defective connecter.
The sign said "FIX THIS and don't touch anything else"
Then they towed it back and fixed the part. I never had any more trouble with that car.

I don't use warranties. If I buy anything that dies, I will take it apart and re design the thing.
(I can build a space shuttle with what I have in my workshop. Not a very good space shuttle, but a space shuttle none the less)
I am fed up to here (my hand is under my chin) with lousy engineered machinery. I find that much of my time is spent re building some thing better because the bananna who first designed it was a, well a bananna. What can I say.
If an engineer designs something that lasts 6 months he should go back to the school that he went to and get his money back and if it was a community college paid for by my taxes, I want my money back. Or better yet, don't go to school, get some common sense and street smarts and just build the thing better from your God given brain, How about that.
My boat is mostly re built with stuff that will last forever as is my cars. When ever I take apart something that broke, I make it better.
That is why everything in my tank is DIY. I would build the fish if I found a supplier for scales.
Now thats a workshop. My large workshop is in my garage which is where I would build a space shuttle, if anyone wanted one of course.

 

[TanksNStuff]

I'll take a space shuttle please... if you have the parts laying around, haha!

Paul, I work for a General Contractor, so I know what you mean when you talk about Engineer's being incompetent. We bid jobs based on drawings and specs they provide, and 99 times out of 100 I'll find myself shaking my head in disbelief at what they provided us. I mean, these plans go through months and months of a design phase before being advertised for bid. Yet, when we get them we can can look through them and in 5 minutes have a few things that need to be clarified before we can price the job.

For example, this week we received an addendum to the original bid package provided by the Engineer. It included over 100 answers to questions that contractors had submitted to him for clarification. Many of them were duplicates of the same question asked by several different contractors... but still that's a large amount of mistakes that needed clearing up, don't you think?

To add insult to injury, the Engineer numbered the answers from 1 thru 112, yet didn't include the questions that were asked. So, among the notes he provides, we got some answers such as "Yes" or "No" or "(2) 4 x 4 louvers, (1) 2 x 2 louver" as answers. Now, if you're not the contractor who he listed as the one who asked the question he's answering... you have no clue what that means! I mean come on... get half a clue and figure out that we're not mind readers here.

There were also other instances where he would have 2 different answers to what seemed to be the same question. So the clarification becomes useless since we now have 2 possible correct answers.

Not only that, the addendum included a bunch of specifications that were blatantly ommitted from the original set they provided (like 6 different sections). Among those he now included was a "Heating and Ventilation" section. In this section is information on "Wall Propeller Exhaust Fan with Integral Housing". Well, that's great... except that the drawings show all the fans to be roof mounted exhaust fans. These would be totally different types of fans. They obviously just grabbed a "standard" HVAC spec from some other job and copied it into the addendum... and didn't even bother to check if it applied to the equipment they actually want.

Also, plans we bid from typically have an "HVAC Schedule" which is a small chart showing fans, heaters, louvers, vents, etc. and it normally includes: make/model #'s/size/location (ie. specific room or building if more than one)/accessories (like bird/insect screens, motor operators, thermostats, etc.). These plans had no schedule whatsoever and for some sheets where they show "new louver" they didn't even show a size on the label. Again, are we supposed to just guess what size they want?

Bah, I could write a short novel on this one set of plans alone. But I'll just stop there and assume you get my point.

 

[Baxreefs]

When I read the title I figured this PH predated protien skimming!

Please! Don't get me started on engineers!

 

[Paul B]

TanksNStuff I was a general Foreman for an electrical contractor in Manhattan and we only did large jobs like the fire alarm for the Empire State Building and all the Machine rooms in the Chrysler building. I ran a crew of 120 men.
I had this obstinate engineer once that insisted that I do exactly like it reads on his plans without asking "stupid" questions.
So one day on the 50th floor or so of this office building the plans called for an outlet to be put in 20' from this column.
OK, 20' from that column was about 10' outside the building.
I didn't want to ask a stupid question so I instructed my man to install it exactly as specified. He ran a pipe 10 feet out of the building on the 50th floor and bent it up and installed a box on it with an outlet and finished plate.
Just as specified.
So you could look out the window and see it on the end of a pipe 10' away from the building.
The engineer came and saw it and went ballistic. His firm also had to pay to remove it and re locate it.
I always was allowed to ask stupid questions after that.

After 40 years of doing that, I could also write a book

 

[TanksNStuff]

Haha, nice Paul! That'll teach 'em.