Remain calm! All is well!

There’s a scene in Animal House, at the end of the movie when a near-riot is breaking out in the streets of Faber. A very young Kevin Bacon is in uniform, trying to calm everyone down. He’s yelling, “Remain calm! All is well!” In the end, the crowd runs him down and literally flattens him.

That’s essentially the response I got from our plumber this morning. As anyone who knows us or reads either of our blogs is well aware (to the point of nausea by now, I suspect), we’re doing major work on what will soon be our new home. In choosing a plumbing contractor, we went with one that had done a limited amount of work at our current house. They did a good job with that, and their reputation was that they’re one of the best around. Not cheap, but their work is excellent.

Well, we have had so many problems that my message to the boss there this morning amounted to a mildly veiled threat. We’ve had heat on in a room where it shouldn’t be (thermostat set to 64, temperature in the room at 72 and the heat pouring out of the baseboards), one room hooked to the wrong zone, insufficient heat coming out in another room, and now the icing on the cake—we tried out the new faucet in the kitchen sink. When turned to cold, it came out hot, but then cold, but then hot again. Okay, I figured that might be a faulty fixture and not the plumber’s fault, but then Marc tried the filtered water dispenser and got hot water from the cold side.

For the work being done in this house—and I’ll admit it’s a large amount of work—we’re paying a huge sum to the plumbing company. In fact, it’s literally enough to buy a pretty nice car. So is it so much to ask that they get things like this right? For that matter, could they perhaps check their own work before leaving?

Their next appearance is scheduled for Saturday. They’re coming out to do more work on the upstairs bathroom (put in bath and shower fixtures, install the toilet, etc.). Pete, the aforementioned plumbing boss, told me not to worry. They’ll get everything right. Even so, do we need more stress? I think not!

This is just another reason why I can’t wait until this whole job is over and done with!