Dental hygiene can be expensive!

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Usually after ever meal while I am at home, I like to brush my teeth before I sit around for a long period of time. At work, I use one of these things instead of brushing:

So after a long day at the office we have a late dinner because of my wife's work and school schedule, and after dinner I head to the bathroom about an hour or so after we ate. I go #1 in the toilet bowl, and as I'm flushing, I whip out my electric tooth brush and tube of Mint Sensodyne toothpaste.

But then, I bobble the football on the snap, leading to a fumble, and an interception by the toilet water being flushing down the toilet!! Swoooooooooooooosh! The whole freaking tube is just gone!!

I immediately go into panic mode. My mind is racing with headlines in the Anderson, SC Newspaper:

"This just in. Local idiot flushes a entire tube of toothpaste down his toilet, which causes him to have $3,000 worth of plumbing repairs done to his sewer lines. Wow, glad we're not that guy!!"

I run to my wife:

"Taba, Taba, I was going to brush my teeth and I dropped my toothpaste into the toilet, and it was in the middle of flushing, and now it's gone!"

Her response was:

"Do you think it made it down to the actual line or just in the back of the toilet. We accidentally flushed a wash cloth in my toilet back home, and it just went to the back of the toilet. Maybe we should test it with something instead of water?"

"Well, I do have to kind of go #2. Do you think that will help?"

"I was talking about bread or toilet paper, dummy!!"

"Oh, right. I'll get right on that."

5 handfuls of toilet paper and a flush later, as the water crept up towards the rim of the toilet bowl, it's official:

"HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM. I CAN NO LONGER POO-DOO. THIS IS NOT GOOD!"

So, even though I'm burnt out from working after my day at the office, the gloves come on and the tools come out, and out comes the toilet to check if I could possibly be lucky, and it would just be stuck in the back of the toilet, and not in the actual line under the house.

Check this out:

SUCCESS! It was! Hooray!!

This story has a happy ending. No repair bills, and I had just enough toothpaste left to finish brushing my teeth! 2 for 2 tonight! Hooray!!

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The water heater experiment

Today my dad and I are going to attempt to replace my water heater. Upon further inspection, I have discovered that I have a short, 35 gallon water heater that was originally designed to be put in mobile home. We never seem to have enough hot water to make it through a 15 minute shower. It begins to get luke warm by the end, and doesn't leave much room for error after that. And then we have to wait 15 to 20 minutes for the next person to take their bath so that the water can be heated back up. Also, upon attempting to wash out my drywall bucket one night, I noticed that all the hot water had a red tint to it. So, I believe that the tank is beginning to rust out, and considering that it is a 1994 model, I believe that a replacement is in order!!!

I'll be going with the 50 gallon Whirlpool from Lowe's, and it has two elements on it that pull another 1000 watts each MORE than what I currently pull to heat the water. I'm going to go ahead and buy a water heater insulated blanket to put over it, even though it's under the house that stays toasty most times, maybe this will not make it pull as many amps and the water will stay warmer longer.

Anyways, a few pic will come soon, and I wish a Happy Saturday to everybody.

I'm now going to be on my way to Greenville to get my Dad. And he will drive the car back home that I borrowed on Monday as my truck would not start that morning.

Can you believe the nastiness that is inside of one of these water heaters? After completely draining it, we rotated this heater on the ground and you could hear the mud going "FLOP, FLOP" inside the tank. Pretty gross!

This is the new water heater, all 50 gallons of her, sitting in place, ready to be plumbed in! How exciting!

Goodbye old water heater tank. We have had enough of your foolish games, and shall soon cash you in at the metal scrap yard!

Let the sweating begin!

Halfway home!

The installation is complete, and we have no leaks. Success! Let the heating begin so that I can take a shower tonight after being under the house almost all day. I went to turn the elements back on in the breaker box, and hoped for the best.

This is after I wrapped the water heater up with my new insulation blanket. It cost $18.98, but should pay for itself in no time. I took the old insulation blanket from the smaller tank and laid it over the top of the tank to add some insulation to the top, even though it looks awful. I had to return some plastic nipples that I purchased because Whirlpool had them already installed on the new water heater. These nipples are used to conserve energy by not letting the heat continue up into the cold water inlet line and the hot water line. They make the heat stay contained in the water heater, and in the water heater only.

At the end of the night, as I took a steaming hot shower, I would consider the project a success. We had to go back to Ace's hardware once, and Lowe's again, but that wasn't due to poor planning. So it turns out that my valve in the water line coming off the street at my meter will not turn off 100%. It will go 99%, but not 100%. This caused water to slowly drip down the water inlet line, thus causing us to not be able to do a solder weld. We then had to go back to Lowe's for a compression valve to attach to the line and therefore not do a solder. We tried, but turns out you cannot do a weld when you have wet water lines. We tried though and gave it our best shot to save a trip!! hahaha!

Thanks for reading and I hope you revisit this blog often!

My tire experience

This all happened Aug. 14th, 2010.

So, in order to save money, I bought my wife 4 new tires online. They delivered extremely quick (1 day using UPS ground of all things) and I needed to have them put on just as quick because her current tires are crap.


So, I did exactly what I did when I bought my tires online, I took them to Walmart to have them mount and balance them, because sense I'm an average, working, homeowner, I don't have those types of tools!


The guy that you talk to as soon as you pull up and place a work order was new. He stumbled through the hand held device that you enter vehicle information on, pretty much cursing technology in other words. He finally placed my work order into the system along with the standard oil change. As the technician was walking back into the shop from his break, he looked at my valve stem immediately on the way in. He said, "Did you put into the work order that he needs TPS sensors?" The guy immediately froze up, and said "No, he didn't tell me that he needed it until it was already in the system?" Um, how the crap was I suppose to know that I needed a TPS sensor that is connected to my valve stem? The technician said it was no problem, he just needed to check and see if he had those types of valve stems. He also added that it was an extra $20 a tire. Great! More cash down the drain! He soon came back, and said that he didn't have anymore, that I needed to go to the dealer to get the sensor, 1 per tire, and bring them to him, and he could change the tires then. I said okay, go ahead and do the oil change then. I went in to talk to the manager of the tire and lube center, and he stated that Walmart policy is not to touch a tire unless they put on new sensors, because they basically break them as they replace the valve stem. I said, "okay, i'll get them from the dealer. Do you know of anyone else that will change tires on sunday?" He mentioned that Sears would probably be open on sunday. He also stated that his price for all 4 tires was $45 dollars, including tax and disposing of the tires. No problem!


I headed directly to Sears. I told them about my situation, and how Walmart wouldn't touch them unless I brought in new sensors with my new tires. They literally laughed in my face. They said that those sensors were $100 EACH, and that you absolutely do not touch the TPS (Tire pressure sensor) unless it is broken. They said that they would put on my tires for $79!! Wow! Much more than I wanted to spend, but limited on options due to the condition of the current tires, I agreed. He gave my old tires a look over, and tried to get me to agree to a 4 wheel alignment, for another $89.99. This time I laughed in his face. I told him that car drove as straight as an arrow, and I've never known of anyone to EVER get a 4 wheel alignment, only a front wheel alignment. I also told him my tires were not that bad even though they were worn on the inner edges due to a chamber issue set from the factory, and since it was JUST NOW showing after 40k miles that WE put on the car, not to mention however many had ALREADY been put on the car, no thanks!!


After completing my service, he attempted to "sell me", even though I will never make a tire purchase from Sears. He asked "Did you buy those tires online?" Well of course, where else would I have? He then asked the price, and knowing what game he was going to play, I quoted $300, even though it was close to $340. He said, "Oh, sir, I could have given you these tires for $92, and gotten you out the door for $320, including a 2 year replacement warranty. Are you tires even covered under a manufactures warranty?" "Yes, all tires are included under a manufactures warranty." I asked what mileage his tires were rated for, and he only said 30k. So, I said, "Well, that is a no name tire, and I basically bought a 50k tire for that same amount of money. I'll take the better tire." (Editors note: No, it was not Goodyear or Michelins that he quoted!)


I later drove by an Advance Auto parts and stopped in to verify that the sensor did indeed cost $114 (X's 4 tires)! I have no idea what Walmart was talking about with it only being an extra $20 per sensor.


So, all in all, my total out of pocket is around $380 to $390, I'm not sure. And I think I probably saved around $150 if I would have went to a all inclusive store deal. You can usually get away with buying tires online cheaper than you can in the store. My tires were $75 before shipping. The cheapest thing Walmart and Sears had was $100, and that was only for 40k tires. If Walmart would have done my install at the beginning, I would have saved more than $150, but they didn't, so I paid double. I still have no idea what the Walmart guy was wanting to do to me, or why they would not touch my tires?