HF has shorter hours now in some stores

[russellseaton1]

Yes. I assume the grocery store near me looks at sales per hour and figures out what times of day to have more checkout people operating the cashiers.

[Puckdropper]

Ed Pawlowski wrote in news:MYKdnbCr77pLAzPLnZ2dnUU7- [e-mail]:

I've found several of the pros I've called are willing to show me stuff. I watched one guy clean the flue pipes on the boiler, he showed me what he did and I just added the procedure to my annual start up.

Unfortunately, no one ever bothered to tell me I needed to put oil in the Little Red Booster Pump. A bottle of compatible oil costs less than $5 and you only need about a tablespoon or so annually to prevent problems. That's downright cheap compared to the price of a new pump!

Puckdropper

[Trenbidia]

I think we must be related :-). I've wired two shops and upgraded house wiring, but when something more than a washer needs replaced I call a plumber!

[Electric Comet]

i wonder what 7 to 8 pm looks like too

would not expect it to be very busy i guess the wording they chose sounded better than saying something else

like

we are reducing store hours because the stores are empty and very few sales are made and we can save a lot of money by closing an hour early

plus they throw a bone to their employees at no cost to the employer

[krw]

Throw a bone? They've now eliminated at least the equivalent of a half-time position. That's the pretty much the only cost savings they can realize by reducing hours. Pretty much everything else has fixed cost.

[nailshooter41]

No longer allowed on my jobs where they walls are covered up. As with many plumbers and remodellers around here, we have had too many problems with t hem. Inside a wall they can have a tiny leak that is so small it goes unde tected until of course, the wall is repaired and painted. Those couplers h ave to be perfectly aligned and attached to work properly, and in difficult conditions that can be too much of a moving target. On the other hand, th ey do have their place, and for easily accessible areas they are dandly.

There are other types of cold joint couplings that are coming of age now, b ut Sharkbites are falling rapidly out of favor around here.

Robert

[-MIKE-]

I've wondered about the long-term effectiveness of them, but I'm having trouble weeding through the old-timers' technophobia and the real data.

Of the ones to which you refer, I wonder how many were improperly installed. I wonder how many were pushed onto dirty, corroded copper pipes. I wonder how many were inserted to the proper depth. I wonder how many were inserted without the bushing insert for applications which require it. I wonder a lot of things.

I also wonder about the longevity of any o-ring based water pipe installation.

[Leon]

Everything done perfectly they should last. Is every thing done perfectly, no... ;~) Lot's of variables.

[nailshooter41]

Always a challenge with any new product. I am not the first to jump on a n ew product, but don't like to be the last if the product is good. In this case, I take heed from the two plumbers I use for all my plumbing work.

I tried to keep that in clear context in my post. In perfect conditions, a perfect installation is reasonable and expected. However, all I do is mai ntenance and repair, and as I tried to make clear in my post

"Those couplers have to be perfectly aligned and attached to work properly , and in difficult conditions that can be too much of a moving target."

My plumber's last shot at Sharkbite couplers was about 8-9 months ago when we had one leak a week later inside a will. Since I am always looking for a way to keep from soldering, especially in cramped quarters, I let him use the Sharkbite in a shower wall valve replacement. Keeping the hole as sma ll as possible to eliminate tile repair and to be able to cover the hole wi th a "Smitty" plate, he used Sharkbites.

On leaked, the other didn't. A couple of months later he announced to me t o put back in is charge to solder as we were done with SBs unless he had cl ear, easy, 360 degree access to the joint. In my business, that happens al most... never.

Later, my other plumber told me he wasn't going to use them as he had encou ntered problems with them as well, and will only use them when he has ease of access.

Both of these guys know me well. I am not concerned with something that "s hould" work. I want a kill shot, one and done. Too many times that is diff icult to begin with, and to use a product that requires a perfect installat ion many times is asking too much. The difference I pay to have my joints soldered is well worth the piece of mind I get.

Without a perfect, laboratory type installation onto perfectly cleaned, tru ed, concentric pipes, I don't think all that long. Once the O ring loses i ts elasticity (granted with neoprene it could take a few years)the joint is shot. The only way a non leaking solder joint fails is movement of struct ure or damage that takes place. I routinely go to jobs that have 50 years o r older solder joints that are performing the same way they did when instal led.

Robert

[-MIKE-]

Good info! Thanks. It'll go into my mental file.

[Leon]

And remember, they are OK to use as long as they are easy to get to to repair. If you use it and hide it away so that a sizable amount of work is required to find that it is leaking, it will leak. ;~)

[Mike Marlow]

That's been my complaint with Sharkbites. I have exactly one of them installed in my house and don't plan on any more. It just bugs me to death that the device is floppy on the pipe when it's properly installed. Well - maybe the word floppy is a bit extreme, but it's not a confidence inspiring rock solid joint like a solder joint is. Just can't feel good about a valve that will spin around the pipe when it's installed.

[J. Clarke]

I needed to do an emergency repair a while back and looked at Shark Bite, which would have been the quick and simple way to do it, and ended up going for solder. One of these days I'm going to have open that wall and do a proper, cosmetically attractive fix.