Technicians and their tricks

Technicians and their tricks

All of us engage some plumber, electrician, carpenter, drainage cleaners and others as a part of housekeeping and maintenance. Like all workmen, they are also driven by greed and try to extract as much as possible sometimes by doing a through and satisfactory job but more often through other means as well. They play upon your ignorance and pave way for expenditure more than what you expected or estimated. We take for granted that they are experts in their field and know the best solution to the problem you are facing.

For example, I have a couple of electrical points in my house where I encounter frequent problem. Any bulb you fix fuses off within a short time. No electrician tries to find the root cause but is only interested in buying and fixing new switches or replacing the wire.

The other day, I had the problem water stagnation in our bathroom. The water outflow from wash basin and  two other taps runs into the common connecting bowl (Mori bowl with cast iron filter / jolly), leading it away to drain pipe outside the wall. This portion got clogged and caused stagnation of dirty water. The plumber suggested that we dig out entire pipe length in the cemented tiled floor and replace it with new pipe length saying the old pipe is corroded. I sent him away; I examined the system eliminating the source of blockage one by one. I located the problem in one of the three pipes. Used “Dranex” overnight and the clogging vanished**.

When you call a TV (earlier days Radio or Transistor) technician, he would always say that some component has to be replaced so that he can make some money while buying it. A friend of mine who is in the business of TV / Radio repair told me that he will always have lots of scrapped junk components and will pull out something or the other (for example a rusted transistor radio antenna rod) and say he replaced that part. The customer has no way to check and will pay for component too in addition to service charges.

Nowadays handymen have become very costly. For a couple of hours of work you need to cough up more than a thousand rupees. I console myself when I compare the doctor who takes Rs 500 for three minutes of his time and expertise after making you wait for two hours, in spite of prior appointment. A car mechanic asked a surgeon: Both of us repair mechanical parts like pump pipes valves etc. But why are you paid so much. The Surgeon said I do my work when the engine is running. May be I shouldn’t grudge.

** But I forgot to say something more in this connection. The Dranex that I poured into the washbasin, being highly corrosive and acidic, ruptured the plastic connecting pipe!. I had to call another plumber and get it fixed!

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