18 Volt Cordless Circular Saw True Value Master Mechanic Review

Here I demonstrate a True Value Master Mechanic brand 18 Volt Cordless Circular Saw with a 5 1/2″ blade.  I bought this to have a much lighter saw to transport on my Work Bicycle.  Model #134455 – purchased at Government Hardware in Baton Rouge.  Please enjoy the video below

http://downtoearthplumbing.com

Overall, I have had a good experience using this.  Similar Circular Saws at the Big Box Home Improvement Retailers were priced about the same, so I purchased from my local Hardware Store.  Henry at Government Street Hardware ordered this Cordless Circular Saw in just a few minutes and came in earlier than expected.

Heywood-Wakefield Antique Masonic Theater Seating – Friendly Home Services

Friendly Home Services is now offering Antique Theater Seating Reclaimed from the Istrouma Lodge #414 Masonic Temple in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  This beautiful historic Theater Seating was manufactured by Heywood-Wakefield around 1900.  Originally installed in a New York Theater, this Cast Iron and Yellow Birch construction Theater Seating was moved to Baton Rouge and installed in the Masonic Temple sometime in the late 1930’s or 1940’s. 

These are available "As Is’ in either Masonic Blue or Red coverings on the Seat Backs and Seat Bottoms for those who wish to preserve these Masonic Temple Seats in their present state.  Friendly Home Services is also Refinishing and Restoring this Art Nouveau styled Theater Seats to become the focus of a Home Theater or to compliment the decor of any room.  Pricing starts at $350.00 for one Restored Theater Chair or $100.00 per Seat "As Is".  For more information, please contact us and we can put together a package to meet your particular needs.

Please enjoy our short promotional video below.

Dean Battaglia – Friendly Home Services.

Licensed & Insured Franchise Plumber vs. Friendly Home Services – Baton Rouge Plumbing Repair

 

September 29, 2009 – Another example of a Licensed & Insured Franchise Plumber vs. Friendly Home Services – Baton Rouge Plumbing RepairIn
our second blog, we are continuing the theme of how “Professional”
contractors, Licensed & Insured, are only in business to turn a
profit, under the guise of providing a service to Home or Business
Owners…We feel this is especially true with franchised home
improvement contractors…

We were called out to a home in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana – a neighborhood near Perkins and Siegen Lane…Homes
built in the early 1980’s…The Homeowner in this case had the Main
City Sewer back up into his home at 5 am with nothing flushed or
running in the house, water pouring from underneath both toilets, as if
someone turned on a pump…

The homeowner first called us and
after listening to the symptoms presented, we advised the homeowner to
call DPW (Department of Public Works) and get them out to look at this,
since this was obviously the City Main backing up into the
home…Homeowner was told by DPW dispatcher that no one would be
available at DPW until after 8 am, despite the fact there is an
emergency after hours # in the phone book…

Through the phone
conversation, we learned that this same exact scenario happened about
18 months ago – the City Main backed up into the house and flooded
it…The homeowner didn’t want to have us out, because he thought we
couldn’t “certify” the sewer problem was on DPW’s side of things, due
to the previous event, where a licensed plumber came out, used their
Sewer machine and determined the stoppage was on DPW’s Main Sewer…

Photos of Friendly Home Services’ Backwater Valve Installation

We
explained it wasn’t necessary to have anyone “certify” the stoppage was
on DPW’s piping, since anyone with any real plumbing experience or
training could look at the facts here and determine that with no water
running in the home at 5 am, the sewer backs up from underneath the
toilets, that the water has to be coming from the City Main…East
Baton Rouge Parish & the Department of Public Works both have a
policy of denying responsibility – it’s what they do best…

The
Homeowner decided to call out Roto-Rooter Plumbing & Drain
Cleaning…A plumber came out and found the sewer with his probing rod,
but then didn’t take the extra few minutes to find a clean out near the
back of the house…Instead, once Roto-Rooter found the sewer, he dug a
small hole and using his claw hammer, smashed a hole into the 4″
diameter thin wall PVC sewer pipe…He then ran his Sewer Machine Cable
through the broken sewer pipe down the line once, supposedly 100 feet
and then declared the problem was on DPW’s Main Sewer…The homeowner
meanwhile had gotten a hold of someone at DPW Sewer Department, who
were sending their own crew out to “look at the situation”…

Roto-Rooter
charged the homeowner $135.00, then quoted him a price of over $400.00
to repair the broken sewer line where the plumber smashed it with his
hammer, and install a clean out…Roto-Rooter never “certified” the
problem on his receipt…The homeowner even asked the Roto-Rooter
plumber to wait for DPW to come out, to explain to the Sewer Department
crew what he found on behalf of the homeowner…The Roto-Rooter plumber
told the homeowner he couldn’t wait and left in his plumbing
truck…The Roto-Rooter plumber also told the homeowner that he now had
a “Poor Man’s Clean Out”…The homeowner also stated that the
Roto-Rooter plumber was rude and not very helpful at all…Also, he was
there at the house for less than 1/2 hour…

The first crew from
DPW arrived just 10 minutes after Roto-Rooter and after hearing what
the homeowner had to say, which wasn’t much since he really didn’t know
or understand what he was trying to explain concerning his sewer
backing up…The first DPW crew found a manhole, looked down it and
after seeing the Sewer Main flowing, told the homeowner the problem
wasn’t theirs and left…

We had another phone conversation with
the Homeowner, who called us back for more advice…It was at this
time, we realized that there was a strong possibility that the
homeowner’s sewer line and one of his neighbor’s sewer lines were tied
together with a wye fitting prior to the DPW main sewer, and that the
stoppage was past this wye, but before their 4” yard lines tied in, or
tapped the City Main…This is why the first DPW crew didn’t see a
problem in the manhole, because the problem wasn’t in the trunk line of
the City Sewer Main…

Photos of Friendly Home Services’ Backwater Valve Installation

What
had happened?  There was actually two houses stopped up, but our
customer’s sewer is lower or downstream from his neighbor…So when his
next door neighbors got up at 5 am and took care of their morning
constitutions and showers, getting ready for school and work, all the
water the neighbors used ran right back into our customer’s home,
flooding it…

By this time, our customer was really frustrated,
was out $135.00, had contaminated sewage on his floors and carpeting
and had that awful raw sewage odor permeating his home…Since this was
the second time this happened in 18 months, Friendly Home Services
strongly recommended the installation of a Backwater Valve into the 4″
PVC sewer line…

A Backwater Valve is essentially a fitting
with a big flapper in it, similar to what is in a toilet tank…Water
can flow out of the house, but the moment the City’s Main Sewer backs
up, the flapper closes and no raw sewage can back up into the
home…Another alternative is the installation by DPW of what they call
a “Liberty Pump”, which is a small lift station buried in the yard, but
uses an electric pump to keep the City Main Sewer from backing up into
a house…Liberty Pumps work great until power is lost, like in a
Hurricane or a Tropical Storm, whereas a Backwater Valve will function
regardless…

To make a long story not as long…After being
very persistent, the homeowner was able to get a 2nd DPW crew out to
Inspect the sewer with a Video Camera, after which they found the
problem was indeed as we called it – two homes with sewer lines tied
together with a wye fitting, with the stoppage being on DPW’s sewer
tap…A 3rd crew was then sent out to dig up the yard and repair DPW’s
Main Sewer, installing a 6″ PVC clean out in the backyard for future
inspection…

For our repair; the installation of a Backwater
Valve and 2nd clean out downstream from the Valve, the homeowner spent
$85.00 in PVC fittings and two hours of labor – one hour to dig
everything up and one hour to cut out the damaged section of pipe
broken by Roto-Rooter and complete the installation of the Backwater
Valve and 2nd clean out…It took us literally 2 minutes to locate  and
uncover the existing clean out, which was less than 12 inches upstream
from where Roto-Rooter had smashed a hole…The existing clean out had
a threaded plug that was lying upside down on top of the clean out
fitting…The clean out plug was never threaded back into the fitting
the last time the drain was cleaned 18 months ago by the last
“plumber”, who was also licensed and insured…

After we
finished, we have the following configuration: 1) the original clean
out (Roto-Rooter didn’t find); 2) the Backwater Valve and 3) a new
additional clean out…This way, a cable or hydro-jet can be both run
up the sewer underneath the foundation (using clean out #1) or down the
sewer towards the City Main Sewer (using clean out #2) without risking
hanging a cable up inside the Backwater Valve and damaging it…The
only caveat being that nothing with strings can go down the sewer now –
no tampons, dental floss or personal wipes – three items that should
never be flushed down the drain in the first place…

Now the
Backwater Valve will not prevent every kind of stoppage in your home,
only the scenario of the City Main Sewer backing forcefully
upstream…The sewer pipes under the home that flow to the Backwater
Valve can still have unrelated stoppages and cause the backflow of raw
sewage into your home, but at least it will be your sewage, not your
neighbor’s…

The general rule we advise customers concerning
their sewers is this – Going #1, Going #2 and bathroom tissue are the
only things that should be flushed…Anything else can hang up in the
sewer line or in the toilet itself, causing a stoppage…

Remember
that the china inside the trapway of a toilet is not glazed, so the
surface is exactly the same as inside the toilet tank, but with little
barbs in the china that catch anything with strings…Personal wipes
should not go down for the same reason – Personal wipes don’t break
down like tissue and will get hung without shredding in the toilet or
sewer line, causing a stoppage…

We hope this is helpful information, regardless of where you may live in the USA…

Photos of Friendly Home Services’ Backwater Valve Installation

Licensed & Insured Contractors in Louisiana and the Chinese Drywall Scandal

September 25, 2009 –

The issue of Licensed & Insured Contractors in Louisiana and the Chinese Drywall Scandal…

In our first blog, we wanted to address the fact Friendly Home Services is a Home
Improvement Venture in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but we are not licensed
or insured…We believe the less the government or insurance companies
& lawyers are involved with anything, the better…

In our
situation, we would have to purchase the cheapest business liability
insurance we could find, just to have a piece of paper that says we’re
insured, but won’t be worth the paper it is printed on…So why waste
money on something that does no good to the Homeowner or Friendly Home
Services in the highly unlikely event something were to go wrong on a
project or remodel?

Friendly Home Services is two friends, Jesse
and Dean, a two-man operation just trying to make ends meet by doing
what we know best – Repairing and Remodeling Homes and Small
Businesses…We have over 50 years experience with no accidents or
catastrophic damage to anything we have ever laid hands on…

With
that in mind, let’s take a look at the Chinese Drywall Scandal here in
Louisiana and how using licensed & insured contractors protected
homeowners in Louisiana…

During
the aftermath of Hurricanes
Katrina and Gustav, as many Licensed and Insured contractors rebuilt
homes with very inexpensive imported Chinese Drywall that turned out to
contain harmful compounds that have caused health problems and
destroyed
HVAC units…Many HVAC units were installed new after Katrina at the
same time as the Chinese Drywall was…From what little testing has
been done and from victim’s complaints, it appears that the Chinese
Drywall over time, emits sulphur vapors, which to humans and many
metals, is highly corrosive…

Many
claims were made against the Insurance policies of both contractors and
homeowners…The Insurance companies denied claims across the board and
the homeowners this happened are getting royally screwed – again…The Chinese
government has ignored and denied any claims or lawsuits against the
Chinese Manufacturers  of this contaminated sheetrock…There is one
lawsuit pending in Federal Court in New Orleans, Louisiana that won’t
have a first hearing until January of 2010…

All these
homeowners, who used licensed & insured contractors, received no
benefit or protection against this catastrophic loss to their
homes…Another hurricane might as well came through – the end result
was the same – these people once again don’t have a home to live or a
pot to piss in…This time there are no FEMA trailers to live in while their homes are being rebuilt a second time…

Because
of the extra overhead involved in
being licensed, bonded, insured & paying worker’s comp, many
contractors used the cheapest labor, the cheapest materials, hid
defects, rushed the job, added extras on the bill, on and on, in order
to
compete for business and maximize profits while taking advantage of
homeowners who had to have their homes rebuilt, already overwhelmed by
the situation that surviving a devastating hurricane presents…

The building trades
industry is going to be in big trouble if things don’t change…We are
not sure what the answers might be, because like many issues that face
us now – the economy, health care, etc. we have legislated and regulated
ourselves to death, making solutions more complicated than the
problems…

We
do know that part of this is due to the erosion
of labor unions (who would have never allowed imported drywall or
screws on the job site to begin with), increased power and influence of
banks and insurance
companies and fear mongering to the citizenry, making them believe that
if you or the contractor are not both insured, the worst is going to
happen…The very same Insurance companies that always blame a 3rd
party or use a well designed loophole in a policy, to avoid the
responsibility of honoring and paying a claim…

Using a licensed and insured contractor doesn’t
guarantee better quality workmanship, safe and sanitary building
practices or that a catastrophic loss on the job will be prevented or
covered…This is a myth perpetrated by the insurance companies, local
and federal governments and contractors, which have no interest in what
is best for the homeowner, other than milking more cash to line their
pockets with…

Things do happen…Accidents do not
happen…Accidents are in most cases easily avoidable and are caused by
poor & unsafe work practices, lack of training and inattention on
the part of the contractor…Safety on a job is #1…Protecting the
Customer’s property from unnecessary damage is #2…How will being
insured guarantee or protect the homeowner against shoddy, unscrupulous contractors
that are better salesmen than craftsmen?

It doesn’t and never will…

Friendly
Home Services uses only the finest materials and fixtures you can
afford…We don’t mark up supplies, we don’t use illegal immigrants for
labor, and we go beyond building, plumbing and electrical codes as it
relates to the safety, sanitation & quality of our work…

Friendly
Home Services is constantly researching and discovering new,
ecologically friendly products and methods to employ in providing safe,
sanitary and sensible solutions to you, the Home or Small Business
owner…

Thank you so much for reading and Please have a
Wonderful Day! 

For more information on this issue from the Insurance Companies’ perspective, please go and read this enlightening article – Economic Losses From Chinese Drywall Could Reach $25 Billion, Insurers Warned

Dean Battaglia
Friendly Home Services

disclaimer

Remember
that everything on this blog and Friendly Home Services’ Web Portal is
for informational purposes only…Any advice or opinions given are just
that; advice and opinions…Although we know what we are talking about,
we need to have this disclaimer to limit lawyers and those who try our
tips, tricks or methods and fail, hurt themselves or cause property
damage to their home because they probably have no business trying to
begin with…It’s OK…Some people are just not good at fixing things,
and we don’t blame anyone for giving it the old college try…

Home
Improvements and Repairs are not to be taken lightly…If you do
undertake your own repairs or projects, just Please be Careful…

Remember – Safety First!