Charge whatever your poker hourly is, to the nearest cent. If your poker hourly is negative then do it at a 50% discount.

Unless you are looking to be the on-call unpaid neighborhood repair guy I would not recommend going this route. Better to charge a modest amount now so you can adjust your rate upward when you get the inevitable Friday evening 'can you run over and look at my xxxx' calls

Noticed Saturday afternoon the inverter for my solar system was displaying a ground fault light and an error state.

Called up Sunrun, who took over for the company who installed the system. Nobody around at that time, I guess understandable.

Did some research over the weekend. Almost certainly that the inverter failed and needs to be replaced, it's nearly 14 years old.

Called up today, talked with someone. They put me on a brief hold and then hung up on me.

Called back, said I'd been talking with someone and got hung up on, then reexplained the issue. Transferred to someone else, who needed the information yet again.

She put me on hold, then came back after a few minutes. Said she'd file a report. Someone would call back within 3-5 business days, after checking that the problem wasn't on their end.

WTF? The problem is never on your end. Let's schedule a tech to come out and look at the system to advise.

Nope, can't do that. Have to go through the bureaucracy.

She called back a few minutes later, saying that they'd noticed this was a purchased system. Thus, I'd have to pay for the tech to come out. Yes, that's true. So, let's schedule that.

Nope, can't do that. Why is it any harder than opening tech's calendar and scheduling an appointment? No, somebody will call me back in 3-5 to schedule.

Needless to say, I'm going to see if some other company can come out and not suck at customer service.

That's terrible customer service. My buddy in Boulder lost all three of his inverters on August 19th from some wicked storm that rolled through. He's still working on getting them replaced.

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed.

Called a few local outfits. Left a couple of messages, the third got someone. The business manager put a tech on the call, we talked through the problem, he diagnosed as likely an inverter replacement.

An hour later we had an agreement drafted up, they're coming Wednesday (assuming tomorrow delivery of new to them tomorrow) to do the work.

As opposed to Sunrun, who called back after the above post saying that "Oh, yours is a purchased system. We'll have to charge a fee to come out and look." Well, yes, mine was purchased. Why wasn't that noticed when we were on the phone initially?

OK, an oversight. A service call charge is understandable. Sunrun wanted to schedule someone to come out to diagnose the problem so that we can then schedule another call to do the actual work--which likely means weeks, guessing by the interactions so far.

When Sunrun sent me the email to approve the charge, I'd talked to new, effective people. So, I responded to Sunrun that I'd found a local provider who's interested in providing decent customer service, and they were fired.

If your buddy is still looking, I'm going with Complete Energy Solutions, which is in Arvada (Denver suburbs, towards Boulder). Can't speak to their technical skills at this point (obviously), but they seem committed to service.

I'll pass along the information, I'm sure he'd appreciate it. He moved there from Seattle last year and has had issues getting any work done. Took him almost 5 months to get his AC fixed.

The solar array was installed in 2013 and the inverters in his system were designed to be easily replaced but don't know if they still make the same/compatible model.

Let me know how it goes.

@AquaSwing:

The guys just finished up. Install went smoothly, a bit of a hiccup connecting to the wireless network, but got that straight.

Matt (head tech) and James (intern) came out. Nice guys, competent. Dismounted the old system, installed new, explained how the new inverter was a bit different, answered other random questions I had.

He said they'd certainly be willing to go up to Boulder to help your friend out.

Assuming my meter starts running backward again, too early to tell.

Strong recommendation.

Awesome, thank you!

Buddy just left for Mexico for a week so I'll let him know when he gets back.

Moved into a new house with a pre-existing pergola, about 14x10. The plan is to put a hot tub underneath it, and since it rains where I am (a lot, even in summer) we would like to install a cover/awning over the pergola. The issue I'm having is the pergola is right outside the sliding glass doors to our bedroom, and I'm concerned about noise from rain; I like the sound of rain, but not incessantly and annoyingly. At least in my opinion that concern makes the waved plastic stuff you see a no-go, but I don't know what else, if anything, might work. We would like clear, adding another layer of difficulty. Right now I'm looking at a site that does custom ultra clear PVC covers, but my understanding of that material is it's the clear stuff you see on some boat covers, which might be just as annoying as plastic.

Any ideas?

Porter,

If it's just rain, I wonder about something like a retractable awning. I don't imagine they hold up under snow. Would allow you to have sunshine through on nice days, removing the clear requirement.

Maybe mount it on the house, or top of pergola and slant it so the rain runs off away from house?

I want to say I've seen them remotely controlled so you don't have to physically hassle with it each time, but not sure why I think that.

I've seen that. My rental house in Germany had a hand-crank, but a buddy had one with a motor and push-button control.

Well, that was kinda fun.

A while back, someone in the neighborhood had a tree cut down. I took some of the pieces for next year's fire pit wood. Mostly in the 5'-6- length range. The smaller ones I sectioned up by hand, then split.

There were a few chunks more like 10" diameters. Finally got up to HD and bought an electric chain saw. I'd never run a chain saw before. After reading through the manual, sliced up those bigger pieces into ~18" long pieces.

Probably only made 8-10 cuts on this initial go, but it was fun. I have a few dying trees around the yard, so I anticipate it being helpful in removing them too.

Now I'll have to move on to splitting up the chunks. Good over-winter workouts.

About to remodel our master bathroom. Any general tips or regrets on things they wish they did when they had the chance?

Also more specifically- anyone have one of the mirrors with led lighting built in? They looked awesome, but aren't cheap, and just wondering how they'd be actually installed vs up in the showroom.

install a bidet, heated flooring, and a steam shower

if you share a bathroom with your partner then add a second sink if you have room

If it is what I think it is wouldn't it get extremely dirty with the rain?

Bidets are amazing

Doozie,

Unfortunately, I can't remember the "right" type, but be sure your floor tiles are not susceptible to getting slick when wet.

bundy,

Not sure. I'm almost never the final idea guy. I throw something out there, and smarter people refine it to be good (or ignore it because it never will be). If ture, I wonder if a good hosing once in a while would be enough.

Porter lives in the NW corner of Oregon. things don't get extremely dirty with rain there...it rains enough throughout the year to wash the dirt away.

If contracting it, expect it to take 3-4X as long as you expect. If doing it yourself, probably only twice as long.

Ensure that all materials you want will be available at the times you will need them. We did ours a year ago and had a few relatively minor but annoying issues; I think things are even worse now.

We raised our countertop 3 or 4 inches--made a world of difference even to my wife.

pro move here

Maybe but I'd recommend cleaning it at least a couple of times a year with chemicals.

You might get more helpful suggestions if you can give us some idea of what you have now and what you are hoping/considering transitioning to. Also, whether you are demoing everything or just altering specific items. How long are you planning to remain in that house?

Strongly recommend heated floors

We went from a double sink to single offset and love it. We never used both sinks at the same time but having 60" of bathroom counter space for organizers, candles, hair dryers and other misc **** I don't care about is invaluable.

Don't skimp on a mirror. We used an antique beveled mirror 48*24 free hanging.

Regarding bath remodels, I would stay away from shower kits (Kohler systems, etc). They are a blatant rip off. They quoted me $16k for my 34x48 shower.

Thats 2x as much as it will cost to remodel my bathroom (keeping the base cabinet and just replacing doors and drawer fronts) on my own.