Anyway, my old boiler (the actual one in the basement, not a euphemism for my wife) was blowing a circuit which I was not able to reset until hours later - resulting in no hot water for X hours, plus loads of smoke when it did restart. Repairman Bob came round, cleaned and replaced stuff that would usually be replaced during a service anyway, and left. Four hours later the boiler tripped off. I called them up the next day - they sent the original guy plus an older (and wiser?) guy round who replaced another widget. Two weeks later, no tripping.So far, not particularly surprising or exemplary - in fact, fairly typical. Then the bills came. I procrastinted opening them, expecting not only $500 plus, but also an argument over a second call out fee for something that should have been fixed first time.
Not only was the labor rate reasonable and the parts cheap, but they charged me nothing, zero, labor for the second call out - it's not that they forgot - it was there as a line item - $0 labor. And their oil is cheap. I wonder if this is what it was like in the fifties?
