Finally found my place in the world!

Originally Posted by CLRRRogue

Wow! thank you all so much for the warm welcoming and priceless advice and wisdom. I honestly have never felt so welcomed by an online community. I'm real excited to learn all that I can to pay it forward as well.

Silversurfer: thanks for the warm welcome from down under I put ethics above all else in this business, always leave the site cleaner than when you got there. And there is so much information here that I am rushing between reading and scrapping. It's a lot of fun.

Gabriel Services: Thanks for opening up and I'll pm you. I like scrapping as a business because a just about anyone with mental problem will tell you, a "normal" job can be real tough in a lot of ways. And scrapping offers profitable freedom.

Nutpie and Miked: thank you for passing along that advice. I truly appreciate it.

Alloy2: Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I completely know what you mean about how life can take unexpected turns or throw us some rough time but if we work hard and seize the opportunity then we will succeed. Actually I have a lot of education and experience with all thing mechanical, electrical and plumbing. Plus having worked construction before, I've already gained some helpful experience. I think that if I throw myself into it and be open minded that I will certainly find my niche where I can enjoy the work and make some cash.

jimicrk: thanks for the welcoming, I'll look around the forum for you.

I have to be up early to pick up several truck loads of appliances so good night for now y'all.

Your most welcome, with your aptitude in mechanics and class "A" personality I see a great future lays ahead for you.



Doing in home repairs, I found if a dryer, washing machine or refrigerator had to be pulled away from a wall underneath you would always find the floor covered in lint and dirt electric ranges dirt and grease.

The women of the house will show shock knowing she is living is such filth, anyhow I politely ask for the house vac then clean up the mess. The majority of women wont fight you for the vac

Another thing to be careful when moving an appliance that has sat in the same spot for years because all that weight of the machine has made indents in the linoleum from which the machine should be lifted free from and not dragged which would possibly cause the flooring to tear.

Meeting your customer for the first time contact is usually the customer calling you over the phone, now that you have secured the job when you greet the customer at the door say hello I'm Joe from GMA appliance the of the conversation is filler.

You can be a scrap man and an appliance repairman at the same time, I'm cursed in that my eyes always wander taking in everything on one job fixing a dryer I could see an old John Deere farm tractor sitting just beyond where the home owner kept the grass cut and yard tidy. If the tractor had been a car you could see it was ripe for picking, the only thing that did not compute in my mind was why such a large tractor was sitting on such a small property.as it was obvious it had not been moved in years.

Just like a magpie I wanted the tractor so I directed my conversation towards asking questions first commenting on wow what a cool tractor then is there something wrong with it ( remember first observation hasn’t moved in years ) The home owner opens up you can feel the love and sentiment pouring out in the conversation, they trucked the tractor to BC from a farm in Alberta to a larger property they owned in Langley which sold five years ago they kept the tractor moving it to the lot they now lived on but sentiment has since ebbed and they would like to see the tractor go to a good home. Jesus it's like their about to adopt out a dog to a good home and your credentials are being checked out before you can have custody.

The tractor was a John Deere model 70 with a hand clutch, front end loader I picked it up two days later kept it for years and even used it on a scrap job. I had purchased 18 electric trolley bus's, I had Rypac drop a bin at my house loaded it with tractor welder and tools then had the bin delivered to the bus site some 75 miles east of my home.

The trolley bus's were aluminum took me awhile to figure the best way to dismantle but the rewards were in the copper from the wiring, electric heaters ,electric motors, brass from the air brake system and air coolers.

Originally Posted by CLRRRogue

Excellent tips and advice. Yes, you are the man! Great story about the tractor. Yesterday I picked up a bunch of working TV's from an older couple who were moving out to live in an RV. It was raining and my brother and I were just putting the TV's in the back of the truck. The man was getting really upset that these 20 year old TV's were getting wet. I ended up covering the truck bed in a tarp, but I removed the tarp when I found some more scrap around the corner. Having worked construction and as an apartment complex handyman, I always clean-up that grime under the old fridge or range, etc. Treating people well and leaving them with a positive experience always pays off.

Alloy2, will you be my SMF hero? Anyways thanks again friend. You've opened my eyes to the opportunity of branching out to in-home repairs or wherever this business may take me. I need to always keep my eyes open and my brain working.

Would you settle for an Internet mentor.

I worked as a sub contractor for a pump and plumbing outfit for awhile as a pump repair guy.

One day I was sent out on call the customer had no water. When I arrived the pump was still running but not picking up any water from the well, first thing I did was drop a sting down the well to find out where the water was.

Basically there are three type of well pumps, the regular cheap one will only lift 21 ft and it struggles at this depth, then we have the jet pump which looks similar but has two lines going down the well, this style will lift 90 feet or more but is slow to fill the reservoir tank.
then we have the submersible pump which is king of pumps.

Pump one has one water line down the well.

The Jet pump has two lines going down the well as water is pumped down the first line it goes through a venturi connected at the bottom of the two lines the magic takes place at the venturi as the pressurised water from the first line makes an abrupt turn around now heading upwards as it does this the water from line one now travelling upwards will siphon water from the well into another port on the venturi to be co-joined with the water sent down now travelling upwards.

The submersible pump uses one line with power lines taped to it, this pump is capable of pumping water from great depths with efficiency.

In my customers well the water table had lowered enough the pump could not lift, luckily he had a jet pump which was plumbed as a single line so he needn’t worry about the additional expense of buying a jet pump.

I added the second line with a venturi, spent hours trying to get the system primed, then finally got the water I was hoping for, buttoned up the project gathered up my tools then handed my invoice over to the customer.

About a week later this customer shows up at my home and hands me a 100 gift certificate for sears and a brand new pipe wrench. I asked him why and he said because you held your temper.