Use all your brain
July 17th, 2009 by John MorrisLast night, I turned on an air conditioner for the first time this year. It made groaning noises; produced no cold air; and then played dead. Looks like I have a new first thing to do today item.
My instincts told me the fan blades weren’t turning. To verify this, I peeked through the side vents in the back of the unit. There I found some left over vines from last year’s Chinese wisteria harvest. They had positioned themselves in a way that interrupted the blade’s rotation.
I went to my favorite magic store, Maxwell’s Hardware and bought an extended reach tool: the one with the four grabbing prongs. Ten minutes of long range pruning through the vents, and the A/C roared cool, welcoming air.
This fast and easy fix reminded of an incident from my landscape product selling days.
I sold Versa-Lok concrete segmental retaining wall units. They are the best of a good lot of choices. Call backs to projects were infrequent and always taken seriously.
One such project featured a wall that failed due to excessive water pressure. The homeowner wanted to not just reinstall his wall but also address the water source; he was smart. His related problem was he also had water coming into his basement.
He called in a water proofing service. Their engineer suggested digging the soil away from the home and putting a tar-like barrier around the sub-level. This would fix the basement’s problem but not the retaining wall’s. The cost would be in the low five figures.
Next visitor was a soil engineer who suspect an underground stream as the source of all the water. His solution called for diverting the yet to be found stream around the wall and basement. This would save the cost of the basement waterproofing, but his quote was double the one from the waterproofing company.
As an after-thought, the home owner called in a landscape contractor to make suggestions about rebuilding the retaining walls.
The contractor listened to the man’s story; broke away from the conversation, and walked around the site. He stopped at an outside water spigot, bent down and easily removed the soil under it. He found the spigot’s connection was leaking water in a way it couldn’t be seen. He estimated the repair at under $25.00, if the homeowner did it.
By now you’ve guessed the outcome of this blog. The man fixed the spigot; the water in the basement ceased; and the rebuilt retaining wall stood high and dry.
This is no knock on the first two professionals. They were looking at the problem using their training and focused on using their tools. They had an enormous amount of knowledge about their disciplines but missed seeing the whole picture. The landscaper was better at diverse thinking and eliminating the easy answers before sending in bulldozers.
Heed the advice giving to Doctors-in-training about diagnosing illnesses. When you hear the sounds of hoofs behind you, expect to see horses when you turn around, not zebras.