Home repairs can get expensive.  If you are like us, we try to do as much around the house as we can on our own.  I learned this from my mom.  She could fix anything!  If she couldn’t, the last resort was to call a professional.  I could count on 1 hand the times we had a service man in our home.  A Plumber and an AC repair man.  These professionals were not called unless she had tried everything she could think of.

One time stands out specifically:  we had a clogged toilet.  Mom tried plunging it.  That didn’t work.  Then she went to the hardware store and bought a hand auger.  That didn’t’ work.  So, she had to break down and call a plumber.  We had to wait a day or so before we could get on their schedule.  Sometimes, we have to call someone to help.  Being frugal you have to try on your own first, I get that.  That is what I learned from my mom.

In the fast pace world we live in today, we don’t always have the time to try for hours and hours to fix something.  We need it fixed and we want a great price.  I hear the sayings crossing your minds about any service repair company….

• That company is expensive!
• I want it cheap!
• I am looking for a good deal.
• My personal favorite is Bear’s.  I want to give everyone a fair price!

“A fair price for our customers and a fair price for me,” is what Bear says.  We have said it before; we don’t want salesmen working for us, we want repair men who look out for our customers wellbeing.  When you call us out to look at your clogged toilet, have us check your water heater, not to sell you a new one but to be proactive.  If your water heater is over 8 years old it’s getting close to needing a new one.

When you are comparing prices and shopping around, make sure to compare apples to apples.  Another thing to keep in mind when getting estimates is to make sure you are dealing with a licensed and insured business.  Handymen are great, however most often they do not carry insurance or license to protect you the customer.

We believe in our pricing and know it is fair.  That is why you will find prices listed on our website.  Show me another company that is doing that!

Friends, family and customers – I can’t tell you how much I have thought about this situation this week. How to get the word out to all of you to prevent this from happening to you.  Every year during the summer I try to post something to warn you guys so that the disastrous does not happen to you.  Unfortunately, it happened this week to one of our customers.  I got the call and you could hear the frustration and a little fear in her voice. She proceeded to tell me they just got back from a weeklong vacation and she thought the upstairs smelled musty, but did not investigate.  Then an hour later her child told her “mom the hall and bathroom are wet upstairs”.  Then she noticed in the kitchen the ceiling was wet and starting to fall.  The insurance company and restoration company had to be called.  This is the worst of the worst for this AC condensate situation we deal with every summer.

The damage could be small or in this case pretty darn bad. Carpet, hardwood floor, vanity, ceiling, dry wall all kinds of damage can happen from a stopped up AC line.  Recently I have started to use the comparison to the late and famous Houstonian Marvin Zindler —-Slime in the ice machine.

This same type of slime is what builds up and eventually clogs up your sink drain that is tied into your AC unit. The condensate from the AC drips to this drain.  The ice cold condensate travels through the hot pipes of the attic and walls festering and growing into your very own science project in your pipes.  Eventually growing to completely stop up the drain.  Does the AC stop?….Do you turn off the AC to stop the water from building up?  Unfortunately, the answer in the heat of the summer in Spring, TX is NO!!

How can you prevent this? Poor bleach down the AC drain line, generally there should be a tee installed on the drain to do this, in your attic once a month starting in May through September.  It could save you thousands of dollars in repairs from damage if flooding occurs.  If you do not have access to the line in this way don’t hesitate to give us a call and we can install one for you.

Another thing you can do is check those upstairs bathroom lavatory sinks to see how quickly or slowly they are draining. If they are draining slow give us a call to unstop them before it is too late.