No.....I have been very fortunate.
Once I got a haircut from a woman, licensed beautician, and it was horrible. (She was in the same Weight Watcher's group.)
I went on vacation and went to a place where it said walk in's wanted. Got an excellent haircut....he had been in business for 40 years and he did comment on my uneven haircut.

"Do you ever get the feeling that you are being conned by workmen or whoever who work on your house or your haircut or teeth, and tell you that whoever did the job last time did a really lousy job?"

Nope... not at all!

Yes, the car dealer for repairs! They are the worst! I only go there if absolutely necessary.

I find it hard to trust some people who are doing work for me, sometimes. If they talk themselves up and the previous workers down, I usually don't hire them. I'm all about the references, though that didn't work with a painter I hired. I find Yelp to be quite helpful, even knowing there is a chance some reviews are fake. I try to focus on those which have lots of reviews. I also think zip-coding is common in nicer areas. Can you tell I've grown a little cynical over the years??

I think less of people who denigrate the work of others to boost *their* skills. It doesn't work that way, folks.

Every dentist I have gone to has mentioned how much better work they do than the last dentist I had gone to. I usually answer that the "tools of the trade" are so much better now than back when the work was done so of course the result should be better.

Yes, I think that a so-called furnace serviceman tried to con me into a new furnace one time. I had a gas furnace that had given 10 years of trouble free service, but had become unrelaible because the pilot light began to go out.

I saw an ad in the newspaper from a local dealer that advertized 'free' furnace inspection. They were looking to book work suposedly where needed. it was a established dealer. I bit. I made arrangements for the inspection.

The serviceman informed me that the heat exchanger probably was cracked and fan was blowing out the light. He said that my furnace was bad and needed replacing.

It was true that my furnace had come from a batch in which the heat exchanger did crack in a few, but his story was suspicious. If the fan was blowing the pilot light out, the light would not have stayed lit for 2 to 3 days.

I asked if there was a way to inspect the heat exchanger. I was there when he did the work and I knew he had not seen my heat exhanger - it was not visable. To see it, one had to dissemble the outer shrouding. I had looked at that possibility before and decided it was a big job and that an expert coujld do it faster than me. He said, yes, he could gain a view of the heat echanger by cutting a big hole in the outer covering. (Yeah right, cut a big hole that could ruin the furnace.) Before I permitted him tp cut open the furnace, I asked how he would close it up afterward. He mumbled something and essentially said that I could patch it. (My suspicious mind hoisted a big red flag. Either this guy did not know how to do the job, maybe was mystified, or was bent on making a big mess out of my fuenace.) I said no, I needed to think about it a bit and he went on his way.

I had tried replacing the thermocuple to no effect. It seemed that the thermocouple was not getting enough heat and allowed the valve solenoid to drop out. I had tried to adjust the size of the pilot light and found that I could not make it any larger.

There was an adjustment on the gas valve to set the flame size, but the flame could not be made bigger. I shut the gas off and began to search for the problem and found it. Inside the fitting that held the pilot jet was another restrictor in the form of a disk with a small hole. Its purpose was to limit the maximum size of the pilot flame. Over the years, deposits had built up nearly closed the hole. The orifice was carefully cleaned, parts reassenblied and eveything worked fine. That was over 10 years ago, and all is well to date.

I concluded that the 'inspector' was either a con man or did know know his business. Anyone familar with gas furnaces should have suspected what the problem might have been.

Yes....

Yes it's happened. I think it's unprofessional for anyone to denigrate the work of anyone else. Just do your own best and be proud of yourself.

jemdandy
we had the same thing with our furnace. We are lucky that we had an honest ac guy. When he came out to inspect our furnace before the cold came I told him about a puddle we kept seeing on the floor. He said heat exchanger probably was cracked. Then he said that he would open the panel and check for water inside. Sure enough we had a puddle of rusty water at the bottom. Was leaking slowly for a long time. We told him to replace the furnace and when he did he showed us the crack....it was huge too. He also knew that we didn't get a lot of heat in our bedroom so he put in an extra vent for half price.

Some guys are honest...you just have to find them

Yes. due to past bad experiences I am very reluctant to hire anyone to do work on my house. My best friend's husband wanted his best friend to do the work on my house. I thought it would be okay since he thought he did such a super job on his house. Well, I guess he did a good job on their house because they were friends....he did a lousy job on mine and he stole $8,000. My friend repaid me....saying she would collect from him...but she never did. If I had checked his references, I would have found out the kind of person he was, but I went solely on their word. Anyone else we hire had better have extra, extra good references, and I will never trust anyone to be here when I am not here with them.