The Stove Pipe Fiasco

Dad and I decided to clean the stove pipes and as we were doing it some of the pipes were rusted out and came apart. New dilemma! What was supposed to be an easy job turned out to be an over haul on our pipes. This means we had to go to town and buy new pieces of pipe to replace the broken ones. So, Dad goes to town and buys new pipe. When he got back we had to put them together. It has a seem that you have to connect to make it a complete pipe.

As you can see this is a pain in the ass. It took 2 people and a ratchet strap to get it together. We had to do this three times. When we got to the third on we realized it was the wrong size. At this point we are exhausted and its dark thirty. So, we went without heat over night and the latter part of the next day. I had to work the next day. Luckily, I explained this to my boss Tory and she let me work a half day so we could get the stove fixed. After work, I went to Ulmer’s Hardware which is now an ACE hardware instead of a True Value. Ace has much better quality than True Value. It was a great decision on the owner’s part.

I was able to find the right size little pipe and was on my way back home. Then, we worked all day trying to fix the damn stove. What was once supposed to be an easy pipe cleaning job, like I said, turned into a career move. There was a lot of make shift work that we did in order to have heat. Some of it is just temporary and will be fixed soon. Stupid stove pipes!

I thought returning that one pipe that was too big was going to be difficult without the receipt. Dad tends to loose them as soon as he gets them. (Forehead slap) But it wasn’t. ACE is completely computerized and was able to find the transaction immediately. I love that store. It has everything. You need boots, they have them, coats? pants? Carhartt?! You need a grill, no problem! Greeting cards, kitchen stuff, pharmacy, toys, sewing material, auto stuff, tools, paint, hunting and fishing gear, winter sports, socks, you name it, they probably have it!!! They even carry bee supplies in the spring!!!