Bill Davis / Mr. Fix-it

Bill D[redacted]/Mr. Fix It LLC was contacted by [redacted] at the request of his landlord since we do all the repairs on her properties. Mr. [redacted] requested we install an L5 socket to power a battery back up. I asked Matt Sullivan to take care of modifying the circuit for Mr. [redacted] July...

28th. Having assessed the needs Matt purchased the supplies needed to install a 30 amp single pole breaker. Matt made the modifications and plugged Mr. [redacted]'s new device into it with no apparent trouble. Mr. [redacted] reported to Matt the device appeared to be powering up when Matt left.  Mr. [redacted] called me later and said a wire sparked inside the handy box and tripped the breaker. I asked Matt to go back and evaluate what happened and Matt reported there was an ark inside the handy box which caused the breaker to trip. Matt made the corrections and activated the circuit by resetting the breaker.  Matt reported when he arrived the second time to make the repairs, Mr. [redacted] had the breaker off, the new plug removed from the handy box (steel wall mounted box for the receptacle) and the battery back up disassembled.  After further evaluations by Matt and Mr. [redacted] it appeared the battery backup unit had not been properly grounded internally or miss manufactured. Matt reported that he reattached the battery back up to the outlet and there was power to the unit. Matt also reported the AC unit to the house was running and to his knowledge all 240 V devices were working properly. I received a call from Mr. [redacted] around 9:30 that evening explaining his AC wasn't working. I drove to Mr. [redacted]'s house that evening and verified one of the legs was dead in his panel and explain to him this had happened once before in the end unit (four family building) and the electric company came out and repaired it. This appeared to be the same scenario. The electric company came out that evening and reported that there was power to both legs from the electric meter. The next morning I dispatched Preston to evaluate the situation at the meter and discovered one of the blade fuses that protects each leg going to the panel had failed. At this point Mr. [redacted] told me he would pay for the repair so I assigned Preston to find a new blade fuse. Preston spent 2.75 hours with Mr. [redacted] driving to various electric supply houses and making phone calls on the way to locate a fuse to no avail. I did the same for the next two hours from my office hoping to find something online I could overnight but was unsuccessful. We ordered the blade fuse from Graingers Friday afternoon and they had it delivered Monday. Since we were unsuccessful in finding a fuse Friday afternoon, Mr. [redacted] asked us to direct wire the circuit without the blade fuse and I explained to him we could not since it's a safety hazard that could cause a fire.  Mr.  [redacted] took it upon himself to hotwire the system in spite of the warning. The following Monday afternoon I installed the blade fuse at which time Mr. [redacted] refused to pay for the repairs stating “ this was our fault”. He told me we caused the problem even though Matt will testify that all his devices were working when he left the second time. I was somewhat shocked he refused to pay the bill since we spent all that time Friday trying to find a fuse. I was clearly irritated by his attitude and his refusal to pay me since he assured me he would on Friday.  I explained the situation to his landlord and she agreed to pay me half the bill even though she felt she had nothing to do with the problem. I also told her he had hotwired the circuit in spite of my warning. She was clearly not happy. When Mr. [redacted] was asked about his hotwiring the circuit, it's my understanding he was extremely agitated and upset.  Mr. [redacted] then reimbursed his landlord for what she had paid me.  Following these events Mr. [redacted] filed his complaint with the Revdex.com. When I explained to his landlord he had filed a complaint she was very upset since she and I have had an ongoing working relationship for many years and she was the one who referred him to me.  After further consideration and consultation with the Revdex.com and the landlord and what appeared to be vindictiveness,  I decided it would be in the company's best interest to remove all of our devices from Mr. [redacted]’s apartment and return his money.  Mr. [redacted] was instructed by his landlord that we would continue to be her maintenance company of choice and that we would be back in his unit to make other repairs. It should also be noted the landlord had us install a lock on the meter panel to prevent further unauthorized tampering by the tenants.