Still Shopping Canadian

I shook my head as I walked out of the store. I shouldn't have gone in at all.

Kid 1 didn't tell me that her toilet was broken. Unbeknownst to me, she's been lifting the lid of the tank, reaching into the frigid water, and manually pulling up the flapper to flush the toilet.

I don't know how long she's been doing this but it was DW who told me that the toilet was broken. I avoid our kid's bathroom because, like her bedroom, it's always a mess. Items all over the counter; clothes piled up on the floor. I only ever go in every other week, when I empty her garbage pail as part of taking out the trash.

But the other day, DW mentioned that our kid's toilet wasn't working properly. When I went in to investigate, I discovered that the rubber ring that holds the chain to the flapper was broken. It was an easy enough fix: replace the flapper.

For years, we've shopped for home-repair and improvement items at our local Home Depot. There's a Canadian Tire store that is a bit closer to home but went in years after Home Depot, and we were used to shopping at this chain store. Also, I find the Canadian Tire to be cluttered, so I preferred the other store.

It was my first time in the Home Depot since DW and I made the decision to stop buying American products, to not give our business to American companies. But when I was out on this mission, it didn't even occur to me that the Home Depot is an American chain.

Not right away, anyway.

In the plumbing section, I came up to the display of toilet-repair items just as a young sales associate was finishing with another customer. "Can I help you find anything?" he asked.

I was already standing in front of the flappers, looking at all the different sizes and brands. "I'm looking for a flapper but didn't realize there were so many different types." I've replaced flappers on toilets before and never gave it any thought: I just saw the one size and that was it. "It's for an American Standard toilet."

"Two-inch or four-inch?"

"Good question," I replied, thinking about the ones I had bought before. "I'm thinking a two-inch flapper."

"How old is the toilet?"

"More than 25 years old."

"Definitely, the two-inch," he said, pulling one off the rack and handing it to me.

I couldn't help but see the American flag on the label and Proudly made in America printed underneath the image. "Um, do you have any that aren't made in the U.S.?"

"Yeah, but they're made in China." The young lad was clearly of East-Asian ancestry and I also noticed another Asian man standing not too far away, within earshot.

"These days, I'll take Chinese-made goods over American-made ones," I said.

"I don't think these items are affected by tariffs."

"That's not the point."

"Do you mind me asking why you don't want the American-made flapper?"

I was a bit surprised that the young guy would ask that question. Did he not follow the news? I mean, he did know about the trade war and the Orange Felonious Turd's tariffs. "I'm not buying anything that's American-made. It's as simple as that. As Canadians, we should all avoid American products. I have American friends, living in the U.S., who are avoiding American products."

"The American flapper is better made. I'd trust any silicone coming out of North America than those coming out of China." He seemed offended, as if he had made the product, himself.

"Pardon me for saying so," I said, "but the Americans are fucking around with us. They need to find out what consequences are. For eight bucks, I'll take my chances with the Chinese flapper." I handed him back the flapper that he had given me and pulled the other one off the rack.

"Suit yourself," he said. I couldn't get over how little he seemed to care about our relationship with the United States. As someone in sales, I get that he wanted me to buy the more-expensive item (it was four dollars more) but he didn't seem to understand my decision to avoid American products.

It wasn't until I walked out of the store and reached my car that it hit me that I had just purchased something from an American-owned store. I almost turned around but I really needed the flapper and wasn't sure I'd fine what I needed elsewhere.

From the Home Depot, I drove to the nearby Canadian Tire store. Even if they have the same products, I told myself, I'd buy the Chinese flapper and then go back to Home Depot, where I'd return the original one.

At least I'd be giving my business to a Canadian company.

There was only one two-inch flapper at the Canadian Tire store, and it was from a Canadian company. I could hear the young sales associates voice in my head: "I'd trust any silicone coming out of North America than those coming out of China."

"I agree, my friend," I said as I made my way to the cash registers.

The return at Home Depot was quick, with no questions asked. It would be my last time visiting this store. I would get into the habit of shopping at Canadian Tire, even though it can often get a bit cluttered.

At least I was still shopping Canadian.

Tough Canadians?

March seems to be a bad time for our furnaces.

Image: Google

In that month, back in 2010, on a frigid night where the outside temperature was -20°C, not including the windchill factor, we were awakened by the piercing chirp of our carbon monoxide alarm. Apparently, our 10-year-old furnace had developed a crack in the heat-exchange unit and was leaking gas.

I shut off the gas, vented the house for about an hour, and in the morning I called a service to inspect and assess the damage of our non-functional furnace. I learned that the furnace, which had been installed when the house was built, only had a 10-year warranty, which had expired about three months ago. The cost of repair on an aging furnace was not worth it, so we replaced the whole furnace.

Our new furnace came with another 10-year warranty, except for the heat-exchange unit, which had a lifetime warranty. In about 40 hours after we were rudely awakened by our CO monitor, we had a new furnace and were toasty as can be. The night before the replacement furnace arrived, DW, the kids, and I huddled together in our family room, warmed by our gas fireplace.

There was no alarm this time. We simply started feeling colder.

I know that the furnace was working on Monday morning because I remember hearing it when I was in the basement, taking care of our cats' litter boxes. For about a week, the furnace had begun sounding louder. When I investigated the noise, it seemed like it was just one of the vents that flowed out, directly above the unit, vibrating. In fact, holding the vent with my hands would cause the vibration to stop. But still, as I was cleaning the litter boxes, I told myself that we should get the furnace serviced, to make sure that it was fine.

It wasn't fine. Apparently, some time later, it stopped working.

We ordered a service call, and when the technician opened the furnace, he discovered that condensation, from the exhaust pipe, was leaking into the unit. It had fried the circuit board and had begun rusting other wires and components. It was going to cost $1300 just to replace the circuit board, and that wasn't going to solve the root problem as to what was causing the leak or why that issue was causing the vibrations.

We were probably looking at another couple of grand to fix everything, the technician estimated. He added that the average lifespan of our type of furnace was 15 years, so investing that much to repair a unit that might only have a couple more years left in it might not make sense.

I had to agree.

The next day, a salesperson came out to give us options for a new furnace. He showed us his least-expensive unit, that would do the job but wasn't as good as what we already had. He showed us his top-of-the-line model, which was WiFi-enabled and had so many features that my head was spinning.

And then he did what I knew he was going to do and should have just led with: a furnace that was comparable to what we had but included a new thermostat and was insulated, which would make the unit even quieter than our old unit had been before it started rattling. This unit had a 10-year warrantee for parts and labour, a lifetime warranty on the heat exchanger, and if the heat exchanger were to somehow go in the first seven years, they would replace the entire furnace.

We liked that deal but we wanted to shop around. Though I liked the salesperson and we had dealt with this company when we replaced our hot water tank with a tankless heating system, and even though the salesperson offered me an $800 loyalty discount, I wanted to see what else was out there.

The next person who came to our house, 48 hours into being without a furnace, inspected our unit and confirmed that it would be more expensive to repair than would make sense, for its age. He was also a sales rep, and had quite a few makes and models to show us.

The unit that best-matched the furnace that we already had and was comparable to the furnace that we had been shown by the other sales rep was about $500 less than our first quote. While this model didn't come with a new thermostat nor was it insulated, those weren't deal-breakers. Five-hundred bucks is five-hundred bucks.

My first loyalty, however, was to the company that we had dealt with, before. A couple of years ago, when we had them come for a maintenance call on out hot-water heater, they found an issue that was no longer covered under the manufacturer's warranty. But because our model of heater had a recall on a part (which was not giving us any issue), the service guy got the manufacturer to replace our unit, and we received an even better system, free of charge (except for the service call).

They won my loyalty that day.

The $500 price gap would actually be only a $300 difference because we had already paid $200 to the first folks for the original visit, on Monday. In the original price negotiation, that $200 was also going to be incorporated in the price of the furnace replacement, on top of the $800 loyalty discount.

I called the first salesguy and told him that if he could find his way to bring the price down by another $300, he would have the sale. He said that he'd have to check with his manager but that the ask wasn't unreasonable: however, we probably wouldn't be able to get the furnace until Friday.

Five minutes later, he called back, said that he would match the competitor's price, and that he was able to secure installers for the next day (Thursday).

Loyalty cemented.

By the time that the installers arrived, DW and I had had no working furnace in more than 72 hours. But we're tough Canadians. We dressed in layers. We shared time with the one space heater that we have, so that we could warm up our respective home offices during the day. Outside of work, we hung out in the same rooms so that we could benefit from the heater, and the cats also snuggled up to us for mutual added warmth.

We were fine.

As the installers checked on our existing, usable ducts, they detected a fault that was the root of the leak, and it dated all the way back to the construction of our house. The exhaust pipe, which led outside, was sloped the wrong way. Instead of condensation heading out of the home, it would run back, ever so slightly, to the furnace. Surprisingly, the team that installed our second furnace didn't catch the problem.

This technician said he's been doing this job for more than 26 years and he occasionally comes across this problem. He said it would be easy to fix and set out to work—all part of the installation so no additional cost!

A few hours later, the work was done. Both technicians did a great job, and DW and I don't have to tough out the cold (the house dropped to 10°C at night and warmed up to 12°C in rooms that didn't have the benefit of our space heater).

The cats seem happy, too (both technicians loved cats and weren't bothered by our curious creatures).

Yes, we're tough Canadians. To a point. I don't know if we would have been in good spirits if we would have had to wait until Friday for the new furnace, and would have been miserable by today, which was a potential estimate for replacement by the competing salesperson.

But for 72 hours, we're tough.

Goodbye, iPhone

Last weekend, I got a new smartphone.

I hadn't meant to swap up my phone so soon, had meant to replace it in June. I also hadn't made up my mind about what phone I wanted. Did I want to upgrade to the latest iPhone? Did I want to move over to Android? How about those Windows Phones?

I'm never tied to a brand. I am loyal to no corporation. I own a Windows PC and an iPad. My laptop is made by HP and I hook it up to an LG monitor. The TVs in my house are Insignia and Samsung. I shoot photos with my Nikon DSLR and my Canon compact cameras. My cars have been Pontiac, Chevy, Toyota, Datsun, Honda, and Ford.

I have coffee apps for Starbucks and Bridgehead.

The only issue I had with moving away from Apple for my smartphone was that I would lose some of the apps upon which I have come to rely. My favourite app for cycling, Cyclemeter, is available for Apple products only. Same goes for Tweetbot, which is what I use for mobile tweeting. HootSuite, which I also use (though, I really use it on my laptop), is only available for iPhone and Android.

In breaking with Apple, I thought it might be best to go with a Windows Phone because I feel it will be easier to integrate with my home computer. And while I'm not crazy about the tiles for Windows 8 on my laptop, I liked the ease of use on the smartphone.

The next major factor for choosing a new phone was the price. My provider was offering the Nokia Lumia 625, with Windows 8, for free, on a two-year contract (contracts don't bother me, especially since I was going to unlock my old iPhone). For an iPhone 5s, under the same contract, it would cost more than $400.

I went for the Windows Phone.

That is to say, I'm testing it. I understand that this is a pretty basic smartphone, but my needs are simple. I want to be less reliant on my device. I found that I couldn't walk away from my iPhone, that I was on it all the time. I was addicted. So far, with my new device, I've been on it only when I've been customizing it and restoring some of the apps that are still available (I almost freaked out when I learned that the Starbucks app is not supported, but settled down when I found the Bridgehead app).

I have 15 days to decide if I like it. And so far, there are things I like, other things I don't like. I like the ease of navigation. I'm not planning to load up the device with tons of apps; just the "essentials" (my social-media apps, communication apps, note-keeping tools, and photo-related apps). No games. I love how I can scroll to the tiles that I've set up and quickly access the apps I need.

I like the size of the screen. With my failing vision and my constant forgetting of my glasses, this screen is much easier to read than my iPhone.

I like how I don't have to deal with the controlling and un-intuitive iTunes for setting up my music. I'm still dealing with a learning curve with the Windows Phone app, which lets me quickly drag and drop the tunes I want, but I'm getting the hang of it and it's much faster.

I like the integration of many of my social-media tools, such that I can check Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail in one place. Awesome.

I like how the phone knows when I'm getting in my car or van, and the Bluetooth automatically syncs and shuts off all apps, except for the phone and text messages. And it will read my texts to me through the hands-free speakers. My old iPhone 4 didn't do that.

But I do have a make-or-break issue with the phone: the other day, when I plugged my Windows Phone into the USB port in my car, I expected it to sync and respond to the voice-command system of the car (my car's console runs on Microsoft, after all). But the car failed to detect the device through the USB connection (it did connect with the phone, through Bluetooth). When I wanted to listen to my music, it only played through Bluetooth, only played one song, and the sound quality was poor.

I love my music. When I'm not listening to CBC Radio while driving, I'm cranking my tunes. This is a deal-breaker.

I have reconfigured my music on the phone and will try it again. But I'm now doubtful.

Also, I listen to my music through my device when I'm at work. On my iPhone, I would use my noise-cancelling headphones. But, because of how the headphone jack is angled, I have to remove the phone from the protective case to get the jack all the way in. And some of the jack is exposed. 

I don't like that.

I don't know if I will keep the device. If I don't, I can try an Android phone. I'm eyeing the Samsung S4.

Thoughts?


Update: in the time since I wrote and sent this post to publish, I have replaced the Windows Phone with an Android. I'm now test driving a Samsung Galaxy S4. I would still love to hear your thoughts on your smartphone pick.