Laid some pipe

[Wollfen]

So the next door neighbor decides to do some home improvements and it turns out his sewage pipe runs off of mine. Okay, so the county has to lay a new separate pipe from the road to the new toilet in his house. Simple right? Well I thought so.
I had a plumber come out and do a repair and while he was at it, i asked him how much he would charge to lay that 100 yards of new pipe in place as well as plumb the new toilet and pay the county fees. Oh he says, about $4000 and maybe two days work.
This is where it gets interesting, 'cos I'm looking at the open ditch running to the neighbors house and it's been there a week. The council inspector comes in, checks it out and I get to talking to him. The county is handling all the work with its own in house employees to do the job. Turns out that so far up to this point the county has spent $29,000 having dug an open hole. (It took them less than two hours) Long story short, it took them over three weeks to do the job and final price was wait for it, $52,000 bucks!!

 

[LocuMob]

And people wonder why government spending is so out of control. Sad part is it's on all levels, right down to the city/township people who need to feel important.

 

[70NPORT]

Are the city employees union?

 

[Wollfen]

I doubt its about unionism, from what the inspector told me, even before they started digging the hole the cost of drawing up a plan and organising a time frame etc was $22,000. The 4 employees I saw on the job would only have been paid weekly wages. The point is, this is the internal budget of the county, the neighbor and I were not charged anything. So thats the cost they charged themselves and used out of their budget?
My nephew worked on a contract for the state government back in Australia years ago and at the end of the contract there was money left over so the team all bought themselves new laptops and other stuff to use up the last of the money. I was told, you have to spend the money otherwise the next contract would have less money in it to spend, so they are motivated to spend more than they need to. Is it any wonder budgets always blow out? There is no incentive to save dollars.

 

[1978 NYB]

Incentive???

Sublet Pedro and his 14 cousins from Stan.......$52 tops for labor!

 

[67Monaco]

That's intesting because I just went through the same thing. We had 6 different contractors come through to hook us up to sewer. Prices ranged from outlandish ($20K) to "are you sure you can do it for that?" ($4800). The expensive guys said they'd need minimum two days. A guy in the middle said three. We went on the recommendation of the city and used the cheapest guy. It appears they do alot with the city and the inspectors signed off by stopping the truck walking to the hole, loooking down, walking back to the truck and leaving, literally 20 seconds tops.

Our guys showed up and started to cut into the street at 0800, the plumbers arrived about 0830. Instead of going to the chimney's on the sewer (either side of the property lines) and using an extra 40ft of pipe and bunches more asphalt they went straight out, dug down 10ft and went in to the sewer main. By 1430 my 3 year old was able to flush the toilet. By 1600, the work outside was done, black top patched, both sidewalks repaired, topsoil laid and seeded. 1620 the plumbers were cleaning up and taking tools and materials out, they replumbed the entire basement. Everything is high and tight to the joists, and flush against the foundation. I actually gained usable square footage when they were done. In the end total came in $200 over estimate because we asked that the pumper give some extra time to the dry tank before they crushed it.

 

[Wollfen]

I forgot to add, after the contract was filled in the office, (it was a two year contract) all the furniture in the rented office space was removed, chairs tables filing cabinets and other paraphernalia all went to the recycling center to be crushed and disposed of. I asked what the hell? Answer was it couldn't impact future purchase budgets of new contracts. Say wha? Tax dollars at work!!

 

[Pete Kaczmarski]

In my part of Wisconsin, any sewer/water line outside of the right of way is the home owners responsibility. Any costs to maintain those two lines are your responsibility. There may be building codes that must be maintained no matter who does the job and possibly inspected. Most rural homes have their own well and sewer. They are not connected to City services.

 

[65 500]

The city here replaced the gas mains in my neighborhood, they started over a year and a half ago, and are still jacking around with it. :tard:

 

[commando1]

The Mother of all Boonswaggles.

Never have so many endured so much for so long.
It bought a zillion people new houses, cars, and toys. Obscene unless you believe in the trickle down theory.