The plumber's gone again

I am not crazy about this guy, for two reasons. One, when he doesn't know how to do something he keeps experimenting, at the expense of at least my time. Two, when he cannot show up, he doesn't call, he just doesn't show up. For two weeks. Even after I call him to make another appointment, he also ignores that one. Then he gives me a one day notice that he will show up between noon and 1 p.m. on the following day, and shows up one to two hours late.

That has been our story this month.

When he finally showed up today, I was already mad because he was late, so I didn't talk to him much. He didn't like that because he likes company. I also did not help him drain water from the system so he had to run upstairs from the basement with buckets of water and back all by himself. He took four hours to complete the job that he's left to complete over a month ago.

He insisted on installing an additional pipe at the entry to the safety tank to prevent the effect of draining most of the system when the tank overflows. It didn't help. So he called some engineer acquaintance of his, only to learn that overflowing was caused by the general very large diameter of pipes leading to radiators, and no matter how much additional piping he installed around the safety tank, the system would drain through it if too much water was added too fast. Which was what I told him to begin with but he wouldn't listen. (See after he was gone last time I did my own experiment and added water to the system slowly, cup by cup, and it only overflowed by a controlled couple of drops instead of draining itself through the tank.) So now I have a safety tank with a redundant pipe on the system which functions exactly as it did, i.e. has to be filled slowly. (In the pic, the silver pipe below the tank is not required - the white pipe should be connected directly to the tank, preferably - to keep it looking neat - to its bottom right side.)

Luckily, he has restored the safety tank to its correct placement within the system, i.e. right next to the boiler and attached to the pipe through which hot water enters the system.

I decided to ignore the redundant pipe on the tank for today because I still wasn't feeling well and I wanted him to leave. It's not very big and I'll have to build a drywall cover around the tank anyway. If I can't live with it, I'll call him in a couple of days to come back and straighten it up.

To end on a positive note, he also changed two malfunctioning release valves on the radiators in my apartment so now all they are all air-free and fully operative. Nothing more is waiting to be fixed - I am fully prepared for the winter.