Repair
- 31 Aug 07, 8:27 AM
Why is it this hard? I mean, I understand it is relatively hard to do. I certainly can't do it. So, I have total respect for the people who do it. I just want to be able to get access to the people who do it.
In the SF Bay Area, it has become increasingly harder to get a simple chair repair. Like many out here, I prefer a small funky place in the East Bay -- weirdly, not in Berkeley. This used to be a drop-in kinda place; you'd go, they'd put air in your tyres, tighten things up here and there, and, in the worst case, they'd bring out the soldering iron, some lateral thinking, and some wacky creativity. You could hang out and listen to their bad music for hours. They'd order parts if they needed them, but they very often had something on hand that would do. Repairs were cheap-ish, and most problems were pretty easily solved with a dose of inspiration and willingness. Sometimes, the can-do approach had its disadvantages. On one occasion, it took me a while to figure out that they'd put my camber tube on upside down (the wheels weren't rolling easily ...).
Anyway, favourite place has recently been bought by a large medical conglomerate. This profit-making undertaking has decided that the old ways were inefficient. And, yes, they truly were. BUT the cost of that has been high: no more drop-in appointments AND the biggest: they won't work on any chairs that weren't purchased there. This is a nightmare. Lots of people move to the Bay Area -- I am one of them. What are we supposed to do? They are also not working on older chair models; the parts aren't made any more, so it is expensive to have a technician concoct a handy-dandy individualized solution. One of West Coast's dancers users an old E and J with drive belts. That thing moves faster than many of the newer chairs and it just rockets around the stage. But it is over 30 years old... What are we supposed to do? The community (which was up in arms) offered to do a fundraiser in support of favourite place, but the old owners were too deeply in debt, and the new didn't care.
Which brings me to my current issue. In the past month, I have needed a replacement cushion (easy -- got it on the web), 4 screws (web), and a new camber tube. My old tube somehow got so badly worn that the wheels slipped every time I pushed with force or pushed up. It wasn't so bad, but it was kind of eerie. So, when our new dancer said to try some aggressive camber (I only have 2 degrees), I jumped at the chance. Neat. Now, I need a whole new sling seat replacement; the shaft that holds the sling got bent, because the screws had worked loose -- I lost two more and stripped some in an attempt to repair it myself. So, a new shaft, screws, washers, and bottom upholstery. ... What to do?
Favourite place's treachery wouldn't be so bad except that this has also become the policy of the only other competent repair place in Berkeley -- they didn't want to be overwhelmed with people wanting nontrivial tasks. I was willing to drive 45 miles to favourite place because my local place has the reputation of being filled with crooks. No, there's nothing in between. My local bike shops will fix a flat or squirt some oil, but they don't want to be sued for working on my chair. I think they could get sued for screwing up someone's bike, but appreciate that they are trained for bikes and not for wheelchairs.
So, I am stuck. I suck at repair. The only engineers I know are software engineers (and they wouldn't dream of dealing with a hardware issue -- nor would I want them to). My health insurance has basically given up on paying for repair -- dance seems to trash chairs faster than the insurance thinks regular wheeling would. True enough. True enough. Insurance companies like the idea of wheelchair sports, but dance ... well, that's just silly.
Time to build a relationship with the crooks. Not sure what direction they are supposed to be crooked in, though. Perhaps they are Robin Hoods. But I don't know. No one defrauds Medicare in order to help the end-user, do they?
OOOOO. One silly difference between chairs and prosthetics. My health insurance treats a wheelchair as a piece of durable medical equipment. I need a prescription for it and for any upgrade, alteration in the equipment but if it goes wrong, I can get it repaired without a prescription. By contrast, one of our prosthetic-using dancers needs a prescription to get her prosthetics repaired. Even though, prosthetics are durable medical equipment, it seems that the maintenance of her legs is handled as if it were simply a case of maintenance of flesh legs. Cool, but probably an accounting quirk rather than an intended principle.
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Comments
It seems an axiom in wheelchair repair that the more precisely you know what you want, the less likely you are to get it. The problem I find is that the "techs" which go with chain medical stores are trained in electric, since and electric chair is three times the price, and I assume three times the profit. There is a gear crazy obsessive bike shop near me which works on everything from unicycles, recumbants, hand-cycles and things you build yourself. I am thinking of getting my alterations done there - maybe this would be an option (there must be some pretty obsessive independant cycles stores in the Bay?)