Bringing things up to..

Let us say that a forty year old person gets sick and goes to the hospital. The doctors admit the person in the hospital and they bring him/her out of sickness to a recovery point after working very hard on the patient.

Then the patient's relatives tell the doctor "it is not enough if you bring him/her to this level or even to the same level of health before the person was sick. The new requirement for a healthy forty year old has now been set. So please keep him/her in the hospital till the person is able to run a marathon, have 20/20 vision and also meets these new list of requirements" and they hand the doctor a list.. 

Would that make sense?

Let us now take another simpler case. Your car tail lights stop working. You find out that it is a fused bulb after taking it to the local auto repair shop. You ask that person to replace the bulb and hand you back the car. The repairman goes "whoa whoa whoa.. stop it right there! you cannot just replace that bulb with a another filament bulb. The energy standards have changed now in the last ten years. you have to put in an LED lamp that meets the lastest energy rating.  Also, the bulb housing in the car is only for a filament lamp. You have to gut part of the insides of the car just to make this lamp change, as that is the only way to meet the current standard"

Would that make sense? 

Maybe it does to some people. It does not to me!

Yesterday I made grand plans to come home a little early and write something for work, go to yoga, take a nice shower (since the previous night the shower had turned cold midway) only to find out that our water heater had started leaking and it was pretty much broken. We had to replace it in short notice. 

Just going into that area to shut off the inlet water and drain the tank, cost me a nights sleep thanks to all that dust that had accumulated in that closet over the last 8 years! 

Here was how the typical conversation went with the plumbers :

Can you replace the heater?

P: yes we can within 24 hours. but they dont sell the 40 gallons any more. they sell 38 or 48 gallons. 

What is the difference ?

P: not much. you get the same pressure etc. some government requirement to save the 2 gallons somewhere!

How much is the heater and install ?

P: (quotes us a number that is way more than what the cost of heater at home depot is + a normal labor rate for install, given it is a 3 hour job)

Why so much?

P: you see these connecting hoses, braces, etc. etc. We have to bring all these upto code. Looks like this was done 8 years ago. The codes are different now. Let me show you this book. you have to cut this piping, weld this tubing, go underground, above ground, blah blah blah.. and that is why it is an extra grand

But it was working fine till yesterday and it was installed 10 years ago by the previous house owner. We had to change the connects when we upgraded the house. All I want is to get the same thing back. 

P: Sorry Sir. We have to bring this up to code! It is the law. we are licensed and this is how we will do it so it will pass the permitting.

Given the "Law", we had no choice but to go with the cheapest quote that still did the new tubing, piping stuff. That pretty much took out the saturday morning routine. 

On the bright side, we now have hot water again.

On the dark side, I went into a rage on hearing about this "bringing up to code.." stuff. At this rate we have to tear down the whole house again every 10 years in the name of "bringing it up"