This week Portland has been celebrating the Rose Festival. If you are out of the area, or somehow haven't heard of our Rose Festival, it is Portland's annual welcome to summer event. Since we are known as the City of Roses, it is kind of a big deal. All kinds of events are held all over the city, a carnival is held, and we host fleet week where several Navy and Coast Guard ships anchor to the sea wall in downtown Portland. Several parades mark the occasion with a culmination this Saturday with the Grand Floral Parade. It is the largest open air spectator event in the state, and is one of the two largest all floral parades held in the United States, the other being the Tournament of Roses on New Years Day in Pasadena California. Here are some images from prior Rose Festivals.
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| The Budweiser Clydedales pull a 2008 parade float entry (Wikimedia Commons) |
The Rose Festival is a lot of fun. But I am not telling you about the Rose Festival to make you jealous of the good times we are having here in the Rose City. The reason I am telling you about the Rose Festival is because the event marks the beginning of summer in our fair city. Being a parts guy, that brings to my mind summer in the appliance repair trade. When summer arrives a few things happen that impact our industry.
The first and most obvious thing is heat. Summer brings in warmer weather and most areas in the Western US will see heatwaves with high temps over 100 degrees. This causes machines to work harder, especially refrigerators. Earlier this week, we emailed our account holders with some suggested refrigeration items to have in stock for when the hot weather hits. A lot of repair companies try to keep a bare bones inventory and fill in the gaps when needed. We understand that. What we have observed is that when it gets hot, many consumers become less patient. If they have to wait for you to order parts in, you may find some consumers will book a differing service company that can complete the repair on the same day. We don't want that to happen to you, which is why we recommend stocking up BEFORE the heat waves hit you.We hope that suggested stock list may help with your preparations.
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| Beat the heat-Be ready BEFORE it gets hot. (Flickr/CC) |
The summer time also brings a few other circumstances that could find you busier than usual. When the kids are out of school they are more likely to be playing around the house and its not unusual to hear of minor acts of appliance destruction occurring. Trim pieces like door bars, end caps and handles all surge a little in demand. We know that there are a lot of possible options when it comes to cosmetic pieces, so we stock up too. We don't want you to have to wait any more than necessary for those kinds of items.
On the subject of kids being out of school, we would like to remind all of you to be extra careful when driving through neighborhoods on your way to service calls.Those ball chasers and bike riders sometimes forget to look before running out into their neighborhood streets. Keep a close watch and stay safe out there.
We hope you all have a great summer. What are you doing to get ready? Are you stocking up on parts? Or maybe you are putting the finishing touches on some vacation plans. How do you celebrate summer in your appliance repair company? Let us know in the comments section, we would love to hear from you.
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