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Discuss Your biggest plumbing Blunders. in the Plumbing Jobs | The Job-board area at PlumbersForums.net

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Dan Masey

Gas Engineer
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During my first year as an apprentice i had to change a kitchen sink unit. In an early morning daze i turned off the stop tap under the sink, opened the cold taps and drained down the system ready to smash the rotten unit out. I then undone the bottom nut on the stop tap (25mm blue poly) and pulled off the stop tap. BOOM! 6 bar of freezing cold mains water pumping out and flooding the kitchen. The external stop tap was in the back garden somewhere under 3ft of overgrown grass. By the time i found it 5 mins had passed and water was now everywhere. oops. Guess we learn by our mistakes. Just wasn't thinking strait.

Got me thinking what other's have done? And be honest......
 
woops!! Me and my brother went to clear a blocked toilet. Lifted the manhole outside, but it must have been a rain water drain. It had about 5ft ten deep water in. It was a folding manhole lid. We was in a rush and wasn't useing keys, when we went to put it in place, we fumbled and dropped the lid down the drain. Woops. I know a guy in highways, so i called him, he said he would get it out for us, so we made safe and went down the pub. as we're laughing about it down the pub i get a call from my mate saying it's a private rd, he can't help us. So two pints later, i felt brave and went down the drain and scooped it out. But it was about 7pm, mid december. Coldest i've ever been, and i can tell you now, i'll never rush lifting manhole covers again!
 
During my ACS exam I couldn't get a boiler to fire up, the examiner was pulling funny faces in the direction of the boiler and eventually told me if I didn't figure it out in the next 2 minutes I'd have to leave.

Know what it was? I hadn't turned it on at the fused spur.

DOH!
 
Changing an economy 7 cylinder, ripped out fitted new started to fill up until I hear water running...... Quickly isolate to find I hadn't put a blank in the 1inch tapping at the back. Oh no!drained pull cylinder out cap tapping and refill. Tried to clean up everything before custard came home but she noticed £50 off the bill! Woops
 
When I was a apprentice I was hanging rads upstairs in a house, I had a few floor boards up round a rad I was hanging ready to pipe up. I had placed abit of cardboard over one hole as I didn't want to lose any tools down the void below. Guy I was working with came in to see how I was getting on, stood on the cardboard and put his foot straight through the ceiling with the customer below watching the telly. Was so funny took me 5mins to sort myself out before pulling him out, poor bloke crushed his you know whats and everything. Was so funny, luckily he saw the funny side in the end. Know not to do that again hahahah.
 
Not me but knew a young lad on a housing association job, he was in a rush and decided to snatch a rad valve !!. Was on a primatic cylinder that had lost its bubble. I got a panicked phone call popped round and there he was finger over the pipe wet in a puddle on the carpet with a big spray of black water up the wall and even on the ceiling. he was nicknamed aquavac though.
 
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I was notching joists upstairs in a house with my college mate (our first independant CH install) and he told me to step aside because - in his words; "You're cack-handed you, move!" He took over with the hammer and chisel stepping backwards on the joists and fell through the ceiling. Lionel Ricie's 'Dancin' On The Ceiling' was playing at the time but he failed to see the funny side.

What was funny though was when we went the local builders merchant to get a sheet of plasterboard to fix the hole in the dining rom ceiling - we couldn't get it in my Rover Metro.

Rover_Metro.jpg
 
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when i first started i was in a office block that had toilets backing up a bit on the first floor. the boss told me to find a rodding eye on the stack. so i tootled off and found one on the ground floor in a disabled toilet. without tapping the stack to see if it was hollow sounding or telling the boss i whipped it off proud id found one...Got covered so did the wall behind me and floor. Still makes me feel a bit sick.
 
Tapping an internal filling loop on a boiler cos it wasnt letting any water through, didnt notice the retaining clip moved out evertime i hit it. boom wet through boiler and me.......not putting anymore on cos i'll look ruff.
 
And do you know what the worse part was keefy? it was my own kitchen that flooded lol.
That's unfortunate and funny but what does it have to do with me?
 
i piped a combi cold mains to hot,hot water out let to cold incoming,it took a while,but got there in the end.well there was pipes every where.
 
Changing an economy 7 cylinder, ripped out fitted new started to fill up until I hear water running...... Quickly isolate to find I hadn't put a blank in the 1inch tapping at the back. Oh no!drained pull cylinder out cap tapping and refill. Tried to clean up everything before custard came home but she noticed £50 off the bill! Woops


I done the same ,, but did not knock no money off ., as no one home
 
Lol ha some great ones. I know someone that somehow piped a cold water main into a gas main and pumped water into the gas meter. Woops.
 
Only hand tightened a compression join on a heating system, meaning to go back and tighten at a later date only to forget. Started to fill the heating system on a combi when I could hear the sound of running water!

Luckily the customer wasn't in and I was able to clear up all the mess before they got home!

Also cut into a central heating pipe, system wasn't fully drained and sent a load of water into a customers ceiling. Luckily it was clear water and dried out with no marks!
 
a mentor pushed me out of way so he could do the flow which he tee'd into the gas pipe i found it funnier than him. I removed a rad valve to drain a sealed system on another job without thinking couldnt get bloody thing back on.
 
One of my worst very early on was meant to cut into cold mains pipe to repair, cut live gas by accident. Sheet my pants was one of my first ever jobs on me own
 
Went to tighten up some loose bath taps, they didn't have top hat washers, so removed tap connectors and fitted the top hats but didn't reconnect the tap connectors before turning the water on.
 
I went to change a boiler asked the customer were do you turn the water mains off in the house. So he directed me to under the kitchen sink. I've cut all the other pipes only cold water pipe left as I sliced it water shot straight up at me. I had a electric meter and rcd unit to one side I was very worried about that.
 
Swapped cylinder once and it was a British gas spec one from the merchants the way it went in to the existing pipework meant the drain off built in went against the wall at the back. No big deal I fitted a accessible on as normal at the bottom of the inlet. Swapped it out filled up found out just as I was leaving the factory one wasn't fully closed started leaking. Load of hassle later for a quarter turn on a DC felt pretty stupid but glad I saw if at the time. Alway tend to check these things a few times over these days.
 
When I was a apprentice I was hanging rads upstairs in a house, I had a few floor boards up round a rad I was hanging ready to pipe up. I had placed abit of cardboard over one hole as I didn't want to lose any tools down the void below. Guy I was working with came in to see how I was getting on, stood on the cardboard and put his foot straight through the ceiling with the customer below watching the telly. Was so funny took me 5mins to sort myself out before pulling him out, poor bloke crushed his you know whats and everything. Was so funny, luckily he saw the funny side in the end. Know not to do that again hahahah.

I was quoting for some work for a guy we were both in his attic I turned round to talk to him and he had disappeared into the bath below I never even heard him as there were guys on the roof with power tools roaring so funny hahahaha laugh every time I think of it.
 
when i first started i was in a office block that had toilets backing up a bit on the first floor. the boss told me to find a rodding eye on the stack. so i tootled off and found one on the ground floor in a disabled toilet. without tapping the stack to see if it was hollow sounding or telling the boss i whipped it off proud id found one...Got covered so did the wall behind me and floor. Still makes me feel a bit sick.

That is a beauty love it
 
I told an apprentice to remove a rad in a house that had no carpets in while work was getting done. I said turn off the rad at the valves open the bleed to take the pressure off the close it whip the nuts off stick your fingers over the tails and whip it out the patio door and empty it. He comes through to where I am, bear in mind he'd seen this loads of times before, and says there's water coming out when he slackens the valves. Getting frustrated with the wee twit I said make sure the bleed valve is closed then undo the valve and finger over the tail. Next thing he's shouting his head off I went through he'd only undone the live side water everywhere god sake. Subconsciously I guess I though it would be good practise for him with there being no carpet.
 
snapped 1" uncontrolled gas main in the kitchen .
HA job labours taking kitchen out and I got to the job just after them first ting first I isolated the gas ( I always use cup to do ) and then start unwinding all the 1/2 " and 3/4" pipes and there it was this 1" and I start unwinding it and it just snapped low level where pipe was coming out of the concrete floor ........It turns out 50 years ago when they renew the gas pipes they never disconnected this 1" from the street .

Lesson learned NEVER EVER cut pipes or unwind them if there is a something that can be undone to make sure
 
Nothing to do with me, but an agency called me to check out a tenant's complaint about the smell of gas when they turned on the taps. I was too busy to attend and the agent said these tenants are usually mad and always complaining about something so he didn't take it seriously. Turns out someone piped the gas into the water pipes. Unbelievable.
 
I've used sinks a few times after removing the traps, luckily I've never been under them at the time.
The most embarrassing thing I've done though is reverse over my own toolbox after finishing a job, I looked well professional that day :)
 
Watching my dad bent over drilling through a wall, along came a customers dog. He asked what the warm water running all over him was. I still remind he that even dogs dislike him. :yes:
 
Problems happen when customers or the boss is watching you!
 
Many years ago I was called out to a blocked rainwater outlet at Debenhams in Hastings. There is a hidden gutter halfway down the facade of the building and this was overspilling in front of the main entrance.

I took the apprentice with me as it was a big ladder job to access the gutter. There were no traps at high level and the pipes were full. We tried rodding and plunging from the top but had no luck.

Next stage was to attack the blockage from the bottom. The pipes were hidden behind the facade and re appeared in the basement. There were rodding points in the basement and i know what you're thinking now but we tapped the pipe first and could tell that the pipe was empty. We took off the rodding point and started feeding rods up the pipe. In hindsight we should have had something around the rods but this didn't occur to us at the time.

The first warning we had was a rumbling in the pipe. We both had the same thought and ran for it. We were halfway to the door when the tsunami hit. Gallons of black foetid water sprayed from the rodding eye in a wide arc covering everything in a thick black slime, years worth of rotting vegetation had been stirred up by out attempts at rodding from above.

It was at this point that the maintenance manager for the building turned up and fell on the floor laughing. From the front, the two of us were perfectly clean but our backs were completely coated with the smelly black slime. Luckily the room we were in was a disused workshop and cleaned up with a good hose down. Some of the other basement rooms were used to house excess stock and we could have ruined thousands of pounds worth of clothing.

When the manager stopped laughing he was good enough to go out to the van and get our spare overalls in so that we could get clean and dry enough to walk back out through the store.
 
Early on in my plumbing life i fitted a bathroom for a friend. I failed to note that the pipework under the bath for the taps was in imperial 3/4". I fitted a pair of push fit flexies onto the 3/4" I had cut in readiness. The bath went in, then tiling, bog, handbasin, shower valve, all the stuff. When it was all done, everything fine; the shower was a manual mixer running off gravity (the bath cold was gravity off the header tank too) and it was a crap dribble as I told her it would be. After putting up with the crap shower for a few weeks she lobbied the landlord for a boiler change to a combi. you know where this is going?...... Big pressure increase to the bath taps and the shower valve tapped off the tap pipes. It lasted two days. While she was out the cold flexy blew off the 3/4" imperial copper(slightly smaller than 22mm). Result? One entirely flooded house. A small lake. Boating was possible. She took it all very well. Claimed on the insurance, got new everything upstairs and down, carpets, laminate, full re-paint. Delighted in the end. Even then, I didn't twig what had happened until a few days later when a plumbing mate pointed it all out. I have a 3/4"/22mm end feed adaptor in my toolbox now to prevent that happening again.
 
I was once on a shower replacement few years ago,shower didnt work at all,turned off stopcock then drained taps and proceeded to take off shower,it was on tight so i gave it a tap with a mallet and it came off with water hitting the ceiling and everything else,i managed to get the shower back on straight away but did get quite wet.When i investigated what was wrong i found a seperate stop tap buried in a cupboard that only supplied the shower.Been over caucious since
 
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When i lived in Bexhill got the job of cleaning the wastes and stacks of 6 blocks of flats. Cleared all internal wastes on 1st block o.k. Had apprentice at base of internal soil stack (taking kitchen waste) with rods and worm to keep stack clear while i went on roof with drain jetter. Merrilly working away when managing agent of block screams at me "What the f**k are you doing"?? I have to admit his face was purple, thought he was going to explode:bomb2: or have a heart attack.
Went down to his flat (3rd floor) to find his kitchen about an inch deep in stinking black sludge. Apologised profusely, stuck £20 in his hand and told him to go to the pub for LONG lunch(this was in 1989). Then went and slapped the apprentice 'cos he hadn't noticed water flow had stopped. Aquavac, mops and buckets all sorted about 3hours later..... NO i don't clean soil stacks anymore
 
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