Close calls by customers... whats the most dangerous thing(s) you have seen?

[harrygashull]

my favourite and most recent was a boiler service I went to, I was used to always meeting the client around the back of his house as he has a shed where he sits during the day. Anyways I'm inside and he comes in and asks if I know anything about free standing gas (propane) heaters...

His main complaint was that after 30 or so minutes of use in his shed, the heater turns off and won't re light...

I informed him that he's been trying to poison himself and that the heater was only doing its job...



other close calls from memory include :

Room sealed condensing worcester 28i with flue cap missing in kids bedroom...

Balanced flue classic with a 8-10 inch wall extractor directly above the flue...

 

[Rickster123]

I went to quote for a boiler change once. Guy was doing the house up and moving the kitchen from the front to the back. I noticed a green garden hose running through the house held up with cable ties. He'd run a gas supply to a cooker as a temporary fix! Both end joined with a jubilee clip!
I genuinely thought it was a wind up and there would be a hidden camera!

 

[IND_Nick]

Not gas or plumbing related but a mate had just moved house and wanted to check whether the electricity supply in the garage was OK. Essentially he had a plug in the house connected to a buried 2.5mm cable, not armoured. The cable came up into the garage and had a plug on the end of it which then went into one socket to power two more. The worse thing was he genuinely could not understand why a live plug was dangerous, all he kept coming back to was that it's fine as long as no one unplugs it!

 

[Deleted member 7121]

Gas cooker piped up with H2o on new kitchen install

 

[stevetheplumber]

gas fires connected with rubber tube used to be quite common if there was a gas poker there previous

 

[harrygashull]

Not gas or plumbing related but a mate had just moved house and wanted to check whether the electricity supply in the garage was OK. Essentially he had a plug in the house connected to a buried 2.5mm cable, not armoured. The cable came up into the garage and had a plug on the end of it which then went into one socket to power two more. The worse thing was he genuinely could not understand why a live plug was dangerous, all he kept coming back to was that it's fine as long as no one unplugs it!

Ah yes the 'widowmaker' as some people refer to them...

Some people do that to connect generators to their house lol

 

[AMGasServices]

I went to this boiler was in a bedroom don't think it had been serviced for years.

 

[AMGasServices]

Sorry didn't upload 1st time.

 

[Dotty]

Kids accommodation block in a park sized museum over here. Multiple ID's, AR's and a couple of NCS's. Riddored it. Think the guy from HSE was going to marry me!



Now, afaic recall, flue terminated 4" below the stack in the roofspace above the kids dorms, flue in void with no access panels, end plate missing off flue in boiler house. Boilerhouse was underground on 3 sides and fed by LPG, no gas detection, and the supply air came via 2 rooms and 3 vented doors, breather pipe off the second stage regulator terminated in a large unventilated gully.

I've never knocked off an installation so quick. Rang the HSE chap up and told him to get to me pronto.

He did.

 

[dave1]

How about this one.

 

[KingDoey]

Gas fire fitted to a chimney that was blocked up....

 

[quality]

How about this one. View attachment 24771View attachment 24772

I have seen loads like that

 

[bright spark]

I went to quote for a boiler change once. Guy was doing the house up and moving the kitchen from the front to the back. I noticed a green garden hose running through the house held up with cable ties. He'd run a gas supply to a cooker as a temporary fix! Both end joined with a jubilee clip!
I genuinely thought it was a wind up and there would be a hidden camera!

Did ye not tell him that he needed to use yellow garden hose for gas!!

Jesus that's a classic.

 

[bright spark]

Went to a boiler call out 1 night. Room sealed unit setting off CO detector. Put analyser on it. Over 10,000ppm. Air brick about 1.5m from terminal. Room with biker had about 40ppm from CO coming back in through brick. There was no breeze that night and it was cold causing fumes to come back in throu vent.

 

[Millsy 82]

When on social housing I got called out to a boiler not working in a house for vulnerable people, I looked on the history of the job on the pda to make sure it wasn't waiting for parts and noticed that a week earlier it failed the service with high co and someone else had been back and "fixed" it.

I turned up and fired it up and it worked, chucked my Fga in it as something didn't look right and it shot up and off the scale in a matter of seconds, popped the combustion case off and found a 1" gap between the burner and the heat heat exchanger so when the burner fired up it had flames coming out of the side of the heat exchanger.

I capped it off and as it was an old Glowworm I said that it needed replacing as it wasn't worth repairing, my boss was not that happy about it as the company would have to pay for it and was pushing forward for me to "fix" it.

I had the carers number so phoned them and told her to kick off with the HA and say they wanted to speak to the gas manager about it as I knew he would then contact me about it as every time he had a problem it was me he called!

Within the hour I had a call off him to meet him at the property asap as they have had a complaint, met him there and showed him what I found and then showed him all my warning notices etc and he was happy with me then he phoned my boss kicking off saying they need a new boiler and it should never of been turned back on! and my boss phoned me kicking off which was the final straw for me and I decided that I had to leave that company due to the way they were and the other engineers just bodging things.

 

[1Steven]

Not very clear but flue held up with speaker cable and plastic strap!

 

[stevetheplumber]

When on social housing I got called out to a boiler not working in a house for vulnerable people, I looked on the history of the job on the pda to make sure it wasn't waiting for parts and noticed that a week earlier it failed the service with high co and someone else had been back and "fixed" it.

I turned up and fired it up and it worked, chucked my Fga in it as something didn't look right and it shot up and off the scale in a matter of seconds, popped the combustion case off and found a 1" gap between the burner and the heat heat exchanger so when the burner fired up it had flames coming out of the side of the heat exchanger.

I capped it off and as it was an old Glowworm I said that it needed replacing as it wasn't worth repairing, my boss was not that happy about it as the company would have to pay for it and was pushing forward for me to "fix" it.

I had the carers number so phoned them and told her to kick off with the HA and say they wanted to speak to the gas manager about it as I knew he would then contact me about it as every time he had a problem it was me he called!

Within the hour I had a call off him to meet him at the property asap as they have had a complaint, met him there and showed him what I found and then showed him all my warning notices etc and he was happy with me then he phoned my boss kicking off saying they need a new boiler and it should never of been turned back on! and my boss phoned me kicking off which was the final straw for me and I decided that I had to leave that company due to the way they were and the other engineers just bodging things.

i had more or less the same on one company you id it and they sent one of the wageslaves to turn it back on one was a new install with the flue 50mm from a window and more or lesss under the opening it so i shut it of as the inside of the window was condensing
they sent someone else back to turn it on 3 weeks later i got the property as a llgc and id it again