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Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

View the thread, titled "Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!" which is posted in UK Plumbers Forums on UK Plumbers Forums.

re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

video camera with light on your phone in the hard areas you cant get your head in
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

next one to post a non hint or tip collects 3 point and gets deleted any way.
start your own thread.....
i'm in a mood.

thank you.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Always take your boots off when going in to the clients house. Small things make a big impact. Make sure your socks don't have holes in! Bloody apprentice !
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

I worked for my father for years. So I was used to pricing jobs up and dealing with clients.

Eventually I just go someone to design a logo (I'd chosen a name) and put a few ads in the paper. I had a few of my own clients allready by that point.

Business has been steadilly growing. I'm not about to become a millionaire and I don't want to get off the tools. I'd be happier if I could afford to pay someone to do the paper work and for me to stay on the tools!

Biggest attribute of mine is I can talk to the clients and build trust. Trust is everything. Imagine you letting a stranger in your house to fit a boiler or a fire. You'd want to know you could trust them.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

next one to post a non hint or tip collects 3 point and gets deleted any way.
start your own thread.....
i'm in a mood.

thank you.

Fair enough!!

Hint - If your concerned a solvent weld fitting may take a while to get in the correct posistion (for example you have two akward joints to make and they have to be done in tandem) then apply much more solvent cement than you would normally do. This will buy you a bit more time but we're only talking seconds, not minutes.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

What i tend to do with solvent weld fittings (say 2 45's at a certain angle) is place them on the desired length of pipe with out glue that you join the two with then mark a line across both of them with a felt tip, or pencil.

Then glue up the pipe and fittings and twist the fittings to marry the line up on both fittings and pipe. Leave to set.

This piece can then be incorporated into the pipe work at the correct angle.
 
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re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Always hit your apprentice once a day, but never with the same object twice!
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

I have found targetting properties with for sale signs outside has been very worthwhile this year. I ask the people there to leave my flier for the new people, and also I have had quite a bit of work from the people there when they move to their new houses.

One couple actually asked me to come with them when they were viewing prospective houses and give them an idea of costs for a new heating system and bathroom for a couple of places they had narrowed their choice down to. They bought the house and I got the job to do all the plumbing, and I also got the kitchen refit and joinery work for my joiner friend, the decorating for my decorator friend and all the electrics for my electrician friend all from one knock at one door.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

I have found targetting properties with for sale signs outside has been very worthwhile this year. I ask the people there to leave my flier for the new people, and also I have had quite a bit of work from the people there when they move to their new houses.

One couple actually asked me to come with them when they were viewing prospective houses and give them an idea of costs for a new heating system and bathroom for a couple of places they had narrowed their choice down to. They bought the house and I got the job to do all the plumbing, and I also got the kitchen refit and joinery work for my joiner friend, the decorating for my decorator friend and all the electrics for my electrician friend all from one knock at one door.

pity you dont have an 'solicitor' friend you could have got a 1% skim of the top.lol.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Had a call out late one evening to an overflowing loft tank. Hole in ball-valve, did not have one in the motor and shops closed.

Removed ball valve emptied it, put it back on arm, covered with plastic bag and used cable ties to secure open end to arm.

Not a drop of water in the bag when I returned the next afternoon.
 
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re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Really helpful tips and hits which makes plumbing safe and easy, Sydney plumbers are experienced to suggest more tips.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Trade adverts in local newspapers are a waste of money.
 
I get 200-300 a week from local rag which only costs 8 quid so it works for me.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
 
Buy brand new brass and copper fittings from the scrappy. All the contract lads will weigh them in at the end of a job rather than return them to their firms stores dept.

Mine sells end feed at 6quid per kilo. Works out about a third of the price.

Brass fittings 4quid a kilo. Here's what i got for 8quid yesterday.

516447cc-0d9f-90d0.jpg


Absolute bargain.🙂
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

A local company summarily dismissed two contract plumbers last year for doing exactly that. You have been warned!
 
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Yep but as long as they continue to do it, it would be cherish of me not to take advantage. After all reuse is better than recycle 🙂

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

GasSafe Only#

On a tightness test if you ever get a rise in pressure on your gauge during the letby test, check the test point isnt partially blocked with grease allowing the system standing pressure time to slowly make your gauge rise.

This will save a call to the gas transporter and making yourself look like a right turnip....:blush5:
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

True, but i didnt think of that at the time, i think id only been qualified for a few months back then. Its surprising how many people i come accross who in years of fitting had never come accross this. The transco guy said ECV's very rarely pass but like i say i didnt know that back then.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

We had one passing last year to such an extent that the boiler would still fire.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

If you need to make up anything with a high shine chrome finish e.g for a shower backplate or a cover for a pipe going through a tiled wall or even covering a plastic waste pipe to make it look like chrome, then use high shine aluminium foil tape. I buy mine in widths of up to 200mm and it's really handy.

Self adhesive Aluminium foil tape 100mm x 45M [RTAL10045] - £8.76 : Tapes-Direct : Gaffer Tape | Double Sided Tape | Foam Tape | Anti Slip Tape at Tapes-Direct
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

We all come across crumbling walls that are just not built to take any weight and due to tiling or existing decoration cannot be altered or plywood added behind the plasterboard.

When retro fitting a towel rad to replace an existing rad, I sometimes add extra support at the base/bottom rung using a 22mm Munsen ring and back plate with a section of 15mm chrome pipe covering the M10 screwed rod. This is fixed to the floor with chrome dome headed mirror screws and adds really good solid extra support than the traditional plastic brackets and screws that come with it.

090.jpg
 
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re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

When up a ladder clipping 40mm waste pipes I've often found that masonary nails (removed from nail on clips if none handy!) with a couple of brass cup washers make it quicker and safer than juggling a hammer drill, hammer, plugs, etc and risking breaking your neck especially a 3 storey house.

Position the clip over a mortar joint, I know the proper way is screws and that's what I use everywhere else but up a ladder I'm a jellyfish.
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

Don't tell the other half you want to take on a young fit female apprentice!
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

......
 
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re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

on a leaking tap connector if the pipe is not true going into the plastic ballvalve use a hep2o conical washer of there tap connectors the little black ones works a treat or you can order 20 of them from plumbase
 
re: Hints, tips & secrets of plumbing - No Banter please!

On a boiler change job , never turn on the mains without having the hot cuped off
 

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