oh yes and another thing that annoys me is when they say they want a service, you get there and the boilers not working, they want a repair and service for the cost of an hours labour.
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- Thread starter Mikey456
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W
wheeto
L
LegionellaSlave
G
gravytrain
R
Resolute
i find when you get a run of jobs going fine, more or less to plan, few fun challenges to overcome, pleasant customers who are very pleased, decent pay, you get in your van and think 'this is a good job really. i'm my own boss, doing a sociable job, making decent money, being of service...'
then when you've had a panic, or a serious of frustrations, a spirit-wilting set-back, an annoying customer, feel you've let somone down or let your standards slip, when you end up wasting your time, being called back to the same job several times, then suddenly it's a stressful, unforgiving, combative and often lonely job.
my over-riding opnion of this job - in the relatively brief amout of time i've been doing it - is it is very up and down. but i reckon better up than down than complete predictability (office job.)
and sometimes after a really tough day, when i get in the van mumbling to myself about quitting and giving up, i find when i get home, smarting and throbbing and barely able to walk about, i find i have this sort of buzz. like i may have gone ten rouns with tyson but i'm proud of it. it's a sense of achievement. so yeah, all in all, for now, i'm of the opinion it's a good job.
but let's give it 10 years...
then when you've had a panic, or a serious of frustrations, a spirit-wilting set-back, an annoying customer, feel you've let somone down or let your standards slip, when you end up wasting your time, being called back to the same job several times, then suddenly it's a stressful, unforgiving, combative and often lonely job.
my over-riding opnion of this job - in the relatively brief amout of time i've been doing it - is it is very up and down. but i reckon better up than down than complete predictability (office job.)
and sometimes after a really tough day, when i get in the van mumbling to myself about quitting and giving up, i find when i get home, smarting and throbbing and barely able to walk about, i find i have this sort of buzz. like i may have gone ten rouns with tyson but i'm proud of it. it's a sense of achievement. so yeah, all in all, for now, i'm of the opinion it's a good job.
but let's give it 10 years...
G
gravytrain
G
Guest123
Hate the tiling, hate the grouting, hate the adhesive....with a passion. Next year I'm going to push more wall cladding than tiling. Looks better too and washes down with a damp cloth and no more mouldy grout in the future. Plus it's very easy and quick to fit, downside is the price at bout £80 per sheet, but if you take grout and adhesive and the price of decent tiles, the price isn't too bad.
M
Mike Jackson
Changing taps.
Having just been made redundant I'm not going to turn anything down for the minute to get me name back out there.
This morning I went to change a monoblock kitchen sink mixer. Things didn't get off to a good start when I couldn't find my set of box spanners (not used them for 5 years) so I knew I was going to struggle a bit. Get to the job to find that the guy that had installed the tap had done a lovely job of soldering the copper tails into a fitting. The tails came down nice and close to each other and there was no play on the pipes to get a slice on the old tails so I had to cut the hot on the horizontal to give me enough play to get the old tap off. All this was done with a bucket underneath as the stoptap would turn off fully and the one in the road was full of crud. This ten minute job took me over an hour but at least the customer was happy and I've left her with a few business cards.
I should have learnt my lesson and given it up for today but my cold basin tap has been dripping for an age now and the seat is knackered so it needed replacing. To be honest we're not on a meter and I was happy to let it drip but SWMBO reckons the noise of the drip keeps her awake at night so I went and picked up a new pair of taps.
I couldn't shift the tap connector nut but I managed to spin the cold tap and it came free. Unfortunately it was the ballofix tap connector coming apart rather than the tap coming away from the connector. Typically the back nut was brass so I couldn't snap it and pull the remnants of the tap conn out through the hole in the basin. Instead I had to hacksaw the tap off above the basin. I then cut the pipe back and fitted a ballofix valve lower down.
The connector on the hot didn't want to shift either but I managed to spin that one out and leave the tap conn in one piece. The nut on the tap conn was completely seized so I cut this one back and fitted another ballofix.
I sweated up a couple of tap conns outside and came in and fitted them to the new taps. The fibre washer on the hot side wouldn't seal and after half a dozen attempts I ended up stickers two washers in. I remembered then why I used to keep a stock of poly tap conn washers.
Fortunately the cold side went back together with no leaks but in all it took me nearly 3 hours to change a pair of flipping basin taps.
Boilers are so much easier to fit than taps.
Having just been made redundant I'm not going to turn anything down for the minute to get me name back out there.
This morning I went to change a monoblock kitchen sink mixer. Things didn't get off to a good start when I couldn't find my set of box spanners (not used them for 5 years) so I knew I was going to struggle a bit. Get to the job to find that the guy that had installed the tap had done a lovely job of soldering the copper tails into a fitting. The tails came down nice and close to each other and there was no play on the pipes to get a slice on the old tails so I had to cut the hot on the horizontal to give me enough play to get the old tap off. All this was done with a bucket underneath as the stoptap would turn off fully and the one in the road was full of crud. This ten minute job took me over an hour but at least the customer was happy and I've left her with a few business cards.
I should have learnt my lesson and given it up for today but my cold basin tap has been dripping for an age now and the seat is knackered so it needed replacing. To be honest we're not on a meter and I was happy to let it drip but SWMBO reckons the noise of the drip keeps her awake at night so I went and picked up a new pair of taps.
I couldn't shift the tap connector nut but I managed to spin the cold tap and it came free. Unfortunately it was the ballofix tap connector coming apart rather than the tap coming away from the connector. Typically the back nut was brass so I couldn't snap it and pull the remnants of the tap conn out through the hole in the basin. Instead I had to hacksaw the tap off above the basin. I then cut the pipe back and fitted a ballofix valve lower down.
The connector on the hot didn't want to shift either but I managed to spin that one out and leave the tap conn in one piece. The nut on the tap conn was completely seized so I cut this one back and fitted another ballofix.
I sweated up a couple of tap conns outside and came in and fitted them to the new taps. The fibre washer on the hot side wouldn't seal and after half a dozen attempts I ended up stickers two washers in. I remembered then why I used to keep a stock of poly tap conn washers.
Fortunately the cold side went back together with no leaks but in all it took me nearly 3 hours to change a pair of flipping basin taps.
Boilers are so much easier to fit than taps.
L
LegionellaSlave
Brilliant post Watertight.
You're wasted as a plumber!
You should be a plumbers psychiatrist/psychologist/therapist! :hurray:
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