Misstakes...?

[Hybrid]

I working with another plumber on an install, he was soldering on one side of the room and I on the other. Where we met in the middle we both assumed the other had soldered a straight coupling.
I had a phonecall at night that the joint was dripping.
Rushed over to drain down and found that the flux was doing a sterling job of saving me from a flood damage claim.

I fitted a mate's bathroom for free when he was down on his luck, while screwing the basin to the wall he distracted me and I cracked it on the screw hole. Told him to hide it from his missus lol!

Turned on after fitting a part 3 ballvalve and heard a sound like rain in the bathroom. I'd forgotten to close the ball-o-fix i'd just fitted and i'd forgotten to put the spout on the outlet at the top. Luckily for me the customer had popped out to the shop and there was a ply floor down ready for tiling. I dried it up with a towel from the van and got my blow lamp on it carefully to dry it all up. Customer never suspected lol!

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

you lot have jinxed me,me the old man and the captain were on a boiler swap and 10 rad fit today,the old man not thinking cracked on and hung a rad because the captain cant keep up,he grabbed the sds because they are hard walls and drilled strait through the wall killing the designer paper the other side

 

[Guest123]

And todays phrase of the month for Gas man is "Less haste, more speed!"

 

[SimonG]

you lot have jinxed me,me the old man and the captain were on a boiler swap and 10 rad fit today,the old man not thinking cracked on and hung a rad because the captain cant keep up,he grabbed the sds because they are hard walls and drilled strait through the wall killing the designer paper the other side

You know what you need now, don't you? Shorter drill bits 🙂 🙂 🙂

 

[Anton]

A Chaffeteux Celtic continually losing pressure. EV had already been checked & pressurised. So I figured it has to be a blockage in the flexi hose to the EV. The boiler was in a small square recess off the main kitchen, with a sink nearby. Lifted the EV down with the flex attached, and laid it down on the sink drainer. Took the flex off and it was blocked, cleared that and thought I'd better check the boss on the EV. Shoved a suitable implement into the boss. Well...I never knew that these things could hold so much brown oxtail soup and water, and under 15 PSI the EV span round like a Tazmanian Devil on the drainer. The only thing between all the **** flying out and the kitchen was me. I went out of that job with a new outfit on.
Of course I always remember to release the pressure from EVs now (except when I forget)

 

[desrob]

some of these i have done,and i'm sure there some iv'e yet to do,but it's cheered me up realizing were no differant.

 

[AWheating]

fell through a ceiling and knocked mate of ladder working below.

mate was core drilling out flue, i went upstairs to start to connect pipework drops from boiler and slipped and put foot through celing kicking mate in the head knocking him off steps. After five mins of laughter and my mate pulling on my leg trying to get me to come through the ceiling completly i had to phone the customer to tell them they had a hole in the ceiling.

 

[Destroyer2813]

Simple but stupid one back when i was young filling up a big old system bleeding away on a rad pin fell out couldnt see it water starts ****ing out cant reach both rad valves shouting away to me mate but so big with other trades banging away couldnt hear me. Oh to top it off cream carpet and it was Frank Warrens house thinking if i ruin this carpet hes gonna whack me

 

[Guest123]

Just tell your custard...."To err is human, to forgive is devine, but yer still no gettin a discount!"

 

[Resolute]

I was doing some pipework alteration on a central heating system , couldn't solder so using compression fittings.

Only hand tightened a couple as I fitted the pipework together, all in place correctly and I tightened up before refilling the combi - only I'd missed a joint on the drop within the wall!!!

Luckily I had it all dried up before the customer got home!

 

[stevetheplumber]

you lot have jinxed me,me the old man and the captain were on a boiler swap and 10 rad fit today,the old man not thinking cracked on and hung a rad because the captain cant keep up,he grabbed the sds because they are hard walls and drilled strait through the wall killing the designer paper the other side

i had a boy with me do that luckily we managed to swop the rads back to back same size and fixed the brackets with studding and nuts ive always wondered if some smart bum decorater ever took the nuts of one side to have the other rad fall of

 

[Destroyer2813]

I was doing some pipework alteration on a central heating system , couldn't solder so using compression fittings.

Only hand tightened a couple as I fitted the pipework together, all in place correctly and I tightened up before refilling the combi - only I'd missed a joint on the drop within the wall!!!

Luckily I had it all dried up before the customer got home!

Think everyones done that had a small leak and then rushed around like a blue arsed fly trying to clear it up b4 custard gets home

 

[GQuigley67]

when its late at night, your birthday, and your rushing about on a heating system install yourself, never trust the customer to be your look out while you fill so you can crack on with something else, he's saying all clear I go upstairs and water is pssin out and a puddle is lying on his gyproc ceiling, thank god for wet vacs. Also same house I drilled through the ceiling of a different room(school boy error should always drill from below) but when your under pressure you make mistakes lol.

luckily i worked on sites as an apprentice so got away with most of my sanitary ware mistakes, so didnt have to pay out of my own pocket 😛 nearlly flooded a room in a school which had about 20+ computers stored in while the school was being renovated as I missed the open end 2" pipe when they were filling up heating but someone else spotted it.

 

[southcoastboile]

someone i used to work with was soldering in the ceiling at an airport above a 10k super computer, solder ball dropped onto it and ruined it

 

[Resolute]

I had one the other day. Compression reducer, kept leaking everytime I filled the system, couldn't get it any tighter - turned to my mate who'd put the fitting together (in fairness he's not a plumber) and asked if there was an olive in it!

He couldn't remember and when I took it all apart guess what - no olive!

 

[wiggers]

Mine was about 3 weeks ago i was fitting bathroom and had to extend pipework through a wall to an en-suite next room along. House had no stop tap just one outside front door full of soil Which is always worrying iso valves to bathroom only.
The Day before install i asked tnt to remove some tongue an groove panelling where pipes were going through to a room next door He agreed, got there he had left them on, so to save time i got my small wood core bit out and give it a go........Whoosh
Cut right through heating pipe buried in wall panic panic ladders out into loft to isolate f&e
small flood in house ceiling collapsed but it wasnt my fault he left the t&g on!! learned very quickly on that one, Im lucky i have a understanding boss!

 

[tamz]

Sitting in a loft years ago, turned the stopcock off to tee in for the F&E and cut the pipe below the valve:speechless:

Ceilings were fine but there was no glasswool left by the time i mopped it up.

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

Sitting in a loft years ago, turned the stopcock off to tee in for the F&E and cut the pipe below the valve:speechless:

Ceilings were fine but there was no glasswool left by the time i mopped it up.

stops the itch though LOL:santa_cheesy:

 

[ADM360]

New boiler swap, so new condesate had to be run round low level outside, so set up core drill have a look round, lecy meter box outside, measure up check dricetion of incoming mains all good miles away from anything, get out the core drill away we go, thought the first corse, clean out core and go again big bang cloud of smoke drill still spining!!! WTF!!! pull drill out look though core drilled all the way though mains lecy cable to next door!! Oh dear this is going to cost!! then next door comes round " have done something all my lecys gone off" better make the call!!

fortunatly the power guys said it should not have been installed like that, so your in the clear mate!! thank @@@@@ for that!!!

 

[Phil]

New boiler swap, so new condesate had to be run round low level outside, so set up core drill have a look round, lecy meter box outside, measure up check dricetion of incoming mains all good miles away from anything, get out the core drill away we go, thought the first corse, clean out core and go again big bang cloud of smoke drill still spining!!! WTF!!! pull drill out look though core drilled all the way though mains lecy cable to next door!! Oh dear this is going to cost!! then next door comes round " have done something all my lecys gone off" better make the call!!

fortunatly the power guys said it should not have been installed like that, so your in the clear mate!! thank @@@@@ for that!!!

Jesus!

That could have fried you!

 

[ADM360]

what was worse my side was still live!!! must remember to get the RCD out the van more often!!

 

[tamz]

I did that too a couple of years ago. Coring through an inch and half hole for the gas (in the pouring rain) and straight through the incoming electric that was dropped in the cavity. Tripped out the substation at the top of the road and put the street off.
I got billed £600 odd for that one plus the cost of
my core bit.

 

[GQuigley67]

i always look through cavity with torch, make sure there are no wall ties or cables

 

[jaybob]

New boiler swap, so new condesate had to be run round low level outside, so set up core drill have a look round, lecy meter box outside, measure up check dricetion of incoming mains all good miles away from anything, get out the core drill away we go, thought the first corse, clean out core and go again big bang cloud of smoke drill still spining!!! WTF!!! pull drill out look though core drilled all the way though mains lecy cable to next door!! Oh dear this is going to cost!! then next door comes round " have done something all my lecys gone off" better make the call!!

fortunatly the power guys said it should not have been installed like that, so your in the clear mate!! thank @@@@@ for that!!!

had similair issue drilling through a wall to run f+r c.h pipework and went through a cable was was late on in the day as was trying to get all messy work done and tidy up as had planed all runs so ended up working late and having to repair in the dark with a torch light. it was actualy sat inbetween the brick joint in morter so in fairness i would hae never of sin it. but not a main like u ure v.lucky lol

 

[Mike Jackson]

Last year I reversed onto the custards driveway to get the van a bit nearer. As I left that evening there was a twang as pulled onto the road and a black wire flew across in front of me.

As I reversed in, my roof ladder hook had passed under the telephone cable to next door. When I drove out it wrenched it out of the wall. I had visions of telephones jammed against the outside wall.

BT didn't charge for the repair as the line had been hanging too low. I've been a bit more aware of low cables since then and this incident probably saved me a worse one when a custard offered to let me park on his drive, the leccy to his house was strung across lower than the hook on my ladder.

 

[vectra65]

me being a plumber

 

[Anton]

New boiler swap, so new condesate had to be run round low level outside, so set up core drill have a look round, lecy meter box outside, measure up check dricetion of incoming mains all good miles away from anything, get out the core drill away we go, thought the first corse, clean out core and go again big bang cloud of smoke drill still spining!!! WTF!!! pull drill out look though core drilled all the way though mains lecy cable to next door!! Oh dear this is going to cost!! then next door comes round " have done something all my lecys gone off" better make the call!!

fortunatly the power guys said it should not have been installed like that, so your in the clear mate!! thank @@@@@ for that!!!

You should bought a few Lottos, with your luck (not becoming toast) you wouldn't be on here now.:icon12:

 

[Leadbetter]

Doing a full central heating system a few monts ago, turned the stop tap of 25mm alk, tap was realy stiff, all day worrying about the stiff stop tap, turned it back on later that day, and just a trickle coming through the taps,, spent 2hours trying to locate another stop tap and calling tge water supplyer (useless), the next morning i arrive with a freeze kit and a new stop tap, left the freeze kit on fir the required time, cracket the nut on the stop tape , slowly undid the nut removed the tap, BANG ice plug blew out, mains water every were, so lucky the customer was away for a week

 

[Anton]

Not my mistake as such. But a long time ago, when I was an apprentice, (that was a long time ago) I was with a fitter, and we were to fit a new cooker at a top floor flat of a four storey building. We carried the new cooker up the stairs (no lift).
The new cooker was light as a feather compared to the old Cannon cooker we were to take out. The Cannon was one of the old mostly cast iron and steel frame type, bloody heavy.
The guy in charge said "we're not carrying this down the stairs, we'll chuck it off the fire escape at the back" which we did.
It landed in the back garden and pretty much disassembled itself in the grass.
As we were leaving, the old dear says "can you put the old cooker in the cellar because my friend wants it for her kitchen"
I can't remember what the outcome was, but I do remember we left pretty sharpish.

 

[Danny25]

Working in a monastery at my first "big" job fitting a shower room and basins, pipe runs were going through the loft. walking around in the loft with no torch and steel cap boots on tripped over and managed to kick the speed fit cap end the incoming mains feed, flooded a few rooms but luckily not the room a few feet away that was used to contain all the old statues and antic books. oh dear.

 

[billybob150811]

i,ve got hundreds of much ups but a good one was fitting one direction trv,s on the wrong pipe southampton job centre vibrated as the pumps belted against the closed valves

 

[Alpha man]

Ive had a few in the past like most, but the most costly one I ever did was to fit a 6 bar PRV on a combi, (both 3 and 6 bar PRV's I use have got red caps so didnt notice), cust left the filling loop on a few months later, which split the expansion vessel and most o ring seal joints and pi$$ed water through the ceiling.

Had to take the boiler off the wall to do repairs and repainted the ceiling for them FOC!!!

 

[jaybob]

another one i remember was stripping out and first fixing for a loft conversion usual stuff rad and on suite with towel rail. got it all done without any issues there was no floor down just crawling boards on ceiling and steels in place everything mark out to some degree anyway just finished and as paking up and walking away triped up over the sparks wires he didnt clip up i went flying tools in hand feet through ceiling luky for me the customer had just got up from exactly underneth where i fell just moments before i put it all right foc for them

 

[billybob150811]

set alight hessian lagging in a roof space that one for stopping your heart it spreads like a forest fire

 

[tamz]

set alight hessian lagging in a roof space that one for stopping your heart it spreads like a forest fire

Done that one lots of times. Had to cut through the main to put one out.