Hi Guys, having a 'mare today with a "simple" towel rail job for my uncle. Doing it purely for the love of plumbing for free of course 😵 on my day off.
Old rail a tiny bit rusty so he's bought an new one (Years left in the old one if you ask me!). Exactly the same as the old one he says. Easy job he says. Apart from the new rail is not the same, the spacings between the bars are different and the height is different so the fixings don't line up and even moving just the bottom fixing leaves the pipes either too long or too short no matter what I do. I don't work out of a van any more so what would normally be a fairly easy job is a pain in the arse with drilling tiles and making good and extending pipes, most probably. Because I'm not carrying the right kit in the car for a "simple" "identical" rail swap I've got to go into work tomorrow and get the right kit and drive across the island again on my next day off.
So I'm going back tomorrow to just redo the thing basically from scratch, freeze the pipes and extend them into the new rail about an inch. 😖 Or maybe just move all the fixings.
In reality nothing major in the grand scheme but still a PITA! Ahh that's better getting that off my chest.
Oh I forgot, he does pay me - In old (still good nick though) clothes of his which would be great if he wasn't about 5 stone heavier than me. 😂
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Same with the oil boilers, start pulling out the baffles and customer asks what you doing as nobody has done that before.
Now that's a familiar one! When I used to work regularly with oil, I've lost count of the amount of times someone has complained because "Why is it taking you so long? The last guy was always in and out in 20 minutes?" I've even had one or two ask me if I'm sure I know what I'm doing!
The firm I worked for charged £100 to do a proper service, oil filter cartridge, new burner hoses where needed and I played that better safe than sorry, full clean out of the combustion chamber, baffles and secondary heat exchanger turbulator jobbies cleaned, fire valve test, burner set up properly again, new nozzle if needed, flue gas analysis, photocell test, and proper paperwork. Used to take me about an hour or a bit longer if the boiler was filthy which it usually was.
They'd complain that the last bloke did it for £80 and only took 20 minutes. I tried to explain that they were paying him £80 to not have their boiler serviced and paying us £100 to have the full works. Some people then understood but others thought I was taking the p*ss.
I don't miss that rubbish any more that's for sure.
