Disasters at work

[GQuigley67]

we had a proper disaster in work the other week, nice wee easy job 6 rads boiler in empty cupboard with extended horizontal flue, would have been finished for about 2, but when my mate was coring the hole for flue, he hits rising gas main ! Major panic to open all windows and evacuate building(3 stories) turn off boilers, pilot lights etc and with a smoking pensioner out in her veranda refusing to leave lol !

He looked out the window before coring and when you look out the window you see nothing, but the gas main was behind the cladding in a duct, if you went down to ground level and looked up you would have seen the vents.

Cost us 3 hours on the job, SGN emergency procedures are a bit naff if you ask me, the call centre guy was telling me to turn off ECV at meter open windows etc usual procedure, even after me explaining to him that I was a gas engineer and it was the rising main not the gas pipe in property lol.they sent one guy out who couldn't turn the gas off just to get someone to sign for liability, then we had to wait another hour for the boys to come out dig up the ground to bung the plastic pipe, gas was spewing out for nearly 3 hours before it was shut off! it's funny now but wasn't at the time.

Anyone else got any disasters they would like to share ?

 

[Dannypipe]

Thats a good one!!

We all have bad days. I try to mentally block out the bad!!

I've drilled into a cable, screwed into a pipe, it's one of those things. Do it long enough and you'll make a mistake. We're only human.

I have never core drilled though a gas main!! LOL. But I don't retire for a long time yet so who knows!

 

[GQuigley67]

just had one of those yesterday i was screwing down the last floorboard with the last screw and had a little look for any wires, looked as if there was none so screwed it down and bang ! blows the fuse wire in the main board on the ring main, past 5.30pm so local hardware store is shut, sparks already left job, i have no spare fuse wire and neither does customer, so had to wait an hours drive away from home for a sparky until half 7pm

 

[GQuigley67]

can't edit but i had everything to do the repair myself except the fuse wire

 

[tamz]

Cored right through an incoming electric supply a couple of years ago.
Semi concealed box, coring a 1 1/2" hole through the wall in the pyshing rain and bang. Main electric cable rose in the cavity. I went straight through it. Put the full street off and blew the teeth off my core bit. Never got a shock tho until the bill from Scottish Power came in. That was another one of my lives used up, can't have many left now :lol:

I once knew a builder who went through a 6" medium pressure main with a jcb. He emigrated to south africa when he got the 35 grand bill in for that one (early 1980's).

 

[diamondgas]

Pal of mine soldering in the loft eaves got the call for a cup of tea! He finished soldering and came down for a cuppa! When he returned to the loft hatch he looked up and thought "It looks a bit bright up there?" ........ He'd caught the roof flashing with the blow torch and hadn't realized! Evacuation and fire-brigade latter, cost BG a new roof and re-housing the custard for a couple of months!

Personally, my biggest claim against me was when I dropped a pipe out of a loft hatch straight through an old bath! No match available meant a new bathroom suite!!

 

[stevetheplumber]

putty or plumber mait is good at stopping gas leaks or denso if you can get to the pipe
we kangoed through a incoming gas main in the floor of a flat when they turned up the dug the hole to exspose the main outside the flat. then they wrapped it in denso and hacksawed through it i assume the denso stops sparks they then roled up a ball of denso and shoved it in the pipe densoed the end to stop it coming out and then buggered of for a day

 

[diamondgas]

I personally hate denso!!! But actually densoed a prv pipe the other week coz it kept getting nicked :lol:

 

[GQuigley67]

yeah the first guy turned up with a roll of denso tape lol, but we couldnt get into the pipe properly all we could do is divert the flow of gas to outside and away from the building as much as possible.

 

[mfgs]

I personally hate denso!!! But actually densoed a prv pipe the other week coz it kept getting nicked :lol:

It would certainly stop me nicking it!!! Its the worst stuff in the world to touch, your hands seem to stay sticky for ages and it doesnt wash off easily.

 

[Rickster123]

Worst for me would be the foot through the ceiling. I'd spent the entire morning telling my mate to watch where he steps because a load of flooring was up on the landing. I finished soldering in the airing cupboard, stood up, stepped back and half diapeared into the kitchen! Took me a minute to realise what had happened!! I cut my hand open on a gripper rod and my nuts were more swollen than normal for a week!
went down and checked the damage, polystyrene ceiling tiles every where! Kept the old dear in the lounge and nipped up jewsons for plasterboard and glue! Nobody would ever know!!

 

[cdodds2004]

i had a great one last week! doing a little pipe alterations in cupboard, turned off the water with a iso, flow of water was the opposite way to what i thought, talking to my aprentice and cutting pipes and boom mains everywere!!!

thank god for carrying plastic stop ends in my pockets

 

[CES]

I had one the other week, installed a new combi in a tight space, during commissioning, turned the hw on at the bathroom basin and checked boiler, was tucked into this cupboard for 5 mins and heard water dripping, the bloody basin had overflowed onto her bathroom tiles, out the door onto the landing, seeped through the carpet and was dripping through the ceiling of the hall below!.. one of those AARRGGHHH!! moments.. cost me £100 "sweetener" money.. but Ivenow learned never to use the basin when testing DHW on a combi!!!

 

[mfgs]

A couple years back I was ripping out an old cold water tank in the loft, stopcock to isolate water about 6 inches from the tank. Turn it off, undo the connector on the side of the tank once it was all drained. Somehow I didnt realise the cold mains going to the tank was just floating in the air for about 5 meters without a clip and the pipe was all over the place. Undone the nut, pipe dropped and a soldered coupling where the pipe had only been pushed in about 2mm gave way. Pipe flew off and all of a sudden I have a 15mm open ended water main shooting water right in my face. I managed to hold my hand over it and phone the apprentice who was tidying the van outside to get him to shut the water off.

 

[tamz]

Talking about water, When i was young (and stupid) i was left on a job to finish some odds and ends on a heating system. Jumped up into the attic to fit the f&e. Turned off the valve to the cold cistern and cut the pipe below the valve. 3/4" pipe running full bore. Main stopcock boxed in behind the units so 2 hammers to flatten the pipe. The water was through every ceiling in the house before i got it stopped :lol:

 

[splinterdream]

Needed to fix a leaking soldered socket on the flow of a circulator. With a gate valve above the socket on the flow and also a gate valve on the return I thought turn them both off, cut out the socket with slices draining the little excess into a rubble bag, replace socket and open the valves, however with the pipe half cut the pressure was huge but you just keep cutting thinking even if the valves aren't holding you're only draining the coil. WRONG. After bailing water I get the custard involved, run upstairs and realsie the cylinder is direct, so I go to isolate the cold feed and the gate valve is sheered so had to run downstairs and face the fact I would have to bail a cylinder and cold water storage tank into a rubble bag chucking it onto the custards front lawn. Managed to get it done without an insurance claim chatming the custard with a free CO detector

 

[Gray0689]

You need to get some bungs

 

[CES]

Just as well this isn't on the public forum! We sound like a right team!

 

[Rickster123]

Just as well this isn't on the public forum! We sound like a right team!

I was just thinking that! Don't DIY it, get the professionals in!

 

[diamondgas]

Just remembered another ...... me and my heating pal were replacing a fireside boiler. I'm in the livingroom, he's on the roof. Old boiler liner disconnected and the opening sheeted up I gave him the shout to pull the old liner out ... I hear him yanking and heaving but the thing wasn't budging. Here we go again I thought, having to break into the breast to find where it's stuck!!! Just then I heard this almighty commotion going on outside. A bloke shouting his head off at my pal on the roof! The guy was the next door neighbour, the flue liner my pal was tugging on was his...!!! For some strange reason the chimney's crossed and the terminal on our side of the stack was his liner and terminal on his side of the stack was ours! Oooops!!!!

 

[dontknowitall]

Just as well this isn't on the public forum! We sound like a right team!

Like an electrician who hasn't electrocuted himself, I don't think you can call yourself a plumber until you've had a major accident.

In my opinion, it's how you react to a situation like this. In fairness to comparing us to DIYers, with a major burst we know what we're meant to do and how to cope with it, we know the place will get wet and usually we will as well and it's just down to damage limitation.

Also, we never panic ...

NOT!!

Actually, I don't think we do panic. We react with surprise and start moving around very quickly and things but we don't just run away from the job (which is what would happen in a panic situation).

 

[AWheating]

When i was a young en i set fire to a fire place when i sprayed spray adhesive across the pilot of an old maxol bbu while putting the closure plate back on. Luck for me it was a brick fire breast and the tenant went outside for a *** and knew nowt about it. I almost had a heart attack big flames all over the place for a few second while the vapors burnt off the adhesive and i still dont know why i had put the pilot back on

I also burnt my eyebrows off trying to light a bbu pilot. Lady next door to where is was working came around and asked if i could put her pilot back on. She did not tell me she had been trying to light it for the past 10 mins and had filled the whole space around the bbu with gas. I went in whooosh bye bye eyebrows it was luck i had a skin head at the time.

 

[secret squirrel]

The worst thing I've done so far is freeze a pipe looked at the customer to have a chat briefly, turned back cut the wrong pipe, what a muppet! lucky I always have a stop end in my pocket.

 

[Dannypipe]

Its one of my tips in the tips section of this forum.

ALWAYS have a stop end or two in your pocket or nearby. Life savers.

 

[Guest123]

Once dropped a roll of lead right through a skylight window and off it went tumbling all the way to the ground floor......in Kelvingrove Art Galleries and Museum. To this day I don't know why I didn't kill someone.

Shaggy was played for weeks after that...."It wasn't me"