My first Mistake what was yours

[buffy27]

the jury acquitted me of that flood .the 2 people who died were well in their nineties.how dare u mention this on a public forum !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

lol,glad you got acquitted, heard the carpet was foobarred though LOL

 

[tipintim]

When i was an apprentice, my boss would give the customer a 3 day gaurantee and a rubber dingi thrown in
if i done any work in that prroperty. Ive never been confidant since that.

 

[tipintim]

lol gasman

 

[tamz]

Some early examples of mistakes but looking back more like stupidity (it would take too long to go into detail but i may do later if anyone is interested)

Don't rod upstream on a choked factory sewage line.......circa 1973
Don't swap a 2" valve live in a school boiler house basement (coal fired sauna).......circa 1974 (this was a joint effort)
Don't cut into an un-purged 4" gas line with an oxy acetylene cutter..........circa 1975
Don't punch a bull on the head...........circa 1975
Don't sh@g your journeymans wife........circa 1976
Don't sh@g your bosses wife..........also cica1976,77,78,79

But my first mistake was walking in to the plumbers yard and asking if he had any jobs going and his mistake was saying yes

 

[SafeGasInstall]

like the 76,77,78,79 don't do think tamz !!!!

much respect ,well done !!!!!!!!!!

 

[PlumbBobBob]

my first mistake, i was changing a trv on a rad in a dining room with a cream carpet, all going well bungs in tank in loft pressure released plenty of sheets down no flow at all from pipe turned round to get trv to put on, gurgle from behind me, by the time i looked back the sheets were black and it was soaking through to the carpet. i was more upset than the customer. that was a lesson learned, have everything to hand even if you have to spread yourself out.

 

[Dannypipe]

Well I made one yesterday. Was between jobs, picking up a bacon roll. Phone goes, 'we've got a leaky washing machine valve'.

Nice easy job I think. I'll pop there between jobs. Go down there, and it's the comp fitting that's leaking. The machine is right next to the kitchen sink.

Look under sink, two stop cocks. Client informs me that one does the outside tap. So I turn them both off, turn easy enough. Run the kitchen taps, and it's off. Great I think.

Undo the compression joint and whooooosh! About 3 bar of pressure and I'm getting soaked fast. The client dashes to the front door where theres another stopcock and switches the water off.

Luckilly it's a concrete floor, they'd allready taken the lino up as it was being replaced. I got the wet vac out and cleaned it up. I was soaked. Told them no charge, (how could I charge?!) Felt like a prize TWA*.

Went to next job soaked to the skin, (I didn't have time to go home and change as he had to go out, and by the time I'd cleaned up the water I was running late).

Haven't made a school boy error like that in a long time. Very embarrassing, though in fairness, it was a fairly safe assumption that I'd knocked the water off.

Anyway, they insisted they pay me, and stuffed £40 in my pocket, bless em.

It can happen to anyone...no matter how experienced you get. A wee bit of complacency and you can be a wet plumber. Never good.

 

[PlumbBobBob]

i had similar problem back in october. kitchen tap loose, no isolators turned off stopcock under sink water still running so had to get customer to turn bath and basin cold on full to take pressure off while i did a live snatch. got soaked and came down with bad cold next day. turns out stopcock was for outside tap!

 

[Twinhawk]

I saw this happen in Arts college. feed was undersized and pumps ovesized...the tanks about 12 feet high, aNd in the next one all the brackets started coming loose beacuse the walls where really damp when the glue was put in for the 10mm rod, hilti anchors just pushed the brick out. And then to top it all of i got in a fight with the diamond core drill....it won

 

[islandview]

I once went to fit a new shower valve and as i was doing it the shower kept dripping on my head. I decided to face it towards the door to stop it. When the job was done i went back to turn the water on but had left the shower on too so it was going all over the bathroomn floor and coming through the ceiling . I once fitted a new cloakroom basin for someone and decided the best place to put it together was in the kitchen. I put all the packageing on the tiled floor to work on but there was a small gap showing the corner of a tile. I put the basin straight on to that small area and bang went the basin. Luckily it was from b&q and they swapped it for another one free of charge. Ive also put an old toilet back after tiling the floor and cracked the cistern, i had only just started to turn the screw and it went. I think im just unlucky sometimes.

 

[Twinhawk]

I once went to fit a new shower valve and as i was doing it the shower kept dripping on my head. I decided to face it towards the door to stop it. When the job was done i went back to turn the water on but had left the shower on too so it was going all over the bathroomn floor and coming through the ceiling . I once fitted a new cloakroom basin for someone and decided the best place to put it together was in the kitchen. I put all the packageing on the tiled floor to work on but there was a small gap showing the corner of a tile. I put the basin straight on to that small area and bang went the basin. Luckily it was from b&q and they swapped it for another one free of charge. Ive also put an old toilet back after tiling the floor and cracked the cistern, i had only just started to turn the screw and it went. I think im just unlucky sometimes.

if im screwing them in and are stick for rubber washers i just start folding ptfe till its good and thick of wrap it round a penny washer then screw in, or just say to myself, f it SILICONE

 

[princegoose]

I fell into a 15000? litre oil tank in my first week as a plumber.

it was near empty, so it hurt.

 

[Reg Man]

Working in a care home 1979 as an apprentice plumber. Drilled through a wall in the kitchens. Liquid started coming out of the hole. Oh sxxt. Found out I had lost my bearings and drilled through a catering size tin of peaches in the kitchen store cupboard.

 

[Guest123]

As a first year apprentice, I was sent up the scaffold to paint the inside of the new gutters that we had fitted with bitumen paint. There were metres and metres of them and I was getting peed off painting them with a brush as it was taking me ages. Solution? I poured the tins of bitumen paint all along the lengths of guttering. Great I thought, but the paint just lay there half an inch thick all the way along and I knew that once I unblocked the outlets it was all going to run down the newly sand blasted walls as the downpipes weren't connected yet. In panic, I decided to dry the bitumen paint out quickly by setting it on fire! The flames ran for feckin miles and shot up the roof as the slaters hair felt caught fire too. Glasgow fire brigade had a very busy day that day. I got a bollocking but got let off lightly for being a daft boy who should have been under supervision. Oh the joys.....

 

[Bernie2]

Err! Learnt most of my job from the mistakes I made.

A wood beautician mate once said "You have not made a mistake if you can put it right!"

 

[WHPES]

When starting out years ago, drilled a hole in the wall for a WC overflow and drilled right through the soil stack. Fortunately it was for a relative who wasn't bothered provided I patched it up properly.

First mistake for a customer was when installing a set of sprinklers for a paint spray booth at a local auto repair shop. I installed 68 degree sprinklers (with the red bulb), but come Summer had them on the phone saying there was water everywhere. The sprinklers were under a skylight and the heat from the sun had broken the bulbs. Of course I should have fitted green ones (93 degrees C trigger)

The mistakes dont make any difference its knowing and learning how to give the bull to the customer its there fault. lol.

One guy (builder not plumber) who shall remain nameless I was working with on a job a few years back said he was called out to a flood from some pipework he did a few months previously. It was plastic pipe and one fitting hadn't been pushed home fully. He got out his file and filed away at the fitting, showed it to the customer and told them they needed to get some mouse traps down!

 

[GQuigley67]

One guy (builder not plumber) who shall remain nameless I was working with on a job a few years back said he was called out to a flood from some pipework he did a few months previously. It was plastic pipe and one fitting hadn't been pushed home fully. He got out his file and filed away at the fitting, showed it to the customer and told them they needed to get some mouse traps down!

think i'll use that excuse if it ever happens to me ha

 

[dontknowitall]

One of my trainers related a story of not sealing an old radiator. Took it downstairs and when he went back up there was a lovely black snake all the way over a new, white carpet.

 

[SafeGasInstall]

When starting out years ago, drilled a hole in the wall for a WC overflow and drilled right through the soil stack. Fortunately it was for a relative who wasn't bothered provided I patched it up properly.

First mistake for a customer was when installing a set of sprinklers for a paint spray booth at a local auto repair shop. I installed 68 degree sprinklers (with the red bulb), but come Summer had them on the phone saying there was water everywhere. The sprinklers were under a skylight and the heat from the sun had broken the bulbs. Of course I should have fitted green ones (93 degrees C trigger)

One guy (builder not plumber) who shall remain nameless I was working with on a job a few years back said he was called out to a flood from some pipework he did a few months previously. It was plastic pipe and one fitting hadn't been pushed home fully. He got out his file and filed away at the fitting, showed it to the customer and told them they needed to get some mouse traps down!

that is a good one

hungry mouses

 

[markfxy]

Fitted a steel bath for the first time put the bolts on the legs nut on the bath started doing bolts up only stopped when i heard the enamel on the bath splintering

 

[WHPES]

I have had a lot of (genuine) mouse and rat damage to repair over the last 18 months in particular. They seem to attack John Guest pushfit fittings most.

 

[WHPES]

A customer's previous plumber had screwed the legs onto an acrylic bath with too long screws, then filled the holes with silicone.

 

[herbert]

my first mistake was changing radiator valves on 3 radiators turned them all off and on 1 at a time and as i opened the valve the gland nut unscrewed aswell.. water to the ceiling!! .. learnt to check every one i fit.. you would expect them to be tight from the factory but this wasn't

 

[PlumbBobBob]

i fitted a new ball cock in a cwst without checking that it was tight at the joins. got a call back that there was water *issing out of the overflow. when i got back up in the loft and took the lid off the cistern water was *issing out of the union at the front, when i took it off i found it was only just tighter than hand tight1 i now check everyone i fit with pump pliers and a set of adjustables.