I thought about you when finishing up a 'quick' job today Jay.
Gets a call off a regular customer, she doesn't want to use her en-suite shower because the cowl behind one of the shower tails has come away from the aqua panel and water can get down the back of it.
It's 4:30, I'm about 5 miles from there, but I'm thinking 'bit of silicone to stick it back pays for a case of beer, a tenner of fuel and my chinese dinner for when I'm home in an hour', so sod it, I get there at about 4:45.
It's a bar mixer and the cowls are pretty flush to the wall but the whole shower is loose. I tell her I will have to whip the shower off silicone where the pipes come through the wall to seal it properly and maybe give the shower a bit more stability.
Well I take the shower off easily enough to find the fibre washers between them and the offset fixings are shot to bits. Not a problem, I have loads of washers. Not one of them would fit. It's a Triton with the little circular ridge on the plates that tighten up to the back fixings, they're a daft size and I think I've only ever seen them come in the bag with the offset fixings. Because it's now past 5 and I'm miles from home there's no indie plumbers merchants I can fall back on, so decide to try the sheds.
Goes to the local screwfix armed with the shower bar but they are out of 3/4'' washers except for some in a sealed 10 quid ''plumbers washer kit'' But I have no idea if any of them will be up to the job and they won't let me open them so bin them off and go to B and Poo. They don't label what the sizes are in their vacuum packed sets of washers, they just say 'assorted washers' - wtf is that about?
I go up to 'Abdul' at the bathrooms area helpdesk and explain to him, his first offer of help is to call over the plumbing expert. (I've not said I'm a plumber at this point) The 'expert' says the only way to sort the problem is to buy a new shower, I explain that I only need a couple of washers that are 3/4'', he starts telling me they phased out 3/4 inch anything in plumbing in the 70's and everything's metric now. It's at this point I let them know I'm a plumber, the 'expert' backed away (literally - he walked backwards away from me as if to concede, made me chortle to myself).
Abdul asked if I know what brand the shower is, it's a Triton, he said if there's an open triton mixer in the little locked compartments then he'll take it out and let me look at a new washer so I can size one up from the plumbing aisle that will fit.
There were no already-opened showers at all, so Abdul kind of accidentally opened a Triton bar mixer and said, 'oh I found one' Nice one Abdul! We got to the offset fixings and there were the washers all shiny and new. Takes them over to the plumbing aisle and matches them up nicely with some rubber ones. Job done.
Gets back to the customers house (about 6:30 now), silicones everything that needed sealing, put the cowls back on, tightens up the shower with the new washers, turns the water back on and one of them is pishing out so nip it up a bit and the whole offset fixing that comes out of the aquapanel turns with it so one end of the shower is now about 2 cm lower than the other. Any access to the offset thing is behind the cowl so off the wall it all comes again.
I told the customer that as this is the en-suite, I'll just cap the ends up and come back Monday afternoon, she's fine with that.
Sticks a couple of 3/4 brass caps with the shiny new wahers in them to seal it up, as I'm tightening, the one that moved earlier does a full 180 as I'm tightening it, god knows how (or if) it had held water previously, anyway I'm tightening it so no worries.
Everything tight and water back on, not a drop to be seen. It's about 7:30 now and I'm putting my tools away. The en-suite light turns the fan on so it's only when I turn the light out on my way out that it is quiet enough for me to hear the drip.
I stand still for a second and hear it again, then again. Anxiety started to niggle a bit at this point.
Goes with a torch (because the fan is too noisy when the light is on) to find the drip. It's definitely coming from the right hand shower feed. Must of been the loose fitting behind the aquapanelling that I had to tighten to get the cap tight enough. There's no access to that as it's behind the panelling. Aargghhhh!!!! Anxiety is feeling pretty bad at this point, it's something to 8 on a Friday night now and I have an unknown drip coming from the pain in the bum quick job I set out for over 3 hours ago.
I turn the water off and nip out for a vape, that's when I thought about you and what has been written in this thread. It helped me get perspective, so a few more blasts on the old e-cig and I go back in to give them the news.
'There's a drip somewhere behind your shower panel wall, I need to do a bit of chopping up to get at it and sort it out before I leave. This means I'll have to come back next week and possibly re-do the whole wall'
To my amazement and relief, she was fine with it. So chopped out some panelling to find a horrible bodge of kinked plastic pipe and unnecessary compression fittings.
Snipped the plastic back and popped a couple of JG stop ends on them, turned water back on, no drips, lovely jubbily.
Going back on Monday to put some copper in there and a proper bar shower back plate and some new panelling.
The customer actually said 'is that all?' when I told her how much it would be. Damn I hate it when I go in too cheap
