Misstakes...?

[desrob]

we are all quick to say how good we are and to let others know what they need to know..but who among us have made the best blunder ,mistake,botch up etc........i'll start,i took a stat out of a vokera thinking it will be the same as the baxi i had done the day before,but to my horror it was not in a pocket it was in the live pipework,and you can quess what happened,needless to say i did not make the same mistake again and it took a while for my boss to see the funny side of it...WHAT YOURS.

 

[Resolute]

THese are brilliant!!Had plenty of injuries and plenty of cock ups. One of my best was when we had a contract to install a load of stop taps on an estate of flats that for some reason didnt have any for individual properties. Most of the outside mains taps were knackered so we had to freeze a lot of them. Froze up a 35mm pipe left it about 10 minutes or so, cut pipe, put on the fiitings needed, turned around to get spanners and boom... 35mm ice plug shoots 4m accross kitchen, never seen so much water in my life. tried to hold back water with my hands , no chance. 2 sparks run in, and fairplay to them, didnt stand there laughing but one drilled a hole through external wall and started bailing water out the window and the other wrapped a tea towel onto the end of a broom handle and jammed it in the pipe and between us we managed to stem the flow slighty. By this time there were about 5 people involved. Whilst we held the broom in place a big strapping polish lad got the fittings and stop tap assembled and ready to go on the pipe and on the count of 3 we let go of the broom and the polish lad rammed the fittings( there was a lot of polish swearing ) on whilst 2 people tightened it up. Luckily was ground floor flat. there was about 2 inches of water in every room, had to replace all flooring and redecorate some rooms. Everyone was drenched to the bone but we were laughing about it an hour later. Never known sparkys be so helpful!!

Fair play! However as much as we moan about other trades in my experience I've known plumbers, sparks, brickies, plasters etc all pull together when it's really needed - give each other **** all day but in an emergency will all bail each other out!

 

[WaterTight]

except the builders of course

they're down the bank with everyone's money

 

[tamz]

Here is a good one. Not so much a mistake as a learning experience.

I was an apprentice at the time and my tradesman and i were sent to change a 2" stopcock in a school. The stopcock was in a small basement boilerhouse. 2 big solid fuel boilers heating the place nice.
We had a look around outside but couldn't find the main valve so old Bill decides we'd do it live as it would be good experience for me. We shut it down and disconnected a bit pipework "to give us room to work".
He handed me the stilsons and told me to undo the valve. I had about a turn to go on it when it blew off hitting the far wall. 10 bar of pressure from a 2" pipe is a fair bit of water, believe me. He handed me the new valve and told me to open it up and get it on. Thing was because the old valve had blown off it had wasted the threads of the nut and it wouldn't catch.
I messed about with it for a bit until the water was a foot deep on the floor. Don't worry son just cut the old nut off, i'll go get a hacksaw. By the time he came back the water was up over my knees and running into the boilers putting them out. The place was like a turkish bath with the steam.
Billy sticks his head in and threw the hacksaw in my general direction because he couldn't see me for steam and "couldn't swim". Took me about 5 minutes to find it under the water then another minute or 2 to cut the pipe and get the new valve on.
I got it on and stopped the flow but the water was nearly up to my waist and i was like a drowned rat.
Well done son. Come out and have a ***! As we walked up the stairs the fire brigade came in the gates as someone had reported the place on fire. Here thats handy says Billy, Just in time to pump the place out :smile:
Nobody bothered too much. It was just one of those things that happen. Changed days!