My first Mistake what was yours

[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.

 

[davidsr2]

Emptying trap into the sink.... check.

Not nipping up a compression fitting.... check.

Foot through ceiling..... check.

Forgetting to shut off a drain off valve and wondering why the pressure isn't going up when refilling.... check

Learning from your mistakes..... priceless!!

 

[Bernie2]

I have forgotten how many times I have taken a sink trap off and poured the trap water down the same sink and soaked everywhere including me. Still do it. I remember going to a job once and spending hours bending the pipework to get it to go into a tee piece, to be told that if I turned the tee another way I could have done it using half the pipe and virtually no time at all. Talk about feeling a plant pot!!!

Seems I learnt most of what I know from mistakes I have made.

It took me yonks to learn that the screw, drill bit and plug must all match to get a proper fixing.

Mind you as you get older you tend to remember what went wrong last time you did it and so try to avoid making the same mistake, also you learn to allow for things going wrong in your time estimates.

The thing is, as you get older still, you start to forget or some of us do and back you go to start all over again. Hee! Hee!

 

[Mr Mobius]

I remember core drilling the ground outside to fit a condensate pot from the boiler. It was in a drive way between 2 semi detached. Heard a massive hiss and a smell of gas... I core drilled through the gas mains... The lady came back at tea time to see 4 transco vans, a bob cat and half her drive missing... I tried to calm the lady down and asked if she had had a good day, would she like a cup of tea....

Luckily I had my college books with me and I highlighted that the pipe was way closer to the surface than it should be according to this diagramm here.... Needless to say I was not given a massive bill.

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I also recall taking over a task with my old boss where we was moving a cooker in the kitchen. The old pipework was to be chased in the wall etc... I ASSUMED he had turned the gas off as he was just about to sweat an elbow joint off to reposion the new pipework... As I started to sweat the joint with my torch and a set of grips all of a sudden the pipework was on fire..... He had not turned the Gas off... I had also not checked that it was turned off....

Luckily it was a freshly plastered wall... I will say I was suprised at how tame the fire was. I understand now you need the right mix of air and gas for a serious spectacle.. but none the less I expected more...

 

[GQuigley67]

meter should have been disconnected and capped to prevent that although I know not everyone does this

 

[oldplumber]

Becoming a plumber. End of