Ultimate DONT'S tips for plumbers

[Chalked]

Following on from the top tips thread. I will start off with a "don't do" that happened today.
dont sick your finger in the open end of a 25mm plasson mdpe socket to see if it's fully inserted!
one index finger stuck! Had to undo the outer ring with the free hand, then prize off the grip ring one the finger was released from the fitting. :49:

 

[snowhead]

Obviously no sleeve fitted to the finger?

 

[Dutchie79]

for any young apprentices out there:

don't be fooled by the left handed screw driver, or the MOT for the wheel barrow.

the lads sent the junior nearly a mile and a half with the wheel barrow to the builders yard and got him to book it in for the MOT service

hahahahahahha

 

[Dotty]

Mot for the wheelbarrow. ..

That's a new one!

 

[voivod]

Laddie up here was sent to shops ....asked for a 1/4 of fallopian tubes
was a post office FULL of pensioners...they were wetting themselves too

 

[Dutchie79]

hahahah

probably put him off Fallopian tubes for life

 

[Stanios]

Also tile benders dont exist. Was an unwilling victim of that joke

 

[Dutchie79]

I'm ashamed to say when I was 18 and a very very green new start off shore on an oil rig 40 miles off the coast of Shetland they had me walking around the rig asking various individuals did they know where the long weight was for the drill floor Greenie

after 4/5 hours of being told to hang around here whilst someone went to sort it, I came to the conclusion that everyone on the rigs were half wits !!! I think i might hold the rig record for the longest weight!!!!!!!!

stupid boy!!!!

 

[oz-plumber]

I bet all the blokes on the rig remember it too, as well as all the blokes on rigs for a couple of hundred miles around.

 

[oz-plumber]

I was an apprentice at the time, my boss asked me to sharpen all the spade bits for drilling timber.

Of course I knew how to do it, because I had seen him do it numerous times.

Anyway - sharpened them all and they looked fantastic - boss was even impressed.

I had sharpened them the opposite way - they just polished the timber but worked great when the drill was operated in reverse.

 

[WaterTight]

Don't let your apprentice within 500 miles of your freezing machine while in operation.

 

[Duker996]

Or don't turn your freezing machine off while freezing 35mm in an old vicarage, as your worried the pipe will burst.........like someone did on their first use of the machine many years ago!!!

 

[lame plumber]

dont pick your nose after using that finger to flux up a pipe!!

 

[Stanios]

dont pick your nose after using that finger to flux up a pipe!!

On that note dont use your flux covered hands when having a wee. Sore.

 

[townfanjon]

Not plumbing related , but years ago i stripped a car bonnet with nitromoors, just wiped my hands on a rag and went for a slash, jesus wept, i thought i was going to end up in hospital . I would have preferred it to have been flux .

 

[AMW]

On about ones for apprentice overheard an apprentice chippy asking for a skirting board ladder at builders merchants but best bit was the bloke on the counter was looking for it on the computer then he asked some else if it would be called something else as it wasn't on the system never seen so many people dying of laughter

 

[lame plumber]

seen a young sailor looking over the ships side to look for loose spur lashings or another sent to the laundry to look for seaman staynes best of all the youngsters wetting them selves coz a chief petty officer has just given them all their "bunk light bills" of several hundred pounds, as they keep leaving them on during the day.

 

[butlerps]

when I was an young naive apprentice, I was sent to the store room for a 'Long Weight'
I was there for over an hour while other guys were being served before the penny dropped!

 

[quality]

do not listen to other peoples pricing. up north may be one price but down south may be another.
you may be good at what you do, but not as quick as the next man, but then next man may do more than you and quicker but not as good

Do a proper job charge a proper price. simples

 

[julesverne]

Dont stick fingers in anything where you wouldnt stick your john thomas

 

[kay-jay]

never trust a custard!!

 

[oz-plumber]

If you start second guessing yourself about a job or how to do a job, stop and take a break and rethink your original thoughts.

Generally your original thoughts will be the right ones.

If not, your original thoughts cost you money.

 

[PhoenixServices]

Don't take on anything your not comfortable with, push yourself to learn but not too far.

 

[Stanios]

Want to do it live? Dont! Sods law the pipe youve just cut wont take any fittings. Time to call for help!

 

[Rickster123]

Always carry a bog roll in the van. That's saved my socks on more than one occasion.

 

[hammers4spanner]

Always carry a bog roll in the van. That's saved my socks on more than one occasion.

I was doing a boiler change few year ago and needed to curl one out , place was a bedsit for students and obviously no bog roll .

Used my socks , anyway finished boiler got it up and running left , next morning got call from landlord saying students have blocked toilet!!

Turned out blockage was my socks lol , ended getting paid to unblock my blockage KERCHING

 

[Rickster123]

I was doing a boiler change few year ago and needed to curl one out , place was a bedsit for students and obviously no bog roll .

Used my socks , anyway finished boiler got it up and running left , next morning got call from landlord saying students have blocked toilet!!

Turned out blockage was my socks lol , ended getting paid to unblock my blockage KERCHING

Hammers, you disgust me!

 

[drip-dry]

I was doing a boiler change few year ago and needed to curl one out , place was a bedsit for students and obviously no bog roll .

Used my socks , anyway finished boiler got it up and running left , next morning got call from landlord saying students have blocked toilet!!

Turned out blockage was my socks lol , ended getting paid to unblock my blockage KERCHING

I would of just put them back on.other Alf would not know as she says me feet stink like sh.t after a days graft a anyway...but pleased you socked it to them with a little bonus invoice

:82:

 

[Dannypipe]

What happened to the "top tips" thread. I remember it got deleted once before. Has it been deleted a second time?

Shame if it has.

 

[zzzjim]

................saved my socks on more than one occasion.

What a middle classed life I must have lived , Only heard of Sock alternative watching TV .
(aged over 50 ... Runny nose always have Kitchen roll / Hankercheif in pocket )
What cold feet , rather rip a shirt sleeve off !

 

[buckley plumb]

When the customer goes out and says help yourself to tea and coffee never use the milk from the tupperware jug.Never again when they come home and say o no you didn't use the milk in the container did you its breast milk for the baby :-(

 

[Rickster123]

When the customer goes out and says help yourself to tea and coffee never use the milk from the tupperware jug.Never again when they come home and say o no you didn't use the milk in the container did you its breast milk for the baby :-(

Aggghhhhhhh!! :willy_nilly:

 

[JCSPLUMBING]

I've been sent out when I was an apprentice looking for sky hooks.

 

[Geyser]

I've been sent out when I was an apprentice looking for sky hooks.

Find any? Getting quite rare these days!

 

[JCSPLUMBING]

No never did find the bloody things :dita:

 

[Geyser]

Don't blow down a pipe just after soldering it!! :001_icon16:

 

[ShaunCorbs]

I've been sent out when I was an apprentice looking for sky hooks.

now you know where to get them from Sky Hooks (Pack 2) - SHPK2

 

[plumben]

never turn an iso/service valve off without knowing where the main stop tap is first

 

[Ch4 plumbing]

If you use an air pump gun to unblock a basin ALWAYS use a damp rag to cover the overflow!!

 

[WaterTight]

never turn an iso/service valve off without knowing where the main stop tap is first

I do this all the time. I play the odds. I'd say 60% of the time - after it leaks - it will stop leaking when turned back on. In the other 40%: 30% you can find a main stop tap or isolate/bung further back. 5% it's leaking slowly enough to freeze. 5% you're screwed and need to leave them with a leak while the water board fixes the external stopcock.

 

[plumbandplumber]

A DON'T for customers - Don't be an arrogant arrs with your plumbers, etc. They may use your nice new washing machine to wash their dust sheets when you're out at work. :rofl:

 

[1Steven]

I still come across basins with hot and cold reversed. In care homes :furious3:

 

[plumbandplumber]

My brother owned a flat where the bath had hot and cold the right way around, but the basin next to it was wrong way around. The bathroom had been redone by the previous owner not long before my brother bought it.

No sense at all!

 

[Ermintrude]

Don't trust others when it comes to leccy. Load and supply commonly reversed on Spurs

Don't trust apprentice to prove its dead. Blew down a pump and got a jolt through eye

 

[Stanios]

Don't trust others when it comes to leccy. Load and supply commonly reversed on Spurs

Don't trust apprentice to prove its dead. Blew down a pump and got a jolt through eye

Make apprentice touch it first to make sure its safe

 

[JCSPLUMBING]

Don't trust others when it comes to leccy. Load and supply commonly reversed on Spurs

Don't trust apprentice to prove its dead. Blew down a pump and got a jolt through eye

It's funny you say that, when I was an apprentice I told my boss the live was off when he changed a 3 port valve. I only pulled out the fuse holder in the fused spur. It was still touching somehow and shot him down the stairs when he was about to remove the wiring. I have a habit of laughing when I'm nervous so he nearly beat the crap out of me as I was in stitches laughing.

 

[rpm]

Don't trust others when it comes to leccy. Load and supply commonly reversed on Spurs

Don't trust apprentice to prove its dead. Blew down a pump and got a jolt through eye

About 3yrs in working with sani`s I was taking one apart when it spat the dirty water out covering me in Brown water and I had the fuse in my pocket!

 

[Gary Lee]

i got sent to the shop for the customary tartan paint when i was a painter..... To my Boss and Uncles shock they actually stocked a paint made by a company called tartan..... £60 a gallon, so i got 2 and put it on the firms account.... They went ape**** LOL

 

[macackau]

Don't switch off the pipe freezer until you have actually made the pipe water tight! I may have done this in an office full of people. Fountain.

 

[rpm]

Don`t use one of these pump up pistol type unblockers on a shower or a bath waste. :13: