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Millsy 82

Plumbers Arms member
Plumber
Gas Engineer
Messages
4,352
My van always seems full but you can always guarantee that I dont have the bit that I need so end up driving to the merchants. It is always nice when you go to a job and it's a faulty 3 way valve you walk to the van and come back in with a new one the job is done within an hour and the customer is happy.

But sometimes i look at the bits in my van and think why do I carry all this for that 1 job every few months.

So what do you carry (not a full list dont think anyone has got time to go through everything in their vans)

Obviously I have all the usual 10/15/22/28 fittings end feed and compression I carry a lot of 1-1/4 solvent bits and over flow as the majority of my work is heating based.

What about spares? I carry a couple of gaskets Worcester, ideal, vaillant and an assortment of aavs and prvs then I always have a pump, 3 way valve, 2 port valve wired room stat etc etc but a lot of these are just sat on the van for months then I use them.

Same with traps I have an assortment of traps but they end up having the odd bit stolen off them then when I do need them I end up having to buy another. So do you hold traps, pan connectors etc? You can always guarantee if you take a bent pan connector you will need a space saver or if you take a straight you need an offset, which isn't a problem if your working 5-10 minutes from the merchants but if your 30 mins from the merchant it's a nightmare.
 
Morning Millsy,

I tend to keep flush and fill valve, a couple of pan connectors, some braided flexi hoses, 32mm & 40mm waste fittings, glue, plumbersmate, brass compression fittings etc.... the 2/3 port valves I'm not carrying with me neither the ch pump as I know in advance what my days look like. Definitely good practice is to keep so.e service stuff for various boilers.
 
Copper fittings , pipe , flexi hoses anything else i go get .

Never keep parts like 3 port valves.

Suppliers dont over stock as its expensive nor do i.

Besides i can charge another hour to go pick it up and have a cupppa whilst doing it
 
I cleared a lot of the stuff out yesterday. Because I had so much in there I could never find anything so ended up just going and buying more, I pulled 5 close coupled kits, 3 room stats, about 6 bottles of cleaner/inhibitor out of the van. 1 of the stats was from when I set myself up originally 5 years ago! I've now got a free shelf on my van!!!

When I used to work for a company I used to carry a couple of pumps a 3 way valve a Worcester fan etc etc but then I was doing 30-40 service/breakdowns a week so I would usually fit most of it within a month. Now I'm probably doing 30 service/breakdowns a month so the parts are sitting on the van for months on end.

Dont get me wrong its awesome when I walk in to a breakdown say your pump is shot and walk out an hour later with a happy customer and a bit more money in my pocket because I didnt have to go to the merchants. But I think I'm going to stop holding so much stock.
 

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