My first Mistake what was yours

[johnmess]

I started working for myself few months ago and been getting in work although not to regular yet. Done a couple of full bathroom replacment leaking taps and non flushing toilets.

So yesterday I was called to replace a couple of basin taps. Picked up the taps the customer wanted and started working. The old taps had been cemented in including cement around the nut.

My first mistake was breaking the sink my heart just about fell out of my behind. In trying to remove the old taps I had craked the sink I let the customer see what I had done and promtly left, got another sink after agreeing I would replace and install free of charge because of my mistake. Put the new sink and taps in no problems and left thinking every one was happy.

Gets a knock on the door this morning telling me there's water everywhere and the hot waters not working ( again heart out of my behind) I have never left behind a leaking joint and had inspected them before I left.

Gets to the house to find a tiny bit of water on the floor and found out the bottle trap has a tiny crack in it which is sepping water when the sink is used. The hot also works perfectly well so not sure where that came from.

Tells him he needs a new bottle trap which will cost under a fiver and I will fit it for free. He said no he will get another plumber in.

So there was my first mistake breaking the sink and second was not inspecting the old trap.

Its crazy how this job seemed to trun out so bad making me doubt my abilities.

So is anyone willing to share there first mistake.

 

[islandview]

I once went to fit a new shower valve and as i was doing it the shower kept dripping on my head. I decided to face it towards the door to stop it. When the job was done i went back to turn the water on but had left the shower on too so it was going all over the bathroomn floor and coming through the ceiling . I once fitted a new cloakroom basin for someone and decided the best place to put it together was in the kitchen. I put all the packageing on the tiled floor to work on but there was a small gap showing the corner of a tile. I put the basin straight on to that small area and bang went the basin. Luckily it was from b&q and they swapped it for another one free of charge. Ive also put an old toilet back after tiling the floor and cracked the cistern, i had only just started to turn the screw and it went. I think im just unlucky sometimes.

 

[Twinhawk]

I once went to fit a new shower valve and as i was doing it the shower kept dripping on my head. I decided to face it towards the door to stop it. When the job was done i went back to turn the water on but had left the shower on too so it was going all over the bathroomn floor and coming through the ceiling . I once fitted a new cloakroom basin for someone and decided the best place to put it together was in the kitchen. I put all the packageing on the tiled floor to work on but there was a small gap showing the corner of a tile. I put the basin straight on to that small area and bang went the basin. Luckily it was from b&q and they swapped it for another one free of charge. Ive also put an old toilet back after tiling the floor and cracked the cistern, i had only just started to turn the screw and it went. I think im just unlucky sometimes.

if im screwing them in and are stick for rubber washers i just start folding ptfe till its good and thick of wrap it round a penny washer then screw in, or just say to myself, f it SILICONE

 

[princegoose]

I fell into a 15000? litre oil tank in my first week as a plumber.

it was near empty, so it hurt.

 

[Reg Man]

Working in a care home 1979 as an apprentice plumber. Drilled through a wall in the kitchens. Liquid started coming out of the hole. Oh sxxt. Found out I had lost my bearings and drilled through a catering size tin of peaches in the kitchen store cupboard.

 

[Guest123]

As a first year apprentice, I was sent up the scaffold to paint the inside of the new gutters that we had fitted with bitumen paint. There were metres and metres of them and I was getting peed off painting them with a brush as it was taking me ages. Solution? I poured the tins of bitumen paint all along the lengths of guttering. Great I thought, but the paint just lay there half an inch thick all the way along and I knew that once I unblocked the outlets it was all going to run down the newly sand blasted walls as the downpipes weren't connected yet. In panic, I decided to dry the bitumen paint out quickly by setting it on fire! The flames ran for feckin miles and shot up the roof as the slaters hair felt caught fire too. Glasgow fire brigade had a very busy day that day. I got a bollocking but got let off lightly for being a daft boy who should have been under supervision. Oh the joys.....

 

[Bernie2]

Err! Learnt most of my job from the mistakes I made.

A wood beautician mate once said "You have not made a mistake if you can put it right!"

 

[WHPES]

When starting out years ago, drilled a hole in the wall for a WC overflow and drilled right through the soil stack. Fortunately it was for a relative who wasn't bothered provided I patched it up properly.

First mistake for a customer was when installing a set of sprinklers for a paint spray booth at a local auto repair shop. I installed 68 degree sprinklers (with the red bulb), but come Summer had them on the phone saying there was water everywhere. The sprinklers were under a skylight and the heat from the sun had broken the bulbs. Of course I should have fitted green ones (93 degrees C trigger)

The mistakes dont make any difference its knowing and learning how to give the bull to the customer its there fault. lol.

One guy (builder not plumber) who shall remain nameless I was working with on a job a few years back said he was called out to a flood from some pipework he did a few months previously. It was plastic pipe and one fitting hadn't been pushed home fully. He got out his file and filed away at the fitting, showed it to the customer and told them they needed to get some mouse traps down!

 

[GQuigley67]

One guy (builder not plumber) who shall remain nameless I was working with on a job a few years back said he was called out to a flood from some pipework he did a few months previously. It was plastic pipe and one fitting hadn't been pushed home fully. He got out his file and filed away at the fitting, showed it to the customer and told them they needed to get some mouse traps down!

think i'll use that excuse if it ever happens to me ha

 

[dontknowitall]

One of my trainers related a story of not sealing an old radiator. Took it downstairs and when he went back up there was a lovely black snake all the way over a new, white carpet.

 

[SafeGasInstall]

When starting out years ago, drilled a hole in the wall for a WC overflow and drilled right through the soil stack. Fortunately it was for a relative who wasn't bothered provided I patched it up properly.

First mistake for a customer was when installing a set of sprinklers for a paint spray booth at a local auto repair shop. I installed 68 degree sprinklers (with the red bulb), but come Summer had them on the phone saying there was water everywhere. The sprinklers were under a skylight and the heat from the sun had broken the bulbs. Of course I should have fitted green ones (93 degrees C trigger)

One guy (builder not plumber) who shall remain nameless I was working with on a job a few years back said he was called out to a flood from some pipework he did a few months previously. It was plastic pipe and one fitting hadn't been pushed home fully. He got out his file and filed away at the fitting, showed it to the customer and told them they needed to get some mouse traps down!

that is a good one

hungry mouses

 

[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

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

Becoming a plumber. End of

yep..........pig of a profession and all you wanna be youngsters we dont earn mega bucks and s**** our thanks for what we have to put up with

 

[GRUNT16V]

getting married !!!!!!!!! lol
just joking my first was fitting skirting and you guessed it i tapped a nail through a pipe !!!!!!! i felt a right tit !