Plumbing basics:
- you only are responsible for what you work on. If her boiler is faulty, beyond venting air from the system, then I would ask to be paid more. You should have shut the boiler down yourself though - never let a customer do something like that (as you will be held responsible!)
- Always check the system first to see if it is working, and how the fault is.
- Charge more - it is always the bloody charity jobs which turn out nightmares! Used to do it myself - not anymore! Charge them to the max. I may have quoted £150 to replace a towel rad, as it could be an hour if you are lucky . . . 9 times out of ten you are not and you spend hours piddling around with the system trying to get it to work again . . .
NO charity work!!!
Some customer seem to think as soon as a plumber walks into their house, that they become responsible for every water appliance therein - wctch out for this!
In fact i remember a job where i was called in to replace a tiolet siphon to get it to flush. Told the customer that i was not happy with broken overflow and loose tiolet handle. I did do some (charity) work on the handle, and to cut a long story short, when the overflow pipe leaked all over the bathroom floor and through to the kitchen ceiling (like i told them it would day 1), I was duely blamed, and the chap became quite agressive demanding a refund. I then sent him a breakdown of my 'uncharitable' bill for all the extra work, plus the cost of a county court summons.
Didnt hear from him again!
In fact I will take before and after pictures, along with contracts on bigger jobs, but it is the small ones which trip you up!!
Good luck mate - Ps: go for the wet vac, its one of the best bits of kit I have!!!