I just spent 8 hours swapping a pedestal basin for a vanity unit basin.

[glenno1]

Had a few days like it.I have also found that from my experience i have found that if it goes wrong it tends to stay that way all day,then next day it goes great

 

[Bobleponge]

i had one of those about 3 weeks ago, 3 trips in the end to install a new close coupled cistern after the old one had broken. Fail. However it happens, and as was said up there ^^^^^ the customer is happy and will tell his friends, which is what counts. Got a call at 1040 this morning when I was out walking the dog, got home, got into van, drove to customer, spent less than 25 minutes in the house (of which 10 was drinking a coffee) and was home before midday with a big fat cheque in my pocket. If only every day was like today.

 

[jase158]

I know we cant always help it, but is there sometimes things we can do to help prevent such days.

the big one for me is Mcalpine traps, whenever I buy screwfix ones, i spend days trying to get them to seal, they seal and an hour later they leak, ahhhhh

 

[Guest123]

I know we cant always help it, but is there sometimes things we can do to help prevent such days.

the big one for me is Mcalpine traps, whenever I buy screwfix ones, i spend days trying to get them to seal, they seal and an hour later they leak, ahhhhh

Totally agree. Mcalpine seal first time, don't cross thread and can stand high water temps, while the Floplast ones leak, cross thread and CAN'T stand high water temps and the seals expand and leak. The worst ones are the shallow seal bath traps, the ones with the rodding eye (why they put that on I don't know) as the rodding eye leaks everytime unless horsed up tight.
Toolstation ones are worse. They don't have the coloured plastic ring before the rubber compression ring and I've stood and watched a pipe coming out of one after flushing out a full bath. Thank goodness, the bath panel wasn't on.

 

[WaterTight]

Well I'm obviously getting better. Because, four months on from my originally posting this thread, today I only spent 6.5 hours changing a vanity basin unit for another vanity basin unit.

Mind you, I did have help for a couple of hours.

 

[mfgs]

Dont worry about how long it took, worry about the end result. No point in bragging about doing it in 2 hours and it looks rough as a badgers arse, take your time and get it looking perfect the first time and you will have a happy customer.

 

[secret squirrel]

Fail.

Amateur :74:


Today, I had to re-light a pilot light for an old dear a good customer of mine, an hour later she called that it had gone out again, she tried turning up the thermostat to test it but it hadn't worked. Returned and it was still alight, she turned the thermostat up to 20 degrees.......

Second job, I had previously installed a new set of kitchen taps and turned (apparently) the o/s tap off via an isolator. Turned up, turned the o/s tap on and went to the hose, turned the nozzle and it worked!

M U P P E T S

 

[secret squirrel]

I find jobs are as never as easy as they look, if they are I'm very very pleasantly surprised.

Now if I think something will take a couple of hours I take sandwiches!

 

[Carl86]

Better to have a happy customer and a good end result, than a slap and dash with an unhappy one. No matter how long it takes you, you are paid for your knowlege and skill so as long as the jobs a good one thats what counts. Unforseen problems can always arrise, and im sure any customer would apreciate you working with these problems to get the job right first time, they tend to see an end product and pay more attention to the lovely bit of kit they have had fitted.

Ive never heard a customer praise a quick job as such, but they always mention a neat one when they have a lovely suite fitted or you have pulled them out of a sticky situation.

Another thing with plumbing, with alot of things in life.... You never stop learning theres always something that crops up that you have never seen before so it takes time to take it in so you dont balls anything up, sometimes we do have mishaps its human nature it's our mark up so we remember and hopefully don't repeat the same errors again.

 

[mountainman]

I would always try to strangle my oppo when he said 'we'll be done in another hour'.
Kiss of death in my experience.

 

[Dannypipe]

I would always try to strangle my oppo when he said 'we'll be done in another hour'.
Kiss of death in my experience.

True. Never say we're almost done. It's dangerous!

 

[WaterTight]

I actually did that today. I said I'll be another 45 minutes. I left an hour and 3/4 later.

 

[jase158]

Better to have a happy customer and a good end result, than a slap and dash with an unhappy one. No matter how long it takes you, you are paid for your knowlege and skill so as long as the jobs a good one thats what counts. Unforseen problems can always arrise, and im sure any customer would apreciate you working with these problems to get the job right first time, they tend to see an end product and pay more attention to the lovely bit of kit they have had fitted.

Ive never heard a customer praise a quick job as such, but they always mention a neat one when they have a lovely suite fitted or you have pulled them out of a sticky situation.

Another thing with plumbing, with alot of things in life.... You never stop learning theres always something that crops up that you have never seen before so it takes time to take it in so you dont balls anything up, sometimes we do have mishaps its human nature it's our mark up so we remember and hopefully don't repeat the same errors again.

Too true,

Doing job at moment and lever valves were leaking and the gate valve was working.
Never had that before, normally other way round.

Also the cylinder was blocked, I have tried pushing mains through the hot so many times and never worked once.

Today it worked, just goes to prove, no matter how good you are or how long you have been doing it, everyone gets problems.

but as said before, its what it lloks like at the end that matters.

 

[jase158]

Amateur :74:


Today, I had to re-light a pilot light for an old dear a good customer of mine, an hour later she called that it had gone out again, she tried turning up the thermostat to test it but it hadn't worked. Returned and it was still alight, she turned the thermostat up to 20 degrees.......

Second job, I had previously installed a new set of kitchen taps and turned (apparently) the o/s tap off via an isolator. Turned up, turned the o/s tap on and went to the hose, turned the nozzle and it worked!

M U P P E T S

Aren't you partly to blame for not checking the hose before you left and for not explaining to the customer how the thermostat works and having to go back to both for free?

 

[WaterTight]

If you're busy you forget to do at least one non-vital thing on every job.

Incidentally what was blocked on the cylinder? The cold feed?