Wouldn't want to be in his shoes.

[Millsy 82]

I got a phone call yesterday the bloke sounding quite sheepish "I have tried to fit my bathroom suite and the pipes are too long and I don't feel comfortable doing it" I said "yes I can be out in the morning to have a look then I can give you a rough idea on price".

So I get out this morning and his wife is there nice and happy and joking about her husband, I got given an A4 sheet with a list of things that need doing so I go up and look at it. More than just a few pipes need cutting back so work out a rough price.

As soon as I said it's about a days work the smile got smaller and then I said it will be between £250-300 the smile vanished and she said "oh that's a bit more than we expected, he said he could do it the idiot!"

I chuckled all the way back to the merchants thinking she is going to kill him later.

 

[SimonG]

Love jobs like that.

Had a bloke phone me at about 3.30 on a Friday afternoon. Cloakroom basin taps. He had been on since 9.00 that morning and flooded the house twice. I was just heading home, but took pity. Basin was hanging off the wall and water everywhere. 45 mins and job sorted just as his wife got in from work.

He was bricking it and she wasnt happy with the bill.

 

[T & H Plumbing]

Love DIY'ers

 

[WaterTight]

I actually hate those jobs because the second someone has had a crack at something themselves you don't know how hard it will be to put right. Fine if you're allowing loads of time for it and get a decent price accepted but when it's something small and you're busy you spend the whole job praying it won't become a bigger pig than you expected and set you back.

 

[SimonG]

When its a dig somebody out the poop its always expensive.

Where's Red Adair when you need him.

 

[rpm]

Same for me guys, nothing worse than finding a macerator in bits and a customer who can`t be clear what the problem was at the start. Remember one where the cistern was letting a little water run in to the pan > pump and they took it apart because they read on the internet that the membrane was the reason for the pump to kick in every hour.

 

[Best]

A plumber friend had a call years ago from, I think, the wife of a bloke who had tried to change his bath taps. Her husband had thought it would be simple enough, but it was the older type taps that were 1/2" or so longer - so the pipes were that bit too short! Think he had spent a couple of days at it & had slackened the feet of the cast iron bath to try & lower it & everything went wrong & no water in house & he was stressed out. On a serious point, the poor guy was having problem then with his nerves.
My friend said he arrived & just adjusted bath level & repiped, all in about an hour to the disbelief of the guys wife.
Just remembered another one - an elderly customer said his son had tried to do a new plumb for a washing machine, in the days when they were hot & cold supply.
He said his son had turned the hot feed-cyl stopcock on cwt off but had serious difficulty soldering a tee onto hot pipe because water kept running through the pipe. He hoped it would hold water.
Asked him did his son have the heating on at same time ?......:smile:

 

[josh]

Had to sort a wall hung pan other week that was leaking, rather than use a frame it had been hung on 2'' * 2'' with m12 stud put through it with a concealed cistern all tiled in, was a right job and was asking myself wtf am i doing here. Had to wedge the soil pipe and flush pipe with battern as obviously kept pushing back.

 

[Ermintrude]

My favourite was a painter. Nice enough bloke e type to logic. He did his own pipework... Filling was taking ages, utility room 150mm of water in! Ha ha looked for cause...... No inserts and collars missing. Fixed it. DHW poped. .... Under bath and ooh errrr no inserts. Friday afternoon TA tar. He told his wife to do one, as we left she let rip

 

[WaterTight]

The disbelief on the wife's face as you cruise in and out and sort something the bloke's spent 2 days off work trying to sort, that's the only good bit about those jobs. It's actually one of the unexpectedly good things I've found about the job. Makes you feel like a man. A filthy, half-broken, stressed-to-hell man who jumps at the sound of an automatic air freshner and is too scared to answer his phone of an evening - but a man nonetheless.