Plumbing nightmare

[steveER]

My personal plumbing nightmare began with a seemingly simple job - fix the hot tap on the gf's kitchen mixer.

I bought a pack of washers turned off the hot water from the tank and started to dismantle the tap. Soon had it all stripped down, reassembled and working like new. Beautiful job, oh I love DIY!

But wait, what's that tap-tap noise that I've only just registered? NO! the cold tap is leaking from the tail under the sink. did I mention no iso-valves?
Heaving a stubbon tap on a wobbly stainless sink had flexed the pipes too much - I found out later that the tail had split where it enters the tap body. I hastily wedged a saucepan under the drip (more like a trickle really) and went in search of a stop cock. Nothing under the sink, but by now the pan was full. Trying not to panic, I headed for the main tap in the front garden, hmm seems to be down a pipe filled with mud. Grab a nice spoon from the now distictly damp smelling kitchen and start digging until I hit something a bit more fibrous and woody about 8 inches down, kind of like a cork I thought. So I fetched a corkscrew and quickly had the hole unplugged. Now I'm up to my elbow digging out mud with my fingernails (good thing my arms are quite thin), and only just realised that I'm kneeling on some pretty fierce brambles - ouch! Turning off the tap as hard as I could, given my contorted position, things didn't feel right. Sure enough the kitchen tap was still working at full pressure. Glanced down at my knees to see dark red stains spreading on my (nearly new) jeans, wow there were a lot of berries on those brambles, at least it's not blood and I can scare the gf with it later. Right, I need one of those long reach stop cock keys to get some more purchase, I'll borrow my dad's one.

Twenty minutes later, and countless pints of water under the kitchen floorboards, I return with said key but only after having to listen to Pa bang on about how he tests his stop cock regularly (oh-er) and chucks used engine oil(!) over it to keep it pristeen. Some of us have got better things to do... So eventually, I'm back to the tap with a bit more leverage and it takes surpringly little effort to completely strip the thread, now it just goes round and round and the hole begins to fill with muddy water (it feels like my pants are about to do much the same). My only option now is to call out the water board for an emergency repair. While I'm waiting, I keep bailing out the under-sink cupboard and start clearing out some of the soggy items. Hello, what's this tap at the back?

Panic over, the tap turns off all the kitchen cold water (gf not happy as she can't use the washing machine but I tell her it would have been much worse if I turned the whole house off - no toilet or bath for her or the kids. Na, we'd all move in with you she replied.). Water board come round later, very officiously adding insult to injury "we have to serve an order on you as you have a leaky stop cock which you must get repaired". Then they offer to repair it free of charge. They also show me how to use the nice new plastic quarter-turn tap which was outside in the pavement.

I think I'll hold off doing the bathroom tap for a bit longer.

 

[marshman]

They also show me how to use the nice new plastic quarter-turn tap which was outside in the pavement.

 

[wotan]

Brilliant first post, very amusing.

 

[conny]

Guy from the water board came to our works last year to repair a leak at the underground meter. Goes outside the fence and gives a quarter turn of the stop cock in the pavement, leaves the lid up and as he comes back round the fence a guy on a bike goes past.
Crash, bang wallop! Poor guy has only hit the lid and gone over the handlebars! Threatened our firm with legal action till I pointed out it was the water boards responsibility not ours. Said he was going to sue them instead. Don't know if he did but we didn't hear anything more.
Guy goes back to trying to stop the small leak and when I pointed out it still appeared to be on he assured me that was just back pressure from the factory and would soon stop. He couldn't get the leak to stop by tightening the joint so decided he had to split it and fit a new olive and nut.
Now bear in mind he works for the water board, (United Utilities to be exact), and is supposed to be used to working on pipes.

"Have you got a bigger shifter I can borrow mate?"
"Yes, I'll go and get it." I said.
Trots off and comes back with a large shifting spanner.
"Hmm, have you got a big set of stilsons as well?"
"Yes, hang on."
"Oh wait a minute, haven't got any 22mm olives by any chance?"
"No mate, we do electric motors not plumbing."
"Any ptfe tape then?"
"Yeah, how many rolls do you want?"
"Oh just one will be fine, cheers." (He missed my sarcasm, )
Comes back and he was just making the final turn on the nut when,

WOOSH!

We had our own fountain in the car park!

It wasn't a quarter turn stop cock as he had thought but a screw type that had to be turned fully off!

And he was supposed to be a professional!
Ye Gods!

 

[GRC]

Guy from the water board came to our works last year to repair a leak at the underground meter. Goes outside the fence and gives a quarter turn of the stop cock in the pavement, leaves the lid up and as he comes back round the fence a guy on a bike goes past.
Crash, bang wallop! Poor guy has only hit the lid and gone over the handlebars!

Shouldn't have been cycling on the pavement then, should he?

There's a reason we call it a FOOTpath and the Yanks call it a sideWALK ....

 

[conny]

Have you ever ridden a bike on a main road in a busy city?

I was once stopped by a policeman who got out of his car to ask why I was riding on the pavement, (it was a wide pavement running between 2 grass verges so there was no danger of someone stepping out infront of me unexpectedly).
Just as he finished asking me a car swerved to miss his car, which was parked on the inside lane of a 3 lane 'A' class road and had its blue lights flashing, in swerving to miss it promptly scraped down the full length of the offside of his car destroying the whole body work and ripping off his mirror and smashing both front and rear light sets.
"Thats why."
I replied.
"I don't blame you mate, take care." he said before jumping in his car and chasing after the offender.
The bloke came to his senses and stopped a few hundred yards up the road and they were both examining the damage as I rode past, still on the pavement.

 

[dreadnoughtheating]

I like the original post too - written in the style of the 'feeling of urgency' that all plumbers get (tell me I am not alone) when things do not go quite right....

10minutes and a cup of tea later when the dust-sheets have mopped up the, ahem, "small escape of water" it all seems to have been, well. more than ten minutes.....

DH

Honestly, Steve, disturbing one joint that has been 'hanging in there' for ages is an occupational hazard.

Now, just ask how me how much it cost me to find a cracked base to a £1.20 plastic kitchen measuring jug. (once it had been filled with mega powerful chlorination fluid, and walked down a carpeted corridor in a public building......)

 

[DarrenThomas]

Shouldn't have been cycling on the pavement then, should he?

There's a reason we call it a FOOTpath and the Yanks call it a sideWALK ....

And when its a child? It would still have gone over the bars and I'd think EVERYONE agrees that children shouldn't be in the road on their bikes regardless of the letter of the law.

 

[TimberWindows]

Hahaha, some funny DIY tales there!

Plumbing is definitely one of my weaker points, I often have to hang my head in shame and call in the professionals.

 

[Donkmeister]

Have you ever ridden a bike on a main road in a busy city?

Yes, central London in fact, and I only got knocked off two or three times a year on average. After the third time you get used to it (seriously, I'm not joking!) provided you don't hit a lorry/van/ambulance. Then you generally need surgery.

Love the original post, well written and there's nothing like an "Oh c**p" moment to spoil a weekend's DIY!

 

[rojaca]

You'll never be as alert in normal life as you are during those 'oh cr4p' moments.
Unfortunatley it's usually accompanied by a rising wave of nausea and blinding panic

 

[cantab]

Maybe the reason cycling on the pavement is illegal is so people can't sue when they inevitably hit something.

If you must ride on the pavement, be sensible. Don't come bombing down a hill at full speed like someone once did; I'd just stepped off a bus and this guy rockets past missing me by what sure seemed like not a lot.

 

[ColJack]

it doesn't censor the word crap guys, so don't bother changing it..

 

[simon2spanners]

LOL, cant follow the original writer but suppose my story belongs here....

Changing a down stairs rad the other day so had the what I thought was the whole system drained down. To be sure it had been draining all morning until the drips stopped, so I changed the filler loop as it was leaking. Uh hu, it's empty.
The rad was in a spot where a previous owner had run the pipe work in ready so I removed the TRV. There was a brief moment of 'do i put the valve back in place?' but it quickly stopped coming. Fine, its just right at the bottom of the system, must be finished.

I readied the solder and began getting ready to cut the pipe (the existing pipe work is not right to the new rad) when the missus runs the cold tap in the kitchen........separate system, cant cause me any problems....but whats that gurgling noise? seems to be coming from the upright 90 degree return aiming up at me, more gurgling, then strangely the water level in the brimming pipe drops...it all goes quiet and woosh, I am wearing an upstairs rads worth of mankie old black water that seemed to have released at the moment my wife hits the downstairs tap.
We recommence tomorrow at dawn and I am ready to open all bleeders before opening anything else!

 

[WabbitPoo]

Shouldn't have been cycling on the pavement then, should he?

There's a reason we call it a FOOTpath and the Yanks call it a sideWALK ....

And when its a child? It would still have gone over the bars and I'd think EVERYONE agrees that children shouldn't be in the road on their bikes regardless of the letter of the law.

Do they?