# Electrician goes to the



## ILPlumber (Jun 17, 2008)

school of hard knocks. Just finished setting trim on a job with 16 Zurn sensor flush valves. They are powered by 3 remote transformers. 

The electrician wired them all up. Turned em on.....Nothing............

Oops he says, I got the polarity backwards. He switched it. Still no worky....

I get to reading the instructions. It says, do not reverse the polarity on these valves. Sensor damage will occur.

All the sensors are fried. $152.00 each for new sensors. $2432 oops.

I called the shop owner to inform him he would be getting a bill. It was a rather heated coversation to say the least. He came to the site and we had a rather heated screaming match. I very much enjoyed poking my index finger into his chest as we were discussing. I hadn't done that for many years.

He finally agreed to pony up. His employee was fired on the spot. New sensors are coming next day air. Crisis somewhat averted. 

Good times. good times...........


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## Phat Cat (Apr 1, 2009)

Matt said:


> school of hard knocks. Just finished setting trim on a job with 16 Zurn sensor flush valves. They are powered by 3 remote transformers.
> 
> The electrician wired them all up. Turned em on.....Nothing............
> 
> ...


Just great! You just experienced what I have been wanting to do. :yes:

Glad it all worked out. Sounds like the shop owner was an idiot - his employee is probably better off.


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## user2090 (Sep 26, 2009)

You big bully. Electricians are special people and should be treated as such. In other words..... :lol::lol::lol::lol::tt2::tt2::tt2::tt2:

I am in no way an electrician, and almost every-time I deal with one, they always seem to be looking down their nose at plumber so HA.

On another note, I suppose the electrician is eating the labor to replace them?

Hopefully, none of my electrician buddies every read this.


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## ToUtahNow (Jul 19, 2008)

You shouldn't have given him the satisfaction of both of you losing your cool. It's always more fun to be factual with a smile and watch them lose it.

Mark


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## ILPlumber (Jun 17, 2008)

While I do understand your point Mark, I must say I am driven to "win" probably to a fault. But, that's just how I'm wired. I react negatively when yelled at. 

I look at it as commanding respect, if not demanding it. As a contractor, if ya constantly turn the other cheek you will be beaten to a pulp. 

The construction world (as you know) is not all nicey nice all the time. These are the times I demand respect. If I didn't, I would just bottle it up to be let loose on some other un-suspecting individual over something trivial.

20 minutes later everybody was fine and moving forward. He got over the reality of his situation, I felt good for standing my ground (or maybe advancing my position):laughing:


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## SewerRatz (Apr 25, 2009)

Not saying you where wrong Matt, but the last guy that poked me in the chest got his arm broken in three places. Have to be careful about initiating psychical contact. You never know how a person is going to react. Hell I seen a guy get shot for flipping a bird at a guy that cut him off.


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## GREENPLUM (Jul 27, 2008)

SewerRatz said:


> Not saying you where wrong Matt, but the last guy that poked me in the chest got his arm broken in three places. Have to be careful about initiating psychical contact. You never know how a person is going to react. Hell I seen a guy get shot for flipping a bird at a guy that cut him off.


 
the guy matt was pokin was prolly 5-7 130 :whistling2:


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## ILPlumber (Jun 17, 2008)

GREENPLUM said:


> the guy matt was pokin was prolly 5-7 130 :whistling2:


I am brave but not stupid.....:laughing:


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## AKdaplumba (Jan 12, 2010)

SewerRatz said:


> Not saying you where wrong Matt, but the last guy that poked me in the chest got his arm broken in three places. Have to be careful about initiating psychical contact. You never know how a person is going to react. Hell I seen a guy get shot for flipping a bird at a guy that cut him off.


only in the states:whistling2:

I dont see why anyone would argue anything, the sparky messed up and fried everything, pay to fix it simple as that.


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## A Good Plumber (Jun 18, 2008)

I say, beat him like a school school teacher beats her student :laughing:


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## Ron (Jun 12, 2008)

It is funny how when something happens it is always blamed on the plumber, the plumber did it. Seems like a common practice day in and day out.


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## Plumber Jim (Jun 19, 2008)

Just curious, What was his argument? did he try to say all of them must be defective? lol If he was screaming at anyone it should have been his guy.


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## njoy plumbing (May 19, 2009)

What, plumbers the only ones that have to read instructions.:no:


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## ILPlumber (Jun 17, 2008)

Plumber Jim said:


> Just curious, What was his argument? did he try to say all of them must be defective? lol If he was screaming at anyone it should have been his guy.


 
Price.

Apparently he thought I was trying to screw him.


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## Phat Cat (Apr 1, 2009)

Matt said:


> Price.
> 
> Apparently he thought I was trying to screw him.


Were you? :whistling2:


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## Plumber Jim (Jun 19, 2008)

Matt said:


> Price.
> 
> Apparently he thought I was trying to screw him.


Ah, He didn't believe what the cost of those things are.


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## ILPlumber (Jun 17, 2008)

I sold em at cost. I felt sorry for him.


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## rex (Jun 13, 2008)

if someone ever touched me that way id beat the living sh!t out of them....no doubt

yelling and screaming is one thing but touch me and its over with...seriosuly who do you think you are?


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## Phat Cat (Apr 1, 2009)

Matt said:


> I sold em at cost. I felt sorry for him.


:thumbup:

It's called professional courtesy. Hopefully if one of your guys screw up one day someone will extend you the same generosity. At least one would hope.


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## GREENPLUM (Jul 27, 2008)

Matt said:


> I sold em at cost. I felt sorry for him.


 
Thats a very nice thing to do, even 10% markup would have been fair. 

did they find out why the zurn flush valves wouldnt work?


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## Leviathan (Mar 14, 2010)

Yeah, what was wrong with the zurns?

By the way, sparky has always looked down on us. Pulling wire is so much easier than dwv, I just never will get it.


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## Leviathan (Mar 14, 2010)

Oh....and, SR, about the guy poking your chest....arm broken three places.... hope we meet up at a trade show someday, I'll poke you in the chest for sure.


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## ILPlumber (Jun 17, 2008)

rex said:


> if someone ever touched me that way id beat the living sh!t out of them....no doubt
> 
> yelling and screaming is one thing but touch me and its over with...seriosuly who do you think you are?


 
Thank you. Another one of rex's greatest hits. Keep em coming. Riveting reading........

Who do I think I am? hmm.... I know who I am. I'm happy when I look in the mirror. 

Maybe you should talk with a professional. I'm not sure a BBS is the proper outlet for your issue with authority figures.


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## ILPlumber (Jun 17, 2008)

Leviathan said:


> Yeah, what was wrong with the zurns?
> 
> By the way, sparky has always looked down on us. Pulling wire is so much easier than dwv, I just never will get it.


Don't know exactly what happened to them When there is a line in the instructions warning against polarity reversal. If that happens, I assume bad things happen.


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## Protech (Sep 22, 2008)

Don't you know? We lowly plumbers are not worthy to be in the presence of these twisters of wire nuts and pullers of wire. What does it matter if we actually have to design the systems we build most of the time and they don't?

Brazing and soldering skills? Pft, They have to deal with tightening down all those compression couplings and lock rings. That sir is true skill and craftsmanship. Have you ever actually sat down and watched one strip cable? Truly mind boggling stuff.



Leviathan said:


> Yeah, what was wrong with the zurns?
> 
> By the way, sparky has always looked down on us. Pulling wire is so much easier than dwv, I just never will get it.


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## futz (Sep 17, 2009)

Matt said:


> Don't know exactly what happened to them When there is a line in the instructions warning against polarity reversal. If that happens, I assume bad things happen.


Zurn needs to fix that design. It's pure stupidity to design a circuit that toasts itself if someone on the job makes a simple little mistake like that. And you KNOW that mistake is going to be made real often. Maybe they just want to make a bunch of easy money off their customers?

All they need is a cheap polarity protection (idiot protection) diode in each unit. In quantity those would cost maybe ten cents each (I'm being very, very generous). Then when you wire it wrong it doesn't work. Correct the polarity and it does work. Simple.


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## gear junkie (Jun 20, 2008)

Leviathan said:


> Yeah, what was wrong with the zurns?
> 
> *By the way, sparky has always looked down on us. Pulling wire is so much easier than dwv, I just never will get it*.


Kinda off topic but since we're talking about electritions... I think the electrical field has gone down the same road that plumbing is currently following. Gone are the days of bending rigid and EMT but rather just running romex. Their trade is also losing the art just as ours is. I see a day when electrions and plumber don't even know what 1.414 is anymore.

Side drift over, back on subject.


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## breid1903 (Feb 8, 2009)

the square root of 2 out to 3 places. if you google square root of 2. nasa has a page out to a million places. also the ratio of the length of the hypotenuse to either leg of an isosceles triangle. several other things in geometry. i'm tired go look it up. also google 1.414 rms. breid..................:rockon:


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## gear junkie (Jun 20, 2008)

Thinking too hard about it. 1.414 is the constant to find the travel run when doing a 45 deg offset.


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## Farmtek (Feb 8, 2010)

16 zurn valves all shut because of a polarity issue .hmmm 
I geuss I'm not going to buy anymore Zurney


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## ILPlumber (Jun 17, 2008)

Farmtek said:


> 16 zurn valves all shut because of a polarity issue .hmmm
> I geuss I'm not going to buy anymore Zurney


 
Reading the instructions seems to be a simple task. If I wasn't so tired I would look up the other manufacturers instructions. I'm guessing they are similar.


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