# Made the big shop look like idiots again.



## OpenSights (Mar 23, 2015)

Saturday we left town at noon for a wedding. Went and did a couple of jobs in the morning, headed home with just enough time to shower and hit the road when a maintenance guy for one of my biggest customers calls. Main line was backing up in two btb units on the second floor. This building has crow nests.

“Sorry, I’d love to skip going to a wedding to help you out, but I’d also like to keep my manhood. Can’t do it tomorrow either, leaving town and won’t be home till very late.” So I gave him the number to the company I refer for jetting. They couldn’t make it till Tuesday! Meanwhile two units are flooding with sewage. So he called the big shop.

They couldn’t get it open and were going to come back out today. Texting with the maintenance guy, “naw, I’ll let them finish it.” Ok, we had a full day anyway.

So I’m getting ready this morning and he calls (he wasn’t on call last weekend, but runs the show) and says “Is there anyway you can make it out here today? They broke a toilet and I don’t want them back!”

You guessed it! They blew through the stool next door! Thankfully the broken toilet was in a vacant unit! The on call guy said his cable was all the way down the hall and flopping around in the living room. Lol! He also said the technician said, “Well, I’m not very good at this. I don’t normally do this kind of work.”

These are the guys who spend $20k+ a month in advertising.

First time in I skipped through, but made the drop the second time. Wipes. Wipes, grease and rotted underground are their issues there. 

I love making them look bad! Sadly it’s all too often.:vs_laugh:


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## Tango (Jan 13, 2018)

I love stories like this! Awesome!

Flopping snake down the hallway. Priceless!


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

You seem to be relishing and taking too much delight in someone else's mis-hap...…...:devil3:


The other man who broke the W/C probably got chewed out for that. Who knows, he may have even been fired for that screw-up.


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## OpenSights (Mar 23, 2015)

Tango said:


> I love stories like this! Awesome!
> 
> Flopping snake down the hallway. Priceless!


Don’t get me wrong, I’ve kinda done this many years ago myself. Old house made into six or seven units. The most slumlord company you can imagine! Vacant unit. Hide a key. Lav drain. Hit some resistance right away, broke through went 25’ with my drill, (1 1/4 galvanized) pulled it back to find grocery bags. F! Figure out how to get to the hall, knock on the door for ten minutes. Drunk/high chick opens the door. I introduce myself as the plumber working on the unit next door and need to check her bathroom. Without a word she walks away with a blank look on her face leaving the door open.

I go into her bathroom and it’s a murder scene of black sludge cable marks all over everything, and I mean EVERYTHING! Blew right through the trap! Told her I’d be back in a moment... she’s passed right out! Ran to the truck, grabbed a trap, replaced it, closed the door! 

Went back next door and made the drop. Didn’t clean her side. Probably didn’t even remember what happened! Since then I always look to see if the line is a tee, 90s down or washes the vent! Never heard a word!


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## Tango (Jan 13, 2018)

Holy crap, wow!


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## OpenSights (Mar 23, 2015)

Tommy plumber said:


> You seem to be relishing and taking too much delight in someone else's mis-hap...…...:devil3:
> 
> 
> The other man who broke the W/C probably got chewed out for that. Who knows, he may have even been fired for that screw-up.


Oh heck no! If my PMC refuses to pay the $400+ bill they’ll be in court! Just for service provided! Broken toilet is of no concern as is their employee. That’s just how they roll!


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## MACPLUMB777 (Jun 18, 2008)

OpenSights said:


> Don’t get me wrong, I’ve kinda done this many years ago myself. Old house made into six or seven units. The most slumlord company you can imagine! Vacant unit. Hide a key. Lav drain. Hit some resistance right away, broke through went 25’ with my drill, (1 1/4 galvanized) pulled it back to find grocery bags. F! Figure out how to get to the hall, knock on the door for ten minutes. Drunk/high chick opens the door. I introduce myself as the plumber working on the unit next door and need to check her bathroom. Without a word she walks away with a blank look on her face leaving the door open.
> 
> I go into her bathroom and it’s a murder scene of black sludge cable marks all over everything, and I mean EVERYTHING! Blew right through the trap! Told her I’d be back in a moment... she’s passed right out! Ran to the truck, grabbed a trap, replaced it, closed the door!
> 
> Went back next door and made the drop. Didn’t clean her side. Probably didn’t even remember what happened! Since then I always look to see if the line is a tee, 90s down or washes the vent! Never heard a word!


I had this happen several times in Apts, usually the Kitchen sink, got to when their was a back to back would remove the piping back to the wall so I could make sure that the snake went down instead of across the tee,


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## Greg755 (Sep 16, 2015)

> First time in I skipped through, but made the drop the second time.


Maybe if you were the first guy there it could have happened to you...

The only time I broke a toilet was once when I first start out... Ran from a clean-out UPstream so I could clean the line under the slab because I was to tired at the end of the day to pull the toilet or haul the 1500 up on the roof.... Unfortunately I didn't remember to measure the line from clean-out to the toilet... I just "ball parked it"

I learned the 1500 can be a real pain in the arse if your (me) a dumbarse.


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## OpenSights (Mar 23, 2015)

Greg755 said:


> Maybe if you were the first guy there it could have happened to you...
> 
> The only time I broke a toilet was once when I first start out... Ran from a clean-out UPstream so I could clean the line under the slab because I was to tired at the end of the day to pull the toilet or haul the 1500 up on the roof.... Unfortunately I didn't remember to measure the line from clean-out to the toilet... I just "ball parked it"
> 
> I learned the 1500 can be a real pain in the arse if your (me) a dumbarse.


I know how apartments are built, if I have any doubts I ask the maintenance guy. The one and only only time I broke a stool with my cable was at a national seafood restaurant chain that was plumbed wrong. Night call, pulled the ada stool in the men’s bathroom, cable came up in the stool next to me. They became a very good customer! 

That’s one account I’d like to get for myself, but I don’t eat there often, and there’s different managers now, so they wouldn’t know me. Probably a $7-9k per year account.


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## MACPLUMB777 (Jun 18, 2008)

I did a Apt main blockage on 2nd floor of Apt, went on roof and ran from 
roof vent,It came out the base 2nd floor toilet busted it all to "HELL" lol !

Co.paid for new toilet but I had to Install for free


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## OpenSights (Mar 23, 2015)

MACPLUMB777 said:


> I did a Apt main blockage on 2nd floor of Apt, went on roof and ran from
> roof vent,It came out the base 2nd floor toilet busted it all to "HELL" lol !
> 
> Co.paid for new toilet but I had to Install for free


Crows nest. That’s what we call it. Never heard of skipping through from above to a BTB, but never say never! I can see it happening, dumb un-luck! 

You were running a kink like I do, and caught just right.

Wrong?


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

I don't believe in jinxs but am still hesitant to say the only porcelain I have ever broken was when I was real new and let a gerber toilet down a little too quick.


That said I have had my 5/8" flopping around at least once. Came out of the top of a "sears" metal septic tank and flopped around in the yard and grabbed a plastic shopping bag from under the deck. When I pulled the snake back with some wipes and the bag I first thought ow, some dumbie flushed a bag of poopy wipes, this is why people need trashcans next to their toilets. Then I freaked out for a bit thinking maybe THIS WAS THE TRASH NEXT TO THE TOILET!! It wasn't. Boy I flew up the steps to the second floor to check the other bathrooms.


One of our guys who used to do the snaking pulled a wall hung toilet and ran the 1/2" through the tee and out the toilet on the other side. Luckily it was a nursing home with relatively sparse bathrooms made to handle dementia patients so it didn't do much that couldn't be wiped away. I tell you what, those 1950's wall hung american standards can take a literal whipping!


I was running my 5/8" back from the inlet once, it UNSCREWED THE CLEAN OUT!! The homeowners daughter was right there below it listening to see where the snake was going, luckily she had the where with all to back up out of the way when she saw it unscrew. 



That house was tough because the vertical 12' of 4" on that cleanout tee was filled with solids up to the second floor bathroom. I had to push the garden hose from the tank with a nozzle, unscrew the cap and guide it up the tee by hand, then spend like 30mins on my stomach washing down the solids a bit at a time. It was jam packed in there!






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