# Biggest mess.



## service guy (Jun 26, 2008)

A thread like this was started on the Ridgid forum, but it never took off.

so the question is:
*What was the biggest mess you ever made on the job and what did it take to clean it up?*


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## service guy (Jun 26, 2008)

I'll start:
Alright , this one is not mine personally but its close. The first shop I worked in and learned the trade there was a great shop in Long island, New York, one of the techs there had over 20 years experience and he was one of the best plumbers I ever met. He told me a story he called the "Poseidon Adventures". He and the boss man went on a call in Riverhead, a public building had a major sewer backup. These guys were used to doing 'country plumbing' drain calls (mostly septic tanks) so they proceeded to open a cleanout in the basement, they forgot that this was not a septic tank, it was a city sewer connection....*it turns out the entire public sewer was blocked in the street and they neglected to check the man-hole before they opened the cleanout....*

The floods of Noah came flying out of that cleanout! They ran out of the room and tried to hold the door against the onslaught of raw sewage...it didn't help, the sewage rushed down the stairs and flooded the entire first floor. I don't know how they managed to clean it all up, but that story will live on in that shop for eternity.


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## 22rifle (Jun 14, 2008)

When I was young I once tracked tar from the roof across the carpet of a new multi-million dollar home.

The GC was FURIOUS! I hired a professional carpet cleaning company to come out and they cleaned it right out. Cost me $150.

The GC got back, walked in and the spots were gone. He was floored. He told me he expected me to leave and never come back. The thought never crossed my mind. 

Explaining it to my boss was no fun but he was good about it.


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## Bill (Jun 17, 2008)

I had a man working with me. We had to replace the main under this house. I did not want to carry a bunch of stuff under the house, so after we pulled the toilet and cut out the rotted place there was enough room to pass fittings and small joints of pipe through the hole. My helper had primed the fittings and pipe ends before passing them down the hole to me. We finished up, I came in and replaced the plywood around the toilet. Installed the new toilet, cleaned up and left. Well just as I was pulling out I noticed this funny spot on the side of the house. I stopped and walked over. It was purple primer! It was all over the white vinyl siding! He said he stuck the fittings and pipe out the window to prime them so he would not spill it on the floor. I had to replace the siding below the window at my expense.


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## ILPlumber (Jun 17, 2008)

We did a hospital shut down to cut a 10 x 10 x 8 tee in a main. Guys laid the fittings out and measured the cut out. shut it down and made the cut. Mated up the 10" tee on the 8" main. I ended up driving 200 miles for an 8" tee. From then on, I always remove the insulation and verify the pipe size before I even order fittings. Not really a mess. But a bonehead move none the less.


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## 3KP (Jun 19, 2008)

*New kid on the test*

I just got my plumbing license back in 2000 (Journeyman First then want got Contractors 4years later) A builder bought this house taht was drywalled but not finished. (original builder went bankrupt) We filled the lines up from the roof vent with a garden hose. (we capped every thing off and used the blow up plugs on the toilets to plug them off) We let the house sit over night went back the next day to check it. Everything held good! There was a new kid working with me and this other crew leader, went to the toilet flange on the second floor and let the air out of the blow plug. Water went every where. He ended up dropping a ceiling on the main floor. :furious: Now I can laugh about it. :jester::yes:


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## para1 (Jun 17, 2008)

:laughing: I'm still trying to get over the flood of noah.....PRICELESS:yes::yes:


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## user4 (Jun 12, 2008)

The worst was when I was still a first year apprentice, I was running the service truck for the shop and got a call to help take care of a problem on a new custom house the company was doing the plumbing for. I get there just in time to watch the fireman rolling up the hoses and pushing what was left of the walls into the basement to contain any possible embers. Turns out the journey man that was doing the job laid a lit torch down to go to the second floor to yell at the apprentice, and his torch started the place on fire bad enough it couldn't be contained. That one cost the company ninety grand.


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## Plumberman (Jul 7, 2008)

At a hospital down here.... They had a 6" cast iron main leaking in their basement. Line had rotted out.... Crack about 6 foot down the pipe. The line was about chest high sitting in the hangers. This main caught 7 floors of nothing but turds and love. Me and my helper set up pipe jacks underneath the pipe to catch the weight. I made the first cut with my rachet cutters. Some water poured out but it wasent too bad..... yet. Went to make the second cut and it crushed. I said s. I am fixing to have to cut this live sewer line with a grinder. About that time it seemed like every toliet on this main was flushed. I have never seen this much water fly out of a pipe. While I was grinding the pipe in half my help was standing wayyyy back as sewer splashed my face shield:laughing: I finally got the line cut. We set the new piece up and put the band-aids on. I was drenched in sewer by the time I made the last turn on my torque wrench.... smiling the whole time


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## Marlin (Aug 14, 2008)

My first month of working we were doing a gas conversion. I open the side door of a van and what falls out but the oiler. A gallon of oil and metal shavings spilled out onto a two week old asphalt driveway that's not yet sealed. I wiped it up, threw dirt on it. I called my boss and told him what happened. He sent me to get speedy dry and simple green. After two hours of scrubbing it you would still see the spot and the oil had eaten away at the asphalt which you could now easially press a screwdriver through.
I don't know what happand with it. The spot is still in the driveway so I don't know if my company just paid the homeowner whatever amount for the damage or if they just denied it.

I watched a homeowner flood his basement with sewage. Their was obviously pressure in the line so we were waiting for the town to verify it wasn't the sewer main (they get very angry if we lift a manhole cover here). He kept insisting we open it and just pump whatever came out into the road. After ten minutes or so he got brave, grabbed a hammer and knocked the fit all off himself. Fortuneatly for him it wasn't the main. He still wound up with twenty gallons or so of sewage in his basement to clean up.

I don't know if this one qualifies but we were doing a re-pipe in a house that had the copper stolen out of it. We ran the lines under a 4x6 beam supporting the house. The homeowner demands to know why we couldn't drill the beam for the new lines (the old ones apparently ran under it as well). We explain that the house is already badly settling because the beam isn't strong enough and further weakening it would be a bad idea. While on lunch we here a tool going in the basement. We come in after lunch and sure enough their are two 2.5" holes drilled right through the bottom half of that beam for us to run our two 3/4" lines through. We put the pipes through after making him sign a paper saying he had drilled the holes himself with his tools (he had his own angle drill and hole saw) after we explained to him why we couldn't do it. I don't think we've heard anything back from the guy so apparently it's still holding up.


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## para1 (Jun 17, 2008)

Jetting a line at a Home Depot (under building), completely drenched their break room with MUCK! Show the manager what happened and he says " don't worry about it I have a new guy that has developed a tardiness problem and when he gets here he will clean it up":thumbup:


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## Alan (Jun 18, 2008)

lol @ home depot. I guess thats their motto isn't it? You can do it and we can help?

:laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing:


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## nhmaster3015 (Aug 5, 2008)

Purple primer, white vinyl floor


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## GrumpyPlumber (Jun 12, 2008)

*Kid left PVC glue on his 6 footer, his tool bucket directly under it.*

*After lunch, he made the unfortunate discovery that he forgot to tighten the cap and some schmoe bumped into the ladder.*


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## Alan (Jun 18, 2008)

nhmaster3015 said:


> Purple primer, white vinyl floor


ewww, I did that once actually a couple months after I just started working. Luckily, it was the inside of the mechanical room for a huge apartment complex, so nobody cared.

Now I don't play with primer indoors unless i have 3 billion drop cloths at my disposal.


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## Plumbus (Aug 4, 2008)

Another hospital story. Was freezing and capping water lines in the crawl space betwenn the first and second floor. My rental freezing rig sleeve desided to fall apart while I had a plug formed on a hot water line, unfortunately while I was soldering on a cap. Plug blew and I'm crouching there trying not to get cooked by hospital temp hot water. Flooded two floors before they got the mai n shut off. GC and I figured we'd be worth about 5 cents when their lawers were done with us. While he was diverting the water down the hallway, one of the hospiital maintenance crew let slip that a similar incident occured about 2 months before. Close call. However, I'll never freeze a line again without a backup plan or two. First, sweating on an adapter and then screwing in a plug prevents a buildup of heat and pressure between the cap and freeze plug. Also, a wooden wedge fit to the size of the cut line and a hammer to drive it in is a good, if crude gackup.


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## Double-A (Aug 17, 2008)

I was called out to look at a vitolic joint that had let go on a new 4" water main at one of the hospitals. The GC was a friend and was upset that the mechanical company he hired had this type of problem.

They had to evacuate 4 floors of the hospital including two surgery wards. Talk about a damned mess.

When we dropped a plumb bob to check the alignment of the hangers and examined the unistrut for scratches and scaring from tightening, we found they had installed them almost 3" out of alignment over a 10' section. 

I don't think the manufacturer or ANSI approves of that much misalignment.

The good news is I bought two truck loads of tools and fittings for about 3 cents on the dollar when the crack heads went out of business.


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## user4 (Jun 12, 2008)

Double-A said:


> I was called out to look at a vitolic joint that had let go on a new 4" water main at one of the hospitals. The GC was a friend and was upset that the mechanical company he hired had this type of problem.
> 
> They had to evacuate 4 floors of the hospital including two surgery wards. Talk about a damned mess.
> 
> ...


You can also get leaks on Victaulic fittings from over-tightening the couplings, when they say forty five foot pounds they mean it.


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## Double-A (Aug 17, 2008)

The seal had come out of the saddle so we had no way of checking breaking torque or installed torque.


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## user4 (Jun 12, 2008)

Double-A said:


> The seal had come out of the saddle so we had no way of checking breaking torque or installed torque.


It was more for general knowledge, years ago I did the biggest liquor store in Illinois, the sprinkler fitters had a leak on a Victaulic coupling right above a $300,000.00 conveyor system, and Victaulic sent out a tech with a torque meter to check the coupling, they were cleared of the damage to the conveyor when it was learned the coupling was torqued to 90 pounds.


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## Ron (Jun 12, 2008)

While cleaning out a ks line through a roof vent, asked owner to watch the sink while I was up top, and turn it off it something overflows or starts, washer stand pipe was across the way from ks, carpet on floor, well HO was not even watching, washer SP overflowed on carpet, what a black mess that made, lucky I had a portable carpet cleaner at home, ran and got it, and cleaned it right up, it looked cleaner then what it was before it happened.


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## uaplumber (Jun 16, 2008)

I was working in the ceiling space of the newly finished basement of a home glueing together some ABS for a drain. Knocked my glue pot over and it fell onto the nice, new, grey carpet in the middle of the floor. I ate my time and materials on that one. The customer was good about it though, called and had me do some other work for them at a rental they owned. The carpet guy was able to cut out and patch the piece I ruined.


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## GerryinPA (Jan 4, 2010)

Similar to an earlier post....we set up our big drain machine at the trap under the stairs in the basement of a 3 story apartment house. We flipped a coin to see who had to run the cable....I won, and made trips to the truck while my partner cabled. Little did we know the main in the street was blocked below this building. On one trip I saw sewage flowing out of the man hole, so I sprinted down to the basement to stop my guy. When I hit the last step all hell broke loose under those steps....He came crawling out covered in doodoo! We put him in the back yard....hosed him down and he rode home in the back of the truck to clean up!

ah, the luck of a coin toss!

G.


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## Bollinger plumber (Apr 3, 2009)

Working on my bosses brothers house on good friday repiping copper water lines in basement. He didn't want us making big holes in the drywall ceiling. I had duct work and electrical lines in the way, I soldered a half inch coupling that I was sure went all the way in(it didn't) turned the water on no leaks so we left. The ho took off for easter week end when he came back sunday night he had 4 inches of water in the basement, ruined four or five computers he was working on. This was 30 yrs ago and still hearing about it.


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## LEAD INGOT (Jul 15, 2009)

Had a 4" econo plug let go out of the 1st floor WC on a 4 story apartment rehab. I wanted to use a glue cap, but the boss liked econo's. Had all 4 stories filled for testing and it let go right when my inspector walked in. Fortunatly it was on the side of the building the boss had capped. The bad part was there was a carpenter in there putting in backing for grab bars. He ran out wet and white.


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## RealLivePlumber (Jun 22, 2008)

Customer had a nasty sewer stoppage. Welled up out of the 1st floor wc. It was a bad one. (I think they had dog for dinner the night before:blink Someone flushed a bunch of paper towels. Everything was full. 

I cleared a sewer from the curb outside, and got through a tight spot under the porch. I watched it all go, from the curb trap. I was still kinda green, so I go into the basement and pulled the c/o cap from the back of the combo, to see if my cutter was all the way in. It was. Meanwhile, the ho comes down, and starts asking me all kinds of questions. I'm standing there, with the plug in my hand, back to the pipe. 

And then it happened.

Stack was still stopped. Well, it let loose and sure as s**t more made the 270 degree turn to come out the back of that combo, then went down the 45 degree branch of the wye. (shoulda seen that sidestep I performed)

I thought I was canned. I helped clean it up (stupid), and sheepishly told the boss what happened. He just laughed and said "yep, it'll happen. Next time don't pull the plug!"

We had a church we used to regularily clear the sewer in. The s.o.p. (standard operating procedure) was to pull a plug in the basement, dump a couple hundred gallons on the floor, and call the janitor when we were done!!:thumbsup:


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## drtyhands (Aug 16, 2008)

Your church...Could a guy put some type of valve on the waste now to capture it to dispose of after clearing the line in the future?
I know I'm not there so I'm missing something.


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## drtyhands (Aug 16, 2008)

I flooded the lobby of a 12 plex theater with an unsoldered 3/4" coupling when we were firing it up for the first time.Tile down and brass fixtures and panels in the T-bar 30' up no carpet yet.Dang 3" took forever to drain down.My fault
Three inch coupling popped at eighty lbs over theater #3,manufacturer at fault,ID out of spec. solder couldn't hold it together.That was a huge amount of water.
Control stop a helper never shut off,We put them all on without flush valves.
Three majors.Any one,maybe two in the group.But three made me look like a punk.
Looking back...I think I would have slowed down a little bit.


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## DUNBAR PLUMBING (Sep 11, 2008)

2nd floor kitchen sink clog that moved to the 1st floor vacant apartment.

Look like an explosion when the trap blew off the kitchen sink, black sewage all over the upper and lower cabinets, all heading into the wood floor in the dining room.


It was so bad that I just pulled a garden hose through the window and started spraying everything till it got clear. 


It needed a hazmat team. :yes:


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## RealLivePlumber (Jun 22, 2008)

drtyhands said:


> Your church...Could a guy put some type of valve on the waste now to capture it to dispose of after clearing the line in the future?
> I know I'm not there so I'm missing something.


It was only 2' deep where it left the building. We could have easily cut the asphalt, and installed a tyler tee. Or we could have pulled a wc on the first floor. I was just doing as I was ordered.


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## drtyhands (Aug 16, 2008)

RealLivePlumber said:


> It was only 2' deep where it left the building. We could have easily cut the asphalt, and installed a tyler tee. Or we could have pulled a wc on the first floor. I was just doing as I was ordered.


I'm not suggesting you are doing anything wrong.
Just asking.

I learn from others uncomfortable situations and their solutions.
In return I have no problem honestly sharing mine replacing the fault disguising blown out ego with truthfulness.
As you.


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## UnclogNH (Mar 28, 2009)

Biggest mess. Hmmmm OK. Jetting a frozen sewer full of paper and sludge. No place to catch the water. Clean out was only two inches off the basement floor. Only 4 feet of head room all rocky basement. Called a septic pumper in to clean up. Other than that I keep it clean. Those boot covers :furious: I hate those things slip going down stairs. Most customers say don't worry about them.


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