Christmas Top10s

[Ivan]

A worthy goof. Which reminds me of another. I'd been re-jigging radiators downstairs - adding a new one in my porch and tidying the pipework to two adjoining rads in nearby rooms. I diligently removed the inner part of the draincock whilst I soldered to prevent the rubber from melting, but as you can guess forgot to refit it. I'd carefully retained the fluid that I'd drained out of the system, and so when it was done I went and poured it into the header tank. For some reason the level dropped quite quickly, and so I released the ball valve to allow it to refill. When it didn't show any signs of slowing I had a 'Think, Desp, think' moment and then it came to me - clear as day. I rushed downstairs to find about 10gallons of black water all over bathroom floor tiles. The colour didn't ever come out, so I eventually decided that ceramic tiles were a better option.

[lightfoot]

When I was a lad, serving me time with my old-man, we were working on a small development of new posh houses in South-West London. There had been a problem with a boiler in the show house - which had become very sooted-up and I was given the job of stripping it down and cleaning it.  I had removed the casings and stripped out the burners etc and was just about to start cleaning out the flue-ways etc - I hadn't realised that the balanced flue terminal had been removed, until there was a big gust of wind.....resulting in a thick cloud of greasy soot, all over me and the fancy fitted kitchen etc

I was frantically trying to clean-up the mess - but the more I touched the soot, the worse it got  When the old-man turned up and saw the mess I thought he was going to rip my limbs off ....but after a while he saw the funny side and sent me down the local corner shop (looking like something out of the Black & White Mistral Show) to get some packets of flash etc - I never did manage get all the soot stain out of the vinyl flooring....the best I could do was to doctor the cleaner bits to match

[StBarnabas]

I think Wookey may now have his PV system installed?

[sleepybubble]

I'd nominate sean for the neatest DIY solar PV install (now that his wonky ariel has gone)...... Frotter for being the person most like frotter.... Outtasight for the best solar pV install.... MR Gus for the most bizarre deals from Lidl.... Noels big porch is very pretty, but what it hides is stunning.

Id suggest a catagory for most outstanding renewables disaster... nominations to include frotters multiple blades of doom, Eleanors seagull of doom, Billi's turnip of disaster, Billi's exploding Hydro pipes, my own plastic pipe solar loop which bursts at the first whiff of decent weather, and my Turbine which lasted 28 hours.


Leading on from Desperates disaster story, honestly I truly feel for you.... flooding a cieling is always heart in the mouth type stuff.

I rerember a few years ago renovating a bathroom in a nice semi in a salubrious part of warwick. I had done first fit but not checked any of the fittings. The tilers had been in and the bathroom floor was ply'd and tiled etc. I turned on the water and had a gusher of a leak. Fortunately the joiners had just been replacing he ceilings of the room below, it had been boarded but not taped and skimmed yet. I managed to take down the relevent board on my own, tighten the loose fitting from below... I popped out and bought a new board and was struggling to refit it without braces when my missus turned up with my lunch and the baby in the car. I asked her to help me refit the p'board whilst she was there... this resulted in much cussing the baby waking up and screaming the street down in the back of her car, things were getting get heated when the posty wandered in and asked if we needed any help, the front door was wide open. Two minutes later p'board was up and it was all laughs and pats on the back.

All problems were covered up and customer would have never known. I lashed the soggy p'board to roof of van, and decided to slope off a bit early to hide the evidence. As I pulled out of the street the customers pulled in, we exchanged waves. When I got home the p'board was missing?!?
In my rush I hadn't hooked the tie down strap properly and it had blown off the van as I had left the customers drive and I didn't notice. It was left in the centre of the drive blocking their entry.
When they quizzed me about it the next day, as to why there was p'board on the drive and not in the skip, I had to fess up.
Naturally they didnt give a hoot, and thought it was all very jolly... but if they had been ther when the water was coming out of the brand new light fitting and they're brand new cieling was sagging they would have not been so jolly.

I would pressure test my own granny from that day to this now, rather then let water into pipes.

[desperate]

Hi sleepy good to see you back, you were lucky it fell of before you drove down thew road,

Another little gooflet this very morning.........

I havent sloshed the antifreeze in my system yet, so this morning I thought I must do it, so you remember those valves in the piccy of my HWCyl? well I thought I.ll drain the solar loop and measure the volume and then I can work out what 20% is. So connect up the sprayer tank as it is calibrated.............fills up, that 4 litres, fills up again 8 litres.........fills up again 12litres? blimey bit more than I thought. Stuff this I'll just bung it in a bucket, so hose pipe on and into a 20litre bucket................................fills up??? and again??? Hang on theres something funny going on here. By my reckoning the volume of the circuit should be 8-10 ish.........hmm is the coil perforated,?......... better put the kettle on. Drinking a cup of tea staring into the cupboard.........I am connected to the CYLINDER COLD FEED. remember those two 15mm gate valves? ooopps wrong one. I'm getting too old for all this

Desperate

[sleepybubble]

Hi sleepy good to see you back, you were lucky it fell of before you drove down thew road,

Another little gooflet this very morning.........

I havent sloshed the antifreeze in my system yet, so this morning I thought I must do it, so you remember those valves in the piccy of my HWCyl? well I thought I.ll drain the solar loop and measure the volume and then I can work out what 20% is. So connect up the sprayer tank as it is calibrated.............fills up, that 4 litres, fills up again 8 litres.........fills up again 12litres? blimey bit more than I thought. Stuff this I'll just bung it in a bucket, so hose pipe on and into a 20litre bucket................................fills up??? and again??? Hang on theres something funny going on here. By my reckoning the volume of the circuit should be 8-10 ish.........hmm is the coil perforated,?......... better put the kettle on. Drinking a cup of tea staring into the cupboard.........I am connected to the CYLINDER COLD FEED. remember those two 15mm gate valves? ooopps wrong one. I'm getting too old for all this

Desperate

hehehehe, I started reading this and immediately thought, I bet he left his filling loop connected and turned on.