Diversity, or expanding out of simply one type of work was a big motivation as to why we offer the range of services we do as a business.
I've always steered well away from plumbing on a personal level, because I've never been trained to "do" plumbing/heating etc.
I know we all joke around that plumbers get it easy, but after the Saturday I just had.......
A good mate of mine wanted a radiator adding....we're both pretty handy with tools....how hard can it be, really? Checked the boiler rating, did all the sums, figured there's no reason why the system would suffer with an extra rad on it.
Route for the pipes......join under bathroom floor, through what used to be external wall, down wall, plumb into rad.
15 hours later.......after the third drain and reload of the system....we had hot radiators
There were several things that hit us.
Drilling out through said ex - external wall......hit a lintel, solid concrete......no, concrete full of rebar. Re think route......nope, door to one side, window to other...we literally have four foor of width in which to get pipe down.
Reconsider.....kitchen is getting done in next few months, and there's a boxing with the hot and cold for the kitchen in it.....problem....above, toilet sits right over that, and below, boxing is surrounded by tile and fixed units...also washing machine under counter.....no other rad we can look to pick up flow and return from without exposing pipes to external parts of the building.
Examine situation.....is lintel structural? Probably. But, what's it holding up.....this part of lintel is NOT over the door, or window, yet runs right across door, wall, window....
Having flattened four Bosch hammer batteries, decide to get old trusty out......plug in 110, load up the old rotary stop hammer I use for chasing.....remember how to put it back on rotary hammer, and set off again.....finally get a pilot hole through and make mental note to buy new 1m, 8mm SDS bit on Monday. Problem now, is we need 25mm or so to put a 22mm sleeve in, and a 15mm inside that.
Five metre long drill bits later......we finally have two 25mm-ish, almost round holes......and I am wondering if I should ever have qualified as capable of using ANY power tool at this point, since I can't recall the last time I had this kind of difficulty getting through a wall. Then realise.....had this been a punter's house, I'd probably have said "stuff it", and ripped the kitchen apart too.
So, route now ready, the fun begins....at around noon (we started at 8am).
Bit of copper pipe - can't be that difficult.....must be practically the same as steel conduit after all...... if only.
Soldering pipe....not at all like soldering cable. Leaky joints....all too possible - although, I soldered no less than twelve joints and only one leaked. The second time round - we dry fit all the pipe first time, looked really good, soldered up and had a cuppa, and it dawned on us we had flow going to return on the rad, and vice versa.....
YES I KNOW - SWAP THE RAD VALVES AROUND. No......we pulled everything out again, threw it all away, and started cutting pipe again (after a very pricey visit to B&mind your Q's.)......to get three quarters of the way through that, all the bending, and setting, and we figured we could have just swapped the damn valves.
Circa 6pm by now, two women in the house complaining their god given assets off at the mess, the lack of heat, the fact that we weren't about to sit down for food.....and the number of times they'd been summoned to kettle duty.
Finally got everything soldered up, rad on the wall, further cuppa.......refill system. Hang on...says my pal.....this tank is full, yet no water has been running through the system - thought it drained quick......turns out there was crap in that had blocked the pump. Cleaned all that out, let the system refill the bit it had to, and set the heating to call for heat (like it needed turning up as it was about 6 degrees in there!)......enter leaky joint.
Turn it all off, drain it down....this time draining nearly an hour. Figure out how to re-solder a previously soldered joint with one of those stupid, pathetic, stupid, silly damn butane torches.....burn hand forgetting copper is efficient transmitter of heat.....finally get pipe apart, then realise we're not going to get another in same tee.
Figure out we need to cut copper clean on all three sides, and couple with straight bits of copper, and re-do tee that way. AMATEURS!
Finally, done, we get to refilling system, fire it all up, and discover only two of the rads in the system have any heat. Fan-f********-tastic - this is about 10pm.
Bleed, fill, bleed, open valve, bleed, and on and on, trying to get each rad up in turn - I have still NO idea why that happened, but somewhere around 1am, we finally had all rads hot.
Moral of the story.........
By all means.....diversify into plumbing/heating etc.......but do the learning first - I mean the basics, like how to solder a pipe, set a bend, fill a damn heating system so it works...LOL!
I knew there was a reason, nearly thirty years ago, I became an electrician....and this only served to reinforce my gut instinct that if it has wires coming out of it, I can do it. If water runs in it.......get someone else in.
I have signed up to a basic plumbing course just to figure out where we went wrong and HOW to run, solder, joint, and deal with pipe and the flow of water in basic heating systems. And, TBH, I have no interest at all in running gas anywhere except away from my back passage and that isn't likely to change
I'm happy to say that Accord Fire & Security Ltd will NOT be doing plumbing, heating, or anything similar in the near (or far) future
