I found myself needing to do some emergency plumbing at home this evening. I've got a small guest flat on my property which has been empty for about a year now. I went in there the other day and noticed the bathroom was very humid and there was some mildew type mould starting on the tops of the walls. I left the doors and windows open for a few days to air it out and cleaned the walls. It didn't seem to help though, this morning I went in there again and the humidity was still very high.
After some investigating I found a dripping leak on the pipework near the un-vented hot water cylinder. Thankfully the drip was landing in the catch tray under the cylinder but the water lying around was causing generally high humidity.
I'm going to be open cards here and say that 25 or so years ago when we bought the house I did the installation of the hot water cylinder so the leaking pipe will be one I installed. Anyway I turned off the water and partially drained the cylinder and removed the entire section of pipe between the leak and the cylinder itself. I remade the entire section with new copper pipe and conex fittings then reinstalled the new section into place.
Imagine my abstract depression when I restored the water pressure to discover I now had 4 small leaks instead of the one original large one. All the leaks were on the conex fittings and no amount of nipping them tighter helped with any of them. I drained the cylinder again and dismantled the new section on the workbench and reassembled it again using the manufacturers torque spec only to reinstall it again and find I now had 5 leaks instead of 4.
My question is what does this kind of negative outcome do to a human mind that's subjected to it day in and day out? I've always known that plumbers are as dodgy as they come and not to be trusted but today has turned my general mistrust of them into a feeling of sorrow and wanting to help them.
At least with electrical installation work, if you stick to recognised best practices you won't get leaks. Also even if you do get a leakage fault you can test for it long before restoring the power and when you fix it it isn't going to turn from one fault into 4 or 5.
After some investigating I found a dripping leak on the pipework near the un-vented hot water cylinder. Thankfully the drip was landing in the catch tray under the cylinder but the water lying around was causing generally high humidity.
I'm going to be open cards here and say that 25 or so years ago when we bought the house I did the installation of the hot water cylinder so the leaking pipe will be one I installed. Anyway I turned off the water and partially drained the cylinder and removed the entire section of pipe between the leak and the cylinder itself. I remade the entire section with new copper pipe and conex fittings then reinstalled the new section into place.
Imagine my abstract depression when I restored the water pressure to discover I now had 4 small leaks instead of the one original large one. All the leaks were on the conex fittings and no amount of nipping them tighter helped with any of them. I drained the cylinder again and dismantled the new section on the workbench and reassembled it again using the manufacturers torque spec only to reinstall it again and find I now had 5 leaks instead of 4.
My question is what does this kind of negative outcome do to a human mind that's subjected to it day in and day out? I've always known that plumbers are as dodgy as they come and not to be trusted but today has turned my general mistrust of them into a feeling of sorrow and wanting to help them.
At least with electrical installation work, if you stick to recognised best practices you won't get leaks. Also even if you do get a leakage fault you can test for it long before restoring the power and when you fix it it isn't going to turn from one fault into 4 or 5.
