Our day at work.........BAD DAY

[blu70devil]

Today we were changing out an Apollo Hydro Heat system and replacing it with a Heat Pump system in the attic of a 3 story house. We shut the water valve off to the unit, cut the lines and drained them. So far so good. After getting all the old material out of the attic I decided to go get the ODU done before it started raining. I started working on the ODU for approximately 25 minutes when I needed a tool that I had left up stairs in the 3rd story attic. When I got up to the top of the stairs I heard water and looked and sure enough the old apollo lines were just gushing out water all over this attic. I then ran downstairs and turned off the water valve that the electrician accidently turned back on while he was working next to the water heater. By this time there was water all the way down to the crawl space. Probably going to have to replace hardwood floors, sheetrock, and god knows what else. Needless to say I had a very bad day. Anyone else ever had this happen to them before????

[BobbyBJr]

Not exactly, but about 17 years ago we had a huge house with geothermals in the attic. The owner was in the attic looking for something that he needed to take on vacation or something and must have stepped on and cracked a pvc fitting. When he got back from his vacation, the pipe had broken completely and apparently had been pumping water into the attic for several days. I think the repair and clean up ran around $150,000.

Bobby

[Lifer]

I worked at a hampton inn and there we finished the building and started another job a marioit for same builder and when we were at the marioit the fire sprinklers ah a pipe rupshure and flood 4 floors at the ground floor it had gone to 12 units and to estimates were around 200,000.00 to replace goods.

[theslumlord]

I had a tennis ball get stuck in a roof drain (flat roof) during construction. Water was halfway up the parapets when it was discovered. Water was pouring down clear to the basement (wiping out all the new sheetrock that was installed). The roof was bowing severely under the weight and would have collapsed eventually.

[Shophound]

Oh man, that's rough. Exactly how did the electrician manage to "accidently" open a water valve? Was he installing an electric water heater and hoping to fill it up so it wouldn't be fired up dry?

I once lit off an RTU that I had installed a new heat exchanger into. Forgot about the protective oil coating on the exchanger. Smoked up the real estate office pretty good. I kept wondering what all that yelling was about down below!

Hindsight being 20/20, next time wire the water cutoff valve shut and slap a tag on it. Though instances like this are commonly referred to as Murphy's Law, my father-in-law prefers his label of the "Law of Contrariness". Just when you think nobody on God's green earth will touch that valve while you're out of range, somebody will!

[jiminator]

Shophound wrote: "I once lit off an RTU that I had installed a new heat exchanger into. Forgot about the protective oil coating on the exchanger. Smoked up the real estate office pretty good. I kept wondering what all that yelling was about down below!"

I've had the fire department come after the smoke detectors went off (I found out that the panel automatically calls the FD. It seems most do. DOH!) from that "Start-Up" smoke! I've also seen that smoke nearly kill a homeowners parakeet! Things were pretty tense for a while, Thank God the damned thing eventually "woke up"!

Hang tough!
Jim

[corny]

I had a pvc fitting crack on a water loop one time...I had to switch the in and out water lines on a water source heat pump. The loop was pvc...but had been there for 20 years. I hand tightened the mpt end of one of the flexible water lines into a slip by fpt adapter which broke about 12 hours later during the night... was on the job for at least an hour after the water was back on getting the unit started and checked out...no leaks.....it wasnt leaking at 10:00 that night according to the cleaning woman who cleaned up around the unit....anyhow.....2 story office building had the loop pouring glycol and water out of a 3/4 inch pvc line for 12 hours before it was discovered. I was on another job when work called and said I had a leak...I thought wet carpet....nuisance more than anything else...got to the building and half our office persons were there and then I saw the note on the door that the office building was closed due to water damage....I got sick pretty fast.

[beenthere]

7 story builing, boilers in mech room on roof, and a heat pipe breaks in the locked first floor rec room.

Took 2 weeks for all the air to work its way out.

[baldwinhvac]

Know the feeling. Worked maint. at a college, the contractor ran pvc lines to a water source hp in an extior wall. Had them to freeze at the unit hookup, no ball valve. began working the flexible lines and heard the ice start crunching. The water began to flow should have quit. Wanted one more bend and it snaped at the male adpt. Started spraying the office capped my hand on it and sat there for almost an hour till someone shut off the pump. Got lucky never done no damage other than pride and a cut on my hand where I was pushing so hard the line to cap it off.

[wormy]

Gas line feeding a meter broke off even with the assphault.
We took turns standing on the gas line
We were just outside the door to a shop where people were doing all kinds of welding.
Ended up cutting the handle off a brand new shovel and hammering into the pipe.
The pressure was so high, after a few minutes the sap was oozing up and bubbling out the end of the handle.
Don't know how many pounds of pressure it was, but it did feed a real big shop at a huge scrap yard. When it broke, the gas came screaming out.
Took the gas dept 3 hours just to find a place to shut the gas off.

[derrick1623]

putting in a 100 gal commercial water tank one afternoon, all 2" lines in and out, for 12 apts...

anyhow, went to do a start up, THOUGHT my joints were solid... filled the tank slowly as i watched for a leak... as soon as it got enough pressure behind it, my top connection popped apart, spraying 2"full of water EVERYWHERE in the bottom floor of this building.

i keep yelling to my helper at the time, "shut the damn thing off, shut up, shut off!"

*looking back now, good thing i didnt have it heating while it was filling up.

[7X]

Wow, Wormy - scary.

shophound - you mentioned tagging the valve. I tagged and even padlocked a three phase disconnect to an overhead crane I was working on in Connecticut. Went on break - came back to find someone had cut my padlock off because they really felt like they needed the crane. Wait a minute - hmmm... or else, naw - I don't think they disliked us maintenance people that much.

Was working in an attic in Phoenix on something totally unrelated to the water system. Looked down and saw one drop of water on an old galvanized pipe. Wiped it off and in a couple minutes it was back. Within 30 minutes water was spraying off the roof deck. Not my fault but had to replace a lot of pipe and there was no way I was going to convince them I was a victim of circumstance.

[berad]

Originally posted by jiminator
Shophound wrote: "I once lit off an RTU that I had installed a new heat exchanger into. Forgot about the protective oil coating on the exchanger. Smoked up the real estate office pretty good. I kept wondering what all that yelling was about down below!"

I've had the fire department come after the smoke detectors went off (I found out that the panel automatically calls the FD. It seems most do. DOH!) from that "Start-Up" smoke! I've also seen that smoke nearly kill a homeowners parakeet! Things were pretty tense for a while, Thank God the damned thing eventually "woke up"!

Hang tough!
Jim

Holy cow! I thought I was the only one. Evidently tropical birds are very sensitive to pretoleum smoke. I wiped out a big ole bird called a Greater Mullukin. It was a $3,000 bird. The insurance claim forms had to look pretty odd. I sure felt terrible. I thought the bird was cool. I had been talking toi it all day. It broke my heart.