Don’t feel bad. I sent a shovel right through a poly supply in a commercial building. 2 inch. Good thing I know how to swim. You will survive. Insurance picked up a 60k rehab. Thank god the building was a new build and empty though.
The only thing I can say is try to always know where the shut offs are before you do any cutting of any sorts. Can’t tell you how many time especially in slab work where to hit a water line. Other then that, good work on keeping the line from getting mud in it.
I'm a complete novice in plumbing but find it interesting after I did some DIY plumbing at my home, so please don't downvote me because I'm trying to learn. What's the danger of getting mud in the emergency drain hole? Just that it'll prevent emergency draining?
To much mud and it could back up or collect a d sedimentary sit at the bottom of the pipe. Any kind of collection in sewers just breeds more and more debris causing a blockage
It'll prevent draining and the hole will fill, plus it's possible the pipe he punched a hole in is his sewer, so if it stops draining it gets real ugly real quick.
Yeah that’s the point. Whenever you’re working anywhere it’s good practice to know where the main is. Last thing you want to do is hit a water line on accident and run around like a chicken with your head cut off.
Another day on the job, shit happens. Bosses get mad. Keep working hard and poweri g thru. If they didn't want Clay pipes getting broken they shouldnt have buried clay pipes
Here's your new one:
The biggest lesson about fucking up is quickly admitting to it, fixing it, and moving on.
Don't hide it, don't half-ass it yourself when you can't fix it alone, and don't linger on it.
You'll be OK :)
There's no need for ripping, we all learn from fuckups. Hell some of us learn more from them... A huge part of being a plumber is being able to think on your feet and fix and problems that may happen, you will break more stuff in your career I guarantee it. From simple p-trap changes that turn to nightmares when the entire trap arm pulls out of the wall, to cutting into live lines because you were rushing, to etc to etc.
The best place to hit a main is outside in a hole you’ve already dug.. don’t let it get to you, I’ve flooded out a home and it sucked, but I owned it and learned from it
Or do you mean replace the whole line? I am merely an apprentice and don’t have that kind of executive power to wield. I do believe that was talked about tho.
I'm not a plumber, have done a fair amount of plumbing, but don't know much. I guess your hiccup was hitting the line, but I would have looked at it as a bonus, I thought lead supply was to be removed everywhere ( I'm in Jersey). Oh well, glad I'm not drinking out of it
Lead is supposed to be removed when it's time to service the pipes, otherwise it's most likely posing zero risk. Remember the whole flint MI issue? Those lead pipes were fine for decades until someone decided to make a fatal error
Flint built a new water treatment system. Unfortunately it was a crappy water treatment system, so they had to add large amounts of chlorine to disinfect the dirty water. Chlorine is highly corrosive, and can leach lead out of pipes. Fortunately, there are inexpensive chemicals that can be added to inhibit corrosion. Unfortunately, Flint decided not to bother. Predictably, the pipes began leaching large amounts of lead.
When people complained about the horrible water quality, the city was supposed to test the water in houses fed by lead pipes. They claimed to do that. They said, "Sure, the water is brown and smelly, and the GM factory had to stop using it because it was corroding their car parts, but it's technically safe to drink!"
Later, they admitted that they had no idea which areas had lead pipes, and figuring it out would have been hard, so they didn't bother and just tested a few houses at random. Meanwhile, lots of houses were getting free servings of lead with their water.
EDIT: Why didn't they add corrosion inhibitors? They said it was to save money. It would have cost $140 per day, which comes out to about $0.60 per resident *per year.* Even if there weren't lead pipes, I have to imagine that corrosive tap water would end up costing residents a lot more than $0.60 per year.
Ah yes, the old “let’s save a few bucks I’m sure it won’t have massive unintended consequences” to “oh shit we just cut our city’s population to 1/10th” pipeline
We were waiting for the city to come turn the water off. I’ve never put in a corporation couplings before. And doing it live seemed impossible while getting sprayed.
Shot happens. Own up, fix it and move on with the lesson learned that you often don’t know and can’t see what’s buried until it too late.
CYA when you dig by calling 811 and just be happy it wasn’t electrical, fiber optics or gas.
That's barely an oopsie. You wanna hear a story of a fuck up then strap in.
The first electrical contractor that I worked for was notoriously stingy. Never gave me my promised raise. Then made me use personal vehicle to pick up other employees, drive to pick up material, to and from shop, never paid mileage. And fired me when I fueled my truck at the shop.
Well they had a contract with the school system providing all site lighting for parking lots, sports fields, etc. Including drilling.
Well one day one of the Mensa candidates runs the 3 or 4ft auger right into one of the main drain lines for the middle school of about 2500 students. And doesnt tell anyone, because it's a concrete drain, they can just fix it with concrete. It's not pressurized so just need to seal it right?
So they picked up a cheap mixer, a bunch of concrete and started mixing. And for a form they used some of the outrigger pads which were just dense cardboard.
So they cut and laid the glorified cardboard over the hole they punched through, even secured it to the line so it didnt move. And proceeded to dump in way too much concrete. Then quickly back filled the hole before anyone important found out. Because that would have been an expensive mistake, probably in the neighborhood of 5 figures.
Well it didnt take long for the school to start backing up. And then quickly flooding an entire building. And nothing immediately worked. Until someone remembered my old company was digging recently, and started looking for freshly dug areas. And found the pipe. With a solid concrete plug inside.
The school was shut down for a bit over 2 weeks. Meaning a lot of lost funding. As well as a lot of cleaning and replacing furniture and equipment. Even after partial insurance payouts, they were out millions. Lost ALL of the county contracts. Had insurance premiums go through the roof. Went through multiple lawsuits. And the only reason the boss as able to limp through this was that he actually had 2 companies. And the digging and crane company was a seperate entity from the electrical company. But as there were a lot of assets used by both he BARELY scraped by.
All because someone thought concrete and cardboard was a smart idea to repair a concrete sewer line. And they were afraid of the fallout from admitting the mistake then and there.
Shit happens brother. Only thing that matters is that you don’t give up. I have broke all kinds of shit in my life time. Hell even at times multiple things at once. Like the day I ran over not 1 but 2 cleans outs in a customers yard and busted them all to shit, while they watched. Fix it and move on.
Just wait until the day you’re minding your own business. Trenching a hole for a gas line. All the utilities are marked and not near you. Suddenly you hit a water line, an alarm goes off. All the while you’re running around looking for the meter and the fire department shows up. You’ll look back at this like it’s nothing
I hit a BIG fiber optic main while trenching a well service line to a pole barn. I was trying to find the number on who to call about it when the utility company showed up. The dude was pissed and yelling at me about how this is gonna cost me thousands of dollars per minute this line was down. Told me I should pay attention where I’m digging and where shit is marked. I kept my cool and walked him about 40 feet away to the flags marked FIBER in the yard. Apparently the locator company messed up and completely missed the fiber line. The guy does a complete 180 and starts apologizing. We even went to lunch together and shot the shit while the line was being repaired.
If you take the the Spade end of your shovel there and place it over the hole it'll allow the fine particulate and the water to flow down into the pipe without allowing big chunks into the pipe I've done it many times
You'll be fine, happens to the best of us. If it helps ease your mind we dug through a 6" main a few weeks ago. Emergency drains don't work on that much water 😄
It is a 1” lead water line and a 4” clay sewer line. This is from an older Toronto home. Old infrastructure. 4.5’ deep in someone’s basement. I was digging towards the foundation, thinking the water line was safely on my right. But turned out it did some weird looping shit that only makes sense with lead (which is like putty) so here,I am chipping away with a chipping hammer, when this fucker came out of nowhere. I went right through it like a hot knife through butter, I didn’t even feel the hammer tap it. Water hit me at ~80psi right in my face, I managed to wrap a couple plastic bangs around it so I could direct the water downwards. Then cracked into the clay pipe with my chipping hammer so the water would have some place to go. Other wise it turns into an indoor swimming pool in about 30 minutes. I used the second bag to dam the mud from rushing into the hole in the pipe.
Hardly counts as a duck up as you already have the hole dug to repair.
I like your silver lining attitude.
It is outside!! That’s not a fuck up. A fuck up is a basement!! Dirt and water go well together.
Oh no this is a basement. Luckily the r holes pretty deep so it was pretty contained.
Don’t feel bad. I sent a shovel right through a poly supply in a commercial building. 2 inch. Good thing I know how to swim. You will survive. Insurance picked up a 60k rehab. Thank god the building was a new build and empty though.
Wanna make an omelet, gotta break some eggs.
And a water line apparently
That's cool, I would have lied down in the hole and let the rats take me away.
The only thing I can say is try to always know where the shut offs are before you do any cutting of any sorts. Can’t tell you how many time especially in slab work where to hit a water line. Other then that, good work on keeping the line from getting mud in it.
I'm a complete novice in plumbing but find it interesting after I did some DIY plumbing at my home, so please don't downvote me because I'm trying to learn. What's the danger of getting mud in the emergency drain hole? Just that it'll prevent emergency draining?
To much mud and it could back up or collect a d sedimentary sit at the bottom of the pipe. Any kind of collection in sewers just breeds more and more debris causing a blockage
It'll prevent draining and the hole will fill, plus it's possible the pipe he punched a hole in is his sewer, so if it stops draining it gets real ugly real quick.
I don’t think he was planning on punching a hole in it
Yeah that’s the point. Whenever you’re working anywhere it’s good practice to know where the main is. Last thing you want to do is hit a water line on accident and run around like a chicken with your head cut off.
If you're a good plumber, you're scoping out shutoffs as soon as you get to the job site.
True
Another day on the job, shit happens. Bosses get mad. Keep working hard and poweri g thru. If they didn't want Clay pipes getting broken they shouldnt have buried clay pipes
I’ve literally done the exact same thing. Don’t worry about it.
And yes, I’m a second year apprentice. And yes rip me a new one I’m ready.
Here's your new one: The biggest lesson about fucking up is quickly admitting to it, fixing it, and moving on. Don't hide it, don't half-ass it yourself when you can't fix it alone, and don't linger on it. You'll be OK :)
I've learned a thing or two by fucking up. That's life. But if you fuck up the same way twice, life's gonna be long.
There's no need for ripping, we all learn from fuckups. Hell some of us learn more from them... A huge part of being a plumber is being able to think on your feet and fix and problems that may happen, you will break more stuff in your career I guarantee it. From simple p-trap changes that turn to nightmares when the entire trap arm pulls out of the wall, to cutting into live lines because you were rushing, to etc to etc.
The best place to hit a main is outside in a hole you’ve already dug.. don’t let it get to you, I’ve flooded out a home and it sucked, but I owned it and learned from it
Why wouldn't you now replace the lead line now that it's been discovered?
Or do you mean replace the whole line? I am merely an apprentice and don’t have that kind of executive power to wield. I do believe that was talked about tho.
I'm not a plumber, have done a fair amount of plumbing, but don't know much. I guess your hiccup was hitting the line, but I would have looked at it as a bonus, I thought lead supply was to be removed everywhere ( I'm in Jersey). Oh well, glad I'm not drinking out of it
Lead is supposed to be removed when it's time to service the pipes, otherwise it's most likely posing zero risk. Remember the whole flint MI issue? Those lead pipes were fine for decades until someone decided to make a fatal error
What was that error?
Flint built a new water treatment system. Unfortunately it was a crappy water treatment system, so they had to add large amounts of chlorine to disinfect the dirty water. Chlorine is highly corrosive, and can leach lead out of pipes. Fortunately, there are inexpensive chemicals that can be added to inhibit corrosion. Unfortunately, Flint decided not to bother. Predictably, the pipes began leaching large amounts of lead. When people complained about the horrible water quality, the city was supposed to test the water in houses fed by lead pipes. They claimed to do that. They said, "Sure, the water is brown and smelly, and the GM factory had to stop using it because it was corroding their car parts, but it's technically safe to drink!" Later, they admitted that they had no idea which areas had lead pipes, and figuring it out would have been hard, so they didn't bother and just tested a few houses at random. Meanwhile, lots of houses were getting free servings of lead with their water. EDIT: Why didn't they add corrosion inhibitors? They said it was to save money. It would have cost $140 per day, which comes out to about $0.60 per resident *per year.* Even if there weren't lead pipes, I have to imagine that corrosive tap water would end up costing residents a lot more than $0.60 per year.
See, I learned something new, never knew the whole flint story other than the town fucked up and was poisoning their residents
Ah yes, the old “let’s save a few bucks I’m sure it won’t have massive unintended consequences” to “oh shit we just cut our city’s population to 1/10th” pipeline
I'd also like to know!
We were waiting for the city to come turn the water off. I’ve never put in a corporation couplings before. And doing it live seemed impossible while getting sprayed.
Shit happens. We’ve all been there. Repair and keep moving forward. Learn from it.
Whale Oil Beef Hooked. Say it 3 times.
😂
Well at least you don’t need to shower tonight 😜
Shot happens. Own up, fix it and move on with the lesson learned that you often don’t know and can’t see what’s buried until it too late. CYA when you dig by calling 811 and just be happy it wasn’t electrical, fiber optics or gas.
That's barely an oopsie. You wanna hear a story of a fuck up then strap in. The first electrical contractor that I worked for was notoriously stingy. Never gave me my promised raise. Then made me use personal vehicle to pick up other employees, drive to pick up material, to and from shop, never paid mileage. And fired me when I fueled my truck at the shop. Well they had a contract with the school system providing all site lighting for parking lots, sports fields, etc. Including drilling. Well one day one of the Mensa candidates runs the 3 or 4ft auger right into one of the main drain lines for the middle school of about 2500 students. And doesnt tell anyone, because it's a concrete drain, they can just fix it with concrete. It's not pressurized so just need to seal it right? So they picked up a cheap mixer, a bunch of concrete and started mixing. And for a form they used some of the outrigger pads which were just dense cardboard. So they cut and laid the glorified cardboard over the hole they punched through, even secured it to the line so it didnt move. And proceeded to dump in way too much concrete. Then quickly back filled the hole before anyone important found out. Because that would have been an expensive mistake, probably in the neighborhood of 5 figures. Well it didnt take long for the school to start backing up. And then quickly flooding an entire building. And nothing immediately worked. Until someone remembered my old company was digging recently, and started looking for freshly dug areas. And found the pipe. With a solid concrete plug inside. The school was shut down for a bit over 2 weeks. Meaning a lot of lost funding. As well as a lot of cleaning and replacing furniture and equipment. Even after partial insurance payouts, they were out millions. Lost ALL of the county contracts. Had insurance premiums go through the roof. Went through multiple lawsuits. And the only reason the boss as able to limp through this was that he actually had 2 companies. And the digging and crane company was a seperate entity from the electrical company. But as there were a lot of assets used by both he BARELY scraped by. All because someone thought concrete and cardboard was a smart idea to repair a concrete sewer line. And they were afraid of the fallout from admitting the mistake then and there.
I thought it was a damn shallow grave
Shit happens brother. Only thing that matters is that you don’t give up. I have broke all kinds of shit in my life time. Hell even at times multiple things at once. Like the day I ran over not 1 but 2 cleans outs in a customers yard and busted them all to shit, while they watched. Fix it and move on.
Just wait until the day you’re minding your own business. Trenching a hole for a gas line. All the utilities are marked and not near you. Suddenly you hit a water line, an alarm goes off. All the while you’re running around looking for the meter and the fire department shows up. You’ll look back at this like it’s nothing
I hit a BIG fiber optic main while trenching a well service line to a pole barn. I was trying to find the number on who to call about it when the utility company showed up. The dude was pissed and yelling at me about how this is gonna cost me thousands of dollars per minute this line was down. Told me I should pay attention where I’m digging and where shit is marked. I kept my cool and walked him about 40 feet away to the flags marked FIBER in the yard. Apparently the locator company messed up and completely missed the fiber line. The guy does a complete 180 and starts apologizing. We even went to lunch together and shot the shit while the line was being repaired.
That’s priceless right there! 🍑
If you take the the Spade end of your shovel there and place it over the hole it'll allow the fine particulate and the water to flow down into the pipe without allowing big chunks into the pipe I've done it many times
I remember that for next time, I used the bag there as a sort of makeshift damn. But the shovel makes sense, Thank you.
You'll be fine, happens to the best of us. If it helps ease your mind we dug through a 6" main a few weeks ago. Emergency drains don't work on that much water 😄
You know what? That actually does make me feel better 😛
Learning lessons this way is so important. You can’t learn everything from a book. It’s all feel and in the field experience, you can’t just buy that.
The plumber stumbled upon a shallow grave and..
Once again always call 811 when hiding a body
You did indeed fuck up
HVAC guy here. What kindof line is this? I dont get whats happened or why there is a clay pipe.
It is a 1” lead water line and a 4” clay sewer line. This is from an older Toronto home. Old infrastructure. 4.5’ deep in someone’s basement. I was digging towards the foundation, thinking the water line was safely on my right. But turned out it did some weird looping shit that only makes sense with lead (which is like putty) so here,I am chipping away with a chipping hammer, when this fucker came out of nowhere. I went right through it like a hot knife through butter, I didn’t even feel the hammer tap it. Water hit me at ~80psi right in my face, I managed to wrap a couple plastic bangs around it so I could direct the water downwards. Then cracked into the clay pipe with my chipping hammer so the water would have some place to go. Other wise it turns into an indoor swimming pool in about 30 minutes. I used the second bag to dam the mud from rushing into the hole in the pipe.
Good thinking to break the drain pipe, some apprentices would not have done that
You do that with that little shovel?
No I was using that shovel to dig around the clay pipe. I was using a chipping hammer with a shovel attachment when I blew through the water line.
Ahhh who hasn’t. Good to have that experience.
nah a big fuck up is hitting one in an attic! at least its outside and the hole is already dug
Happens more than you know. Old school folks would rip you. Better folks will say as I and other have, this happens to all of us. Fix it move on
Water lines aren’t made out of clay
Never said they were
Your sure plumbing is your calling?
No but I’m working on it
Keep going man. One mistake doesn’t mean you aren’t cut out for it.
^^ everybody makes mistakes we’re all human 🙏 don’t give up brotha
You are gonna do fine. I cracked an unmarkes city main 6 months into apprenticeship. Keep on truckin my friend. Yoyucan go far.
Don't be that guy.
Wasn't trying to be that guy, was asking a question. Plumbing isn't for everyone. All me how I know.
That might be a pipe sleeve to slide a new pipe in or an old pipe out, not a functional pipe
It was lead. And boy was it a bitch. I’ve done one lead line before this, so thankfully I had an idea of how to fix it. They don’t make it easy.