Home Improvement → [Tools] Contractor Magazine - Plumbing & Heating Nightmares III

Part three of their head shaking series.
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Interesting collection of pictures.

I'm trying to figure out what's the problem with #4, the flex pipe picture. What am I missing? The others are pretty obvious horrors.

Hopefully these abominations are the result of DIYer and not pros taking shortcuts. In my experience DIY projects tend to be either better (informed and able to take as much time as needed) or much worse (unknowledgeable) then the pros who know how to do it right but are under the gun to get it done in a hurry.

/tom

Here's a plumbing nightmare - This fire was started by a couple guys doing plumbing work with a torch. 240 apartments were destroyed.

When I was in the Coast Guard, anything involving fire required a man on fire watch standing by, with an extinguisher ready.

Plumbers should be required to at least have the extinguisher if using a torch.

Pic 2, the part over the toilet is called a banjo board and was quite common when I lived on the west coast.

The true nightmare was that the building was not constructed with proper fire stops that would have contained the fire from spreading so fast and as far as it did. This was a high end residential community that the developer and inspection officials should be investigated. Luckily nobody was injured.

That was my first thought when I saw the picture. Not to absolved the folks who started the fire but the fact that a careless error with a torch could cause such massive damage has to be partly the result of construction errors. What would have happened if a smoker fell asleep with a cigarette, a not uncommon occurrence?

Where did this happen, some third world country without proper building codes and enforcement?

/tom

Too bad the one in the picture can't be lifted off to get to the toilet tank.

And what's it have to do with a banjo?

It is showing that whoever installed the piping took 3 times get the right location. You can see their first choice, which they scribbled out. Then they actually drilled their second location, which turned out to still be wrong. Then finally realized they needed to be on the other side of the stud. It is a failure of the old "measure twice, cut once" adage. Note that the electrician benefited from their mistake.

The photo caption is a snarky remark about how flex piping isn't pretty to begin with, but is no excuse for sloppy work.

#4 yeah you see the mistake but it's minor compared to what "Professionals" have done. In my house they've cut away floor joists to correct such problems.

Did you follow the link to more nightmares?

»contractormag.com/media- ··· ets-ever

Edgewater, NJ, earlier this year. Apparently the building met code and even had sprinklers.

»nj.com/edgewater

I live in a year old complex that looks very similar that I doubt would do any better if not for the code required sprinkler system here in upstate NY. After reading the comments I see someone posted that building had sprinklers also.

Bathroom exhaust fans are vented in to the attic on the top floor. I can feel a draft from the apartment below me coming out from under the dishwasher when that apartments heat AC turns on.
A smoldering fire in the trash chute filled the building with smoke in a very short time last summer.

I wanted a food grinder under our kitchen sink. Plumber one, the foreman of the company no less: "We'll have to cut a hole from outside the (brand new with vinyl siding) house." No way that's happening was my reaction.

Plumber two showed up a few minutes later, chuckled in a barely audible manner, then proceeded to use the appropriate PVC piping to install the grinder properly from the inside. 15 minutes later - done.

Imagine what he saved me in sawsall blades!

what in the fuck is going on under the sink in #7.

I mean I am no master plumber but I see some serious potential flow issues there, Maybe a plumber can tell me if I am wrong but does water from the sink have to go down through the trap and then somehow back up to go back down into the primary drain feed? I get a feeling any reputable inspector would hand anybody who did that a sawzall and say "Do it again, The right way."

#12 I see no trap on that disposer and that plug looks very MacGyvered onto the leads from the unit

as for #15... Holy shit that is badly done... I would think copper tubing from the boiler to the manifolds at at least.

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Holy future CO poisoning batman.

I see some pretty shitty work often as well with pools... fittings to close to the ground, everything glued with no unions (so impossible to break the plumbing down to remove say the pump) valves you can't turn. Walls cut to allow valves to turn. Stuff piped into areas you can't access... but I see tons of people making tons of money doing shit work day in and day out... seems like price is all alot of people care about anymore...

Price is important in any job, But a few bucks more to have someone do it right pays off in the long run.

It is why I believe in ball valves where ever they are reasonably possible, A few bucks more is worth it a decade down the road when you know that valve will still work and there is no question of if its on or off.

I've always been of the opinion that building large MDUs like that with lumber should be outlawed. Even sprinklers can't always stop a catastrophe like that from happening, the whole building itself is an almost unlimited source of fuel.

Concrete may be a lot more expensive to build, but it sure makes it a heck of a lot more difficult for fire to spread, greatly helps reduce noise between suites, and will usually outlast any stick construction.

I actually used to live in an apartment that was constructed of concrete. Walls inside of each apartment were steel studs and drywall. Tenants on the 8th floor had left a halogen lamp turned on and it caught the curtains on fire while they were not home. Fire damage was completely contained to the apartment when the fire started, and the building didn't even have sprinklers (code didn't require them in the 1970s when the building was built). What's more, I could turn up my music fairly loud and the neighbors wouldn't hear a thing. I have heard of one other fire occurring in that building since I moved out, and just like before, damage mainly contained to one apartment. If given the choice, I'd choose a concrete building over a stick building any day.

basically, yes. Edgewater NJ.

the codes may be there, but a little cash can have anything overlooked here in Jersey. our government is as crooked as the one in Juarez.

Once again: The building apparently met code. It is acceptable to construct a building with 240 units that allows fire to travel unimpeded through the attic. The code is designed to minimize loss of human life, not loss of the structure, nor loss of peoples' pets.