Terrible day

S

Scott D.

Member
Ok so we got to the house today to complete the second part of the house I posted pictures of yesterday, at about 830. Fired everything up, watered all the plants, prepped what needed to be prepped, and got to cleaning.about 10 oclock, my pump loses pressure. we turn it off, turn it back on, pressures is great. About 10 minutes later, same thing. Only this time the pressure wont come back. After trying fruitlessly for about 30 minutes, I call Bob over at PT. He says theres a air bubble stuck in the system and to bleed it with the regulator valve. We try it...nothing...So then he tells us to go buy a new "T" with a ball valve to manually. So we hit up the nearest Home depot (10 miles away), and get the plastic parts we need. Drive all the way back, assemble everything, turn it on, and all hell breaks loose. The "T" snapped in half, so we had a full on geyser, raining down on everything, driveway and all.

So we drive all the way back and buy 2 more parts, just in case one broke. See, we were thinking this time! :D . Well about 30 minutes later we had manage to break both of them too.

By this time we had been working on it for about 6 1/2 hours, drive time, and a quick stop at that french restaurant, Jaque in ze Box for lunch included.

So then, i stand in a small, but vicious ant pile, just long enough for them to cover my feet. My wife, opens the ball valve and gets blasted with Sh in the face, the customers dog is howling, it's almost 90 degrees and 99% humidity with no shade, im getting hungry again, and ive spent 40 bucks on parts that are now broken, and weve been working for 8 hours, and not even barely started.

Anyone else have a day similar to this one? Im curious as to what your worst day was like, and how the hell do we just get up the next day and do it again. Im not talking about quitting. I dont quit. But it does cross everyones mind sometimes.
 
I have had many, many days like that. One of the reasons that I do not use regular pvc, I will use the black polypropylene or schedule80 pvc. The regular stuff is too weak and with these chems will fail soon or under pressure or just break because they are weak.

Roller pumps will need to be primed if they lose prime, they will not suck and prime like the diaphragm pumps. That is one of the reasons that I use a suction hose with a pvc 90 degree elbow onto a pvc pipe that goes into the tank so if I need to prime the pump, just pull out the pipe and fill it with water and put it back into the tank quick, takes like a minute.

I have tried the total plumbing with tanks and when the pump loses prime, you have to disconnect everything to prime it.

Something you can do is get a garden hose to pipe thread adapter and put that onto a "T" and put that into the suction system with a ball valve so when needed, you can connect a garden hose to force prime the pump.

With these roof chems, the pvc will not last forever neither will the ball valves. Another reason for my simplistic suction system so when, not if, it goes bad, a quick few minutes to connect another and I am back in business.

Feel free to call anytime.
 
Gosh Scott
you posted you had problems with concrete yesterday as well.
Good way to look at it...Can't go nowhere but up!!! Sometimes we all have days like that, good thing is we always come out smarter!!
 
Yes i have had some days like that but like Alvis said we come out smarter. you always learn off you mistakes.
 
Just remember when your going thru hell you gotta keep on going,you don't want to stop there for sure.

The hidden lesson is you learned to keep spare parts on the truck,they might seem pricey when you don't need them but when you do,especially if something fails and your on the roof or around back of a house washing you would pay double for em then.
 
Just a word to the wise here guys, use schedule 80 PVC as much as possible.
In THEORY, Polypropylene has great chemical resistance.
BUT, in an effort to "strengthen" Polypropylene, glass is added, and the chemicals we use weakens it.
For all intents and purposes, Schedule 80 PVC is about as "forever" as it gets in our business, w/o going to Teflon or Kynar.
 
My worst night , I got a call about a fire system going off at a local nursing home .. It was about 2 O'Clock in the morning .. So we got to the job around 2:40 am.. They said that the janitorial service was cleaning and the remote pull station had been knocked of the wall.. So I pulled the bottle off the wall it was the ever popular Range Guard System with the older style Kiidde Control Head.. Well anyway got it recharged and proceeded to hang it on the wall, after fixing the remote pull station of course.. then just as I set the 3 gallon bottle back into its bracket , the bracket starts to come off the wall,so we took the bottle back down and noticed the lag screws were pulling out of the sheet rock.. So we remounted the bracket and put the bottle back up.. All this took about 1 1/2 hours.. Then we started washing the hood.. Well we got all of the work done by 6 am.. So it looked like a done deal until I happen to notice that wet chemical was dripping out of the nozzles... Yep you guessed it I forgot to blow out the pipe after recharging .. So now I ran outside grab the flush chem and the nitrogen cylinder and clean the lines real quick.. Now its 7 am .. Old people everywhere complaining about breakfast and the cook is telling them about how those guys ( talking about me ) had to fix the fire system in the kitchen. Well anyway I get thru and go to get paid in the office , and I am presented with a copy of a statement from another fire company that had installed this system just 5 months ago, On this form it said your Range Guard System is Warrantied For one Year.. I said that was with them and not with me , he said he called the other company but couldn't get anyone , so here is how it ended , he gets a rep from range guard on the phone and I am ask a load of questions and then asked what happened and I told him someone accidentally hit the pull station.. The range Guard Rep says did I recharge the system I said yes no problem , then the range guard rep says if the other company that originally installed the euipment warrantied it for a certian amount of time and your company had to come out and service it then maybe you need to collect your money from the other fire equipment company... So guess what

Long story short I never got paid...

Or Should I tell you about the day I blew a wheeled unit fire extinguisher full of purple K all over 15 commercial trucks.. and Had to recharge it with 150lbs of dry chem ( PurpleK) and wash 15 trucks... But that was over 14 years ago.
The longer you do washing and stuff you will have problems but you know what if you learn something after each problem the jobs will get easier..
 
John, that really sucks!

I would think that since they caused the problem, they should pay to get it recharged and to get the mess cleaned up.

Say some kid in a restaurant causes the system to go off after you do maintenance on it.....Are you going to come out and recharge it for free since they caused it to go off or do they pay since they caused it to go off?
 
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