changing tap washers on hot water taps

[silkwood]

I'm just about to knock down a house which the previous owner felt capable of rewiring. Okay, I'm not just knocking it down becausse of this, but the work was seriously scary. What worries me is the term "if you feel competent". Pretty much everyone who has done a home rewiring or plumbing job felt competent, until it screwed up!

As for plumbing, I sell building and renovating supplies. You wouldn't believe the number of people trying to return mangled and obviously fitted/unfitted equipment simply because it was wrong and they did'nt know what they were doing. Or the number of plumbers (some are pretty dumb I know, but they are mostly pretty good at basic plumbing which is 99% of their job) who are in fits of laughter after going out to fix up yet another botched up home job.

Cheers,

[MrFixIt]

Hi Seeing this thread has come back to life, (no reference to the black and shrivelled DIY electrician), I'd like to concur with Taffy's comment
Guys,Guys!! please stop it hurts, Here in Oz as anywhere else if you are sure you can do the job as good or better than someone you will have to pay THEN DO IT.

If you KNOW you can do it then DO SO, if you are not sure then DON'T. I have done electrical work since I was eleven, so I'm not about to stop now. I have had a "heart starter" every now and then - adds to the excitement of the day

I am a licensed LPG gas installer, and it seems odd to me that I (by license) can install piping for something that is invisible, can blow up buildings and can suffocate sleeping humans and yet I am NOT allowed to work with plumbing that controls water that can be seen and felt and is relatively safe and generally speaking only gets you very wet (OK, you can drown).

Regards

Peter

[Taffy]

Carsten, I have heard of pipes being frozen to enable work to be carried out on working systems, When an airconditioning valve needed replacing on top of our 15 story building, the guys used dry ice to freeze the pipe cut it off while it was frozen fitted a new valve and let the pipe warm up on its own afterwards, took them half hour and no mess.

This is getting pretty major though for just one household tap washer.
You know those jobs that just seem to get bigger and bigger the longer you think about them,
This is one of those

Taffy

[Kev Y.]

morning all, at the risk of getting this thread all stirred up again, I would like to add my bit.

In a previous lifetime as a painter, I had a policy of one price for me comming into a job and doing it all my self, and a higher price for me to come in and fix up the owners poor attempts at doing the job himself!

[capedcrusader]

What is a licenced tradesperson other than someone who has gone to technical college and has experience. Go to a tech college and visit the library -all the information is there free of charge. If you then legitimately know what youre doing and you do the work properly what difference does it make that you did it??? Tradespeople in my experience like anyone else who gets paid to do often difficult/unpleasant work for others arent particularly interested in solving your problems forever cause naturally its not good for business and also they arent getting paid enough anyway. If you cant get it from books yourself then pay someone who can IMHO.
Just 2 cents worth

[silentC]

What is a doctor other than someone who has gone to University and has experience? You could probably learn that from a book too but I wouldn't want you messing with my appendix. Who am I going to sue if you accidentally cut my liver out?

[journeyman Mick]

Why of course you'll sue the council for providing the library, the librarian for not warning you that you needed to do more than just read a book, the publishers for disseminating this dangerous information, the writers for willfully endangering your life etc etc etc. Hmmmm, maybe I need to read a few books and become a litigation specialist.

Mick

[Pulpo]

Mick

I have a feeling your talents maybe even better spent on another career.

It would probably be more lucrative anyway and less work.

But we do appreciate your tradesmen comments.

Cheers

Pulpo

[capedcrusader]

SilentC
Yep I totally see your point about the experience aspect. I was talking about doing minor domestic work on your own house not doing work for others.

[Carsten]

I can't believe this thread is still going!

Taffy

Dry ice sounds a lot more manageable than liquid nitrogen, although I agree, still overkill for a domestic washer job. I was thinking more of having to repair the stopcock itself as in SilentC's post.

I'm not even going to start to suggest whether or not you should do this yourself...

[wombat47]

Gee, the original posting sure broke open a hornet's nest.

The first thing we did when we moved into current house was work on the stormwater system, which was hopelessly inadequate. There was a considerable amount of work done, including laying a completely new storm water pipe to connect onto an existing one.

We chose the guy whose name was emblazoned on his fleet of vans and trucks - must have been a good plumber to be making all that money. Hmmm.....

The new stormwater had to cross the path of the existing sewer pipe. Simple ... just break out about 60cm of sewer and lay the storm water across the gap. Unfortunately for him, we discovered that when we had a shower, used the handbasin or flushed the toilet, a puddle appeared in the path of the stormwater.

He replaced it eventually (and that was only after we threatened legal proceedings) but was totally ungracious about doing so.

There are plenty of excellent tradesmen but employing a tradesman unfortunately doesn't guarantee a good job. On the other hand, many do-it-yourselfers will follow the instructions to the letter and produce an excellent outcome.

For every funny story you professionals have about DIYers, we can tell one about you guys.