r/Wellthatsucks 5d ago

Plumbers broke through this foundation to add pipes, compromising the structural support of the home.

28.1k Upvotes

900 comments sorted by

View all comments

3.5k

u/brian0066600 5d ago

I’m not a plumber, but that seems like so much more work than going around no? A fucking elbow and some glue?

1.6k

u/mb10240 5d ago

They didn’t have the elbows in the truck.

652

u/Misanthropyandme 5d ago

They had a sledgehammer

557

u/decapods 5d ago

When all you have is a sledgehammer, all problems look like load-bearing cement walls.

19

u/Successful-Bed-8375 4d ago

This is an underrated, yet load-bearing comment!

49

u/heliumneon 5d ago

I laughed way too hard at this

12

u/Airregaithel 5d ago

This needs to be in a T-shirt or something. 😂

1

u/GuillotineComeBacks 4d ago

Look, I have no solution for your problem but that wall disturbs me and I'm a sledgehammer person.

9

u/TatteredTorn1 5d ago

And a thirst for destruction

1

u/veganize-it 5d ago

Hmmm z, yeah that checks out

1

u/Not_a-bot-i_swear 4d ago

Can you imagine swinging a sledge in that tight of a space tho? That would suck

1

u/CrossP 4d ago

This screams "I just bought a small jackhammer and I'm very excited to use it but didn't watch any videos."

1

u/PlantAstronaut 4d ago

It would’ve been hard to swing under a home lol. They actually ended up doing more work this way.

25

u/isymfs 5d ago

It was 1:30pm on a Friday too.

11

u/light_trick 5d ago

I'm pretty sure provided you had more then those exact lengths of pipe you could've gone around with the parts used in that picture.

1

u/T46BY 4d ago

They had a deadline...

1

u/IMakeStuffUppp 4d ago

Only had elbow grease

113

u/fork_your_child 5d ago

New company initiative: Your bonus is based on how many feet of pipe you save per job, so here's a jackhammer.

60

u/brian0066600 5d ago

I mean seriously… he had to crawl under there with a 60lb tool and fucking bust that shit out

73

u/orangejulius 5d ago

I am also astonished at the level of effort they put into doing that completely wrong.

12

u/bigalindahouse 5d ago

Human sees load bearing wall: think I'll go around that

Hulk: smash

6

u/bonerland11 4d ago

Without a care in the world, not like a house could fall on him or anything.

1

u/The_Beavinator 1d ago

Maybe that was his goal lol

36

u/Least_Ad930 5d ago

I know your joking, but this sounds like something my boss would have us do running conduit. I remember one time we needed to put up a bunch of supports and he gave us like 1/10th of the bolts we needed and said, "just make it look like it's supported, this is cutting into my bonus." This was also inside of a plant. Dude made an insane amount of money in bonuses and paid all of his employees really poorly.

12

u/CreationBlues 5d ago

And you didn't report his ass?

5

u/Least_Ad930 4d ago

All that would accomplish is me getting fired. Pretty sure he's part owner in the company and friends with just about everyone at the plant and has been working there forever. There is so much worse shit I should have reported, but I don't see it accomplishing much and everyone in the industrial electrical field knows each other. The fact that there aren't inspectors in industrial is actually crazy.

10

u/CreationBlues 4d ago

Everywhere in the developed world has building code offices you can report safety violations to.

-5

u/Least_Ad930 4d ago

This is plants that don't follow most rules and I'm pretty sure you have to go to OSHA, but I would never trust that. Sounds like a great way to get blackballed.

5

u/Late-Lecture-2338 4d ago

As long as you don't get hurt, it's ok then. Fuck everyone else miright?

-1

u/Least_Ad930 4d ago

It's similar everywhere so I doubt me saying anything would have changed shit. Also, I don't think this particular job would have gotten anyone hurt.

0

u/Senior-Reflection862 4d ago

So it’s okay… if you make more money this way? You and your old boss are the same.

→ More replies (0)

4

u/meow604 4d ago

Found the ex-Boeing employee

1

u/Least_Ad930 4d ago

lol, that whole Boeing thing isn't surprising with all the crazy shit I've seen in the plants and I've heard even worse shit by reputable people. I also have no faith in OSHA and it seems like they are either really incompetent or trying to help the companies after things like giant fires.

9

u/XB1MNasti 5d ago

That doesn't make any sense... They make money off every and any part they buy.

The pricing is (cost)x2+50. And thats for every elbow, pipe, and glue they buy for a job.

9

u/fork_your_child 5d ago

It's a joke.

1

u/XB1MNasti 5d ago

Your post or the job these plumbers did?

(( I know... The info just popped in my head lol ))

1

u/ContextHook 5d ago

Countless Tradies will give you a flat fee quote up front. I've never seen hvac or plumbing work done where the agreement was "here's my rate for time, and here's what I charge for each part I need to use." It has ALWAYS been, "I can do this for 5k" "I can do this for 20k" and so on.

I admit it is probably less like that as you go up the "quality" line, but flat fee is the standard I'm used to.

3

u/Pavotine 5d ago edited 5d ago

I'm a plumber and I try to do as much as possible on an hourly rate. It almost always saves the customer money and especially when there can be potential unforseen issues with a job. If someone insists on a quote I will obviously give one but I'm going to assess how long I think it's going to take me then put about another 30% or 40% on top incase the job turns into a 'mare. Usually it doesn't but it might.

If I do the work at hourly rates or day rates it almost always comes in less than what I would have quoted them up front. As for materials I can tell them a cost for that because I just add 10% to my trade price for them.

*I mainly undertake small domestic jobs as I'm a sole trader, no apprentice or plumber's mate. Bigger jobs, like whole house replumbing or new builds, yeah, people are often going to want a figure up front.

2

u/XB1MNasti 5d ago

I did some sub-contractor work for a major name in the plumbing business, and that's closer to what I was basing my assessment on.

They very much do usually go in with a "I'll do it for 20k" but the parts are already accounted for, and they have a rough idea of what they are getting into.

We actually got involved in a lawsuit against them ... A drain in someone's basement had backed up, and they hired us to remove the liquid in the basement. It was sewage so we vacuumed it out and decanted it into a sewer right outside the house. The salesman had asked us how many gallons we removed ... It was posed as a curiosity question, not a pricing one. It was about 30,000 gallons we removed 3k at a time.

He charged that person about 90 cents a gallon for "disposal" and their customer brought footage of us just dumping in the sewer outside their house.

We didn't charge that plumbing company for disposal for that very reason ... But we do now after we found out how much they were trying to charge people. Even when we did jobs for them that required transportation, it's 60$ to dump 3k gallons clean mud, and free for us to dump sewage due to a contract with the city.

1

u/EmoTgirl 5d ago

I love comments like this because they’re a reminder to never listen to anything on Reddit, no where else in the world can you find people stating things so confidently and be so fucking wrong it’s incredible 

1

u/XB1MNasti 5d ago

Uh... That is how a company does it, a pretty big company.

24

u/Intelligent_Meal_113 5d ago

That was my exact thought like why the fuck wouldn’t they just run a couple elbows and some glue. Hell a damn dryer vent duct pipe and some duct tape would have been better then this janky, not even half assed work. The strapping job they did to hold it up looks atrocious as well. Ray Charles could have done a better job installing this.

11

u/Only_Indication_9715 5d ago

It's clear that they missed their aim and put that 4x2 combo in first. By the time they got the 2" branch there, it was too late to move the combo easily.

That's not a justification, just how I could see it going down.

4

u/Least-Ear3373 5d ago

They probably needed grade

1

u/StimulatorCam 5d ago

You only need 1/4 inch drop for every foot of pipe.

2

u/ImaginaryBluejay0 4d ago

Plumbers are notorious for this kind of thing. OP's company also inspected my house and they found a flooring joist that has been more or less sawed in half by the plumber for no reason. They called it the plumber special. 

2

u/GameCockFan2022 4d ago

Plumbers dont give a shit. If they want a pipe to go somewhere, its going there. No matter what they have to smash or cut to make it fit

1

u/BurninatorJT 5d ago

Seriously, could it be that the foundation was already damaged and then the plumbers worked with what was there? Who's to say the title is accurate without some backstory?

1

u/Not_a-bot-i_swear 4d ago

For real though. Smashes through substances like that is very difficult. Definitely would’ve been less work to do it correctly

1

u/Original_Banana_4617 4d ago

Sometimes you have to maintain that straight shot, to many bends and turns can mess things up, they should have drilled a hole in the concrete, that’s what masonry tools are for after all.

1

u/Ok_Experience_332 4d ago

The supply shop was closed and didnt have any 45s or 90s on the truck😂😂