Working as a plumber, I have had more than my share of injuries, embarrassments, gross-outs, and trips to the hospital. Today I was talking to another plumber I know while at the counter at a wholesaler, and he told me what happened to him last week. Read on if you dare.
IF you are not familiar with a sewage ejection system, I will give you a brief tech report. When the plumbing fixtures in the basement are to low to gravity drain into the building sewer, you must install a sewage ejector. I consists of a canister installed in the floor of the basement that is about the size of a garbage can. The basement fixtures drain into this sump, and the rather nasty contents are pumped out and up to the sewer line by a very powerful pump. These pumps are capable of pumping raw sewage at about a gallon per second. It is a serious pump. One of the calls that I hate to get is when one of these pumps has failed, resulting in a very gross and hated service call to fix or replace the pump. When the pump fails, you have to open the lid on a container with about 50 gallons of raw sewage and other unspeakable filth that ends up going down a toilet. I had to do one of these call on Christmas this year, but that is another story. The pump is turned on and off by a float switch that turns on the pump when the canister is getting full, and then off when the level of nastiness goes down to the bottom of the floats travel. I hope you get the picture, it is a brown smelly one.
My friend had responded to a failed system call and opened up the canister and removed the pump. The pump was jammed with those stringed tailed Cotton sewer rats, ( a ladies product) that are very tough for a pump to chew up an spit out at times. He tugged an pulled at the mess and got the pump cleaned out and turning freely again. The pump was sitting on the floor and he plugged it in and lifted the float to turn it on and off making sure it was running like it should. All was well so he grabbed the three foot long piece of pipe that was sticking up out of the pump, bent over and lowered the now repaired pump into the canister of brown goo. Now when I lower a pump back down into the filth, I ALWAYS make sure that the pump is unplugged until it is hooked back up to the sewer line. This poor dude did not unplug the pump. The float switch turned the pump on, and the pump shot a two inch diameter stream that hit him in the face with a gallon per second of festering hideous nastiness. The entire contents of the canister were neatly deposited on him, the walls, and the ceiling of the mechanical room of the house before he could get it unplugged. He told me that if he would of had a gun, he would have shot himself on the spot, he was not worth salvaging. He cleaned himself up as best as he could and raced home to shower and comb the corn out of his hair before he could return to the scene of the stupidity and clean up his mess.
I laughed about this all day. I bet he never does that again!
So cheer up! Now matter how bad a day you have had, it could have been worse. Hee hee DC
IF you are not familiar with a sewage ejection system, I will give you a brief tech report. When the plumbing fixtures in the basement are to low to gravity drain into the building sewer, you must install a sewage ejector. I consists of a canister installed in the floor of the basement that is about the size of a garbage can. The basement fixtures drain into this sump, and the rather nasty contents are pumped out and up to the sewer line by a very powerful pump. These pumps are capable of pumping raw sewage at about a gallon per second. It is a serious pump. One of the calls that I hate to get is when one of these pumps has failed, resulting in a very gross and hated service call to fix or replace the pump. When the pump fails, you have to open the lid on a container with about 50 gallons of raw sewage and other unspeakable filth that ends up going down a toilet. I had to do one of these call on Christmas this year, but that is another story. The pump is turned on and off by a float switch that turns on the pump when the canister is getting full, and then off when the level of nastiness goes down to the bottom of the floats travel. I hope you get the picture, it is a brown smelly one.
My friend had responded to a failed system call and opened up the canister and removed the pump. The pump was jammed with those stringed tailed Cotton sewer rats, ( a ladies product) that are very tough for a pump to chew up an spit out at times. He tugged an pulled at the mess and got the pump cleaned out and turning freely again. The pump was sitting on the floor and he plugged it in and lifted the float to turn it on and off making sure it was running like it should. All was well so he grabbed the three foot long piece of pipe that was sticking up out of the pump, bent over and lowered the now repaired pump into the canister of brown goo. Now when I lower a pump back down into the filth, I ALWAYS make sure that the pump is unplugged until it is hooked back up to the sewer line. This poor dude did not unplug the pump. The float switch turned the pump on, and the pump shot a two inch diameter stream that hit him in the face with a gallon per second of festering hideous nastiness. The entire contents of the canister were neatly deposited on him, the walls, and the ceiling of the mechanical room of the house before he could get it unplugged. He told me that if he would of had a gun, he would have shot himself on the spot, he was not worth salvaging. He cleaned himself up as best as he could and raced home to shower and comb the corn out of his hair before he could return to the scene of the stupidity and clean up his mess.
I laughed about this all day. I bet he never does that again!
So cheer up! Now matter how bad a day you have had, it could have been worse. Hee hee DC
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