On Mar 26, 12:30 am, "RicodJour" wrote:
HammerBammer wrote:

I used to work for a plumber. Although I was not licensed, I was his
assistant. I saw an entire stack crash into the basement and it was a
catastraphy. He got this job where the pipes were completely plugged
and two very elderly women lived there. They dumped cans and cans of
chemicals down the drain, including strong acids. When the pipes
would not unclog, they left them for several years and used the
neighbors bathroom and tossed the dish water out the windows. When
one of them died, the other was forced to sell the place, and it was
in real poor condition. When we went there, the plumber I worked for
was trying to wrench off a long section of 1 1/2" galvanized pipe from
the stack. Little did he know how much damage the acids had done to
the pipes including the cast iron stack. The entire stack broke off,
and all the pipes throughout the house snapped. Both of us were
nearly killed, and the black gunk splashed all over us, and the acids
caused severe burns on us. In fact we both ended up stripping down to
our underwear and used a hose in the basement to drench ourselves to
remove this gunk. We boith ended up going home immediately to take
baths and left the job wrapped in some drapes from the house. My
worst damage was to my eyes and I ended up going to the hospital after
going home and showering.

It turned out every pipe below the highest fixture looked like a
screen from the acids pitting it. The stack snapped off in the attic
and the upper part just hung from the roof. We ended up ripping out
all the walls from the basement thru the 1st and 2nd floors and
replaced everything all the way to the roof, except for the top 3 feet
of cast that exited thru the roof, which we spliced into because
neither of us wanted to mess with the flashing, which would have
likely meant dealing with bad shingles etc. We put silicone caulk
around the pipe and shoved it up a few inches into the flashing.

I was never so happy to leave any job as that one.

I vote this as Horror Story Post of the Month. Do I have a second...?

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Totally believable. You have my vote.