Painters

DanHolohan

What problems have painters caused for you? Tell me a story. 

mattmia2

Either they try to remove an entire display with equipment behind it themselves and put it back together wrong or they paint our stuff to the wall that mounts like a standard device instead of pulling it out to paint behind.

I hate painting, i'd rather dig a hole than paint.

Larry Weingarten

I remember a painter who really liked using a sprayer, but he didn’t like to mask things. At a restaurant where I sometimes helped out, this guy sprayed the windows, light fixtures, stainless steel, and even coffee cups. I don’t think he was ever invited back to paint 😏

Yours, Larry

DanHolohan

I saw a painter spray PEX. That’s not good for PEX. 

DanHolohan

A friend has a painter paint the dryer vent while painting his house. The dryer didn’t like that stuck-closed vent. He remembered what I had said about painting steam air vents and pried the vent back open. That made the dryer happy again. 

EdTheHeaterMan

Not exactly on topic, But how many of us have that "not enough heat" call during our coldest and busiest day of the season, only to find the newly installed wall to wall carpet is blocking the bottom of the baseboard radiators. You are already tired and irritated from the overtime and now a customer is going to argue that "it can't be the carpet. It has been in there for almost a year now and they never has this problem before. You must be crazy. And by the way, we are not paying for the overtime service call because you didn't do anything!!!"

Second part of this post is kind'a funny. https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1705970#Comment_1705970. Customer in Villas, NJ

mattmia2

Is paint particularly not good for pex? I would think it would protect it from uv.

Mad Dog_2

Doing the boiler is fun..Trying to get the  convector covers off that have 3 coats of paint on them is THE WORST..."You're chipping the paint off my covers!!!!"  Everyone got a warning after that.....If they didn't like the answer, they would have to have them off before we got there.  Let THEM chip the paint.  Tuition! Ha ha 😂 Maf Dog 🐕 

DanHolohan

And coloring the pipes the wrong colors. 🤪

DanHolohan

I’m told it’s chemically destructive. 

JUGHNE

I have seen a storeroom in a nursing home where the maint guy painted around the boxes sitting on the shelf. He didn't last long at that or any job.

EdTheHeaterMan

DanHolohan said:

And coloring the pipes the wrong colors. 🤪

only works on the inside of the pipes... that way the water can see it and know if it is supposed to be hot or cold, or maybe even change to a gas like Propane or even Oxygen. At the hospital.

I learned that at a Dan Holohan seminar when he said the arrows needed to be on the inside.

Karl Reynolds

Painters and drywallers washing their equipment with the nice hot water from the boiler drain.

DanHolohan

 😂

tim smith

Spraying latex on steam radiators, awful smell.

Mad Dog_2

Yeah...or the Cement masons drawing there water off the Radiant purge!  Mad Dog 🐕 

Mad Dog_2

We were told never leave PEX out in the sun and no Duct tape on it.  Mad Dog 🐕 

DanHolohan

Yes, that too. 

MikeL_2

      I once had call from a homeowner where we had done some plumbing & heating work over the summer. This was right after Christmas and he was extremely annoyed that several rooms wouldn't heat properly.
       That summer we had installed a new indirect water heater and did some near boiler piping improvements including new zone valves on the return piping & moving the circulator so it was pumping away - at the time he was having frequent issues with air bound second floor heating zones.
         I met the homeowner in his boiler room the next day and had him cycle tstats on & off while I checked the operation of all the equipment. Much to his dismay I told him everything was working as designed; he accused me of ripping him off and screwing up his heating system.
    I asked him to show me the cold rooms and that's when I discovered the baseboard heating dampers were closed tight & sealed by several coats of caulk & fresh paint........
      
         

PC7060

Mine was the drywall guy that mudded around switch plate cover on metal boxes with mud ring.  Apparently to much trouble to remove. But would have much less time than the call back. 

Mad Dog_2

Mike  L...thats when you tell him..."No worries....Well send u a bill...."  Touche! Mad Dog 🐕 🤣 

Illinoisfarmer

Sorta on-topic, sorta off...

My friends and I moved into a brand new 'luxury' student apartment/townhouse in the fall of 1986. Took a lot of convincing to get our parents to let us live away from the dorms and with less supervision, but we managed to get that done. The construction was not complete when we moved in. The paint had been sprayed on - after the plumbing fixtures were installed - the craftsmanship was nothing short of pathetic. The only furniture that was in the 'fully furnished' place was the beds. Nothing else.

One of the big selling points was that these new units had Central Air Conditioning. It was mid August, hot and muggy when we moved in. The front concrete steps had been poured that morning and we couldn't walk on them. It was miserable. After we moved in, we were sitting on the living room floor enjoying a nice cold Old Style - since there was no furniture. Then a couple more Old Styles. Anyway, we sat there on the floor drinking beer and patting ourselves on the back about how we'd scored this brand-new place. It was expensive, but we felt it was worth it. The air conditioning was on, but it didn't seem very comfortable. More beer was consumed. It continued to get hotter in the living room. We started to wonder if we'd made a bad decision.

I remember thinking that maybe if I sat next to the air conditioning vent, it would be cooler. I looked around. No vent. Checked the kitchen - no vents. Bedrooms - nothing. It dawned on us all about the same time. The carpeting had been put in the night before in a rush. They'd carpeted over every vent!

Much like people in your trade, farm boys are pretty clever after about a case of beer and being swindled out of some of our parents' money. It didn't take us long to use our trusty pocketknives to find every vent in the place and get it opened up. More beer was consumed after our victory, and we were heroes of the entire complex as we offered to go around to the units occupied by the college girls and offer to 'check' their vents as well.

I know I'm droning on here, but my oldest son moved into a unit in the same complex in the mid 2010s. (It appeared that in 25 years, the owners had spent possible tens or even hundreds of dollars in upgrades) Same carpet. Same everything. Anyway, he kept complaining that their kitchen outlet was loose. They'd called in a work order, but nothing was getting done. I didn't know what 'loose' meant exactly, but I decided I'd take a look and grabbed tools and a new outlet and went down to take a look. The outlet was junk - just worn out. I shut off the breaker and proceeded to replace it. As soon as I pulled it out, everything came rushing back. Every single wire was painted white. Easy enough to scrape the paint off with my fingernail to see what I was doing - but still, some problems just never go away. Got it fixed. Asked the boys for an Old Style. They just started at me and offered something called an IPA.

DanHolohan

@Illinoisfarmer, I love your stories. Thanks.

Karl Reynolds

Being a former Illinois Farmer myself, I can vouch for the validity of the creativities conceived upon sharing a case of Old Style (a.k.a. Cold Smile) amongst a few friends.

JUGHNE

I had a cousin's husband in the house painting/finishing business, he would hire his BIL to help.

They would spray oil based lacquer without a mask or any ventilation. They would shoot a little down to the Sheetmetal guys in the basement and all would end up high as a kite.

But then they would get thirsty as hell and the only thing that got them around that was beer.
So someone would go get a case. They would sit around to finish that off and then get tired.

"So that's it for today we will come back in the morning and finish tomorrow AM"

So most jobs took them 2 half days. These were bid spec houses so no oversight by GC.

When lacquer was sprayed everyone else stayed away.

It would come down to the basement thru the HVAC rough in openings. I learned early to leave or put my painter's respirator on.

Oh, did I mentioned they were mostly smokers, this was the 70's.

And all of them I know are upright and approaching 80 years old today

Tim_D

We did a job in 2007 or 2008 where the owner insisted on remote venting of the modcon boiler. We ran two runs of 4" about 10' and popped up where a stone wall was to be built. The piping was to be incorporated into the wall so we just left two four foot risers sticking up. We temporarily dry fit a goose neck on the make up air and a coupling with a bird screen on the vent. A few days later the builder calls to say that the boiler is backfiring. We arrived to find that the coupling and bird screen were gone and that there was a paint roller stuck in the end of the vent. The painter had been washing out his rollers and using the vent as a drying rack. The boiler didn't care for the partially blocked vent.