alidog

Ever thought you'd do a simple bit of DIY and it's gone horribly wrong? A £2 job that should have taken me 30 minutes has ended up costing £200 and taken 3 days.

My kitchen sink needed re-sealing, as the draining board was coming away from the worktop. Thought I'd just turn the water off at the mains, unscrew the taps, take off the old sealant and replace it with new stuff, then put the sink back on.

But oh no!

First part went OK, but then when I went to put the sink back in place the pipe that was screwed into the tap snapped off, and it was the screw thread that snapped off, inside the tap fixing itself. So I needed a new set of taps. Went to unscrew the taps from the sink and realised they were fixed on with a plastic bolt. I tried to undo this but it just sheared off. So now I couldn't get the taps off the sink.

Went out and bought a new sink unit, then realised that predictably it wouldn't fit in the old hole. I had to cut a massive hole in the worktop to accomodate the new sink. Then I found that equally predictably the new taps didn't line up with where the old pipework was, so I needed to redo all the pipework underneath the sink (Yes, I've since been informed of the wonders of 'flexipipe'!).

Then to add insult to injury, the new sink has a half-bowl which the old one didn't have, so I had to redo all the pipework for carrying the waste water away as well.

All this to re-grout a f#cking sink!

Now considering that before this happened, I had no idea about any of this side of DIY (Only bought my house last year, rented before that so it was all the landlord's responsibility) I'm actually quite proud of what I've managed to do. The new sink is now plumbed in and watertight, and functioning brilliantly, and I've learnt shedloads about plumbing into the bargain. :cool:

But still, I'm sure someone out there can top this. So what's your worst DIY disaster? Which jobs have you thought would be simple have ended up costing you the most in time and money?

retired_mickey5ca

wp cliff, will you be getting a professional to do it next time?

alidog

tbh I don't think I did anything wrong. The only thing that was avoidable was the pipe leading into the tap snapping. But I'm sure that must have been fragile anyway as I was soooo careful with it it's untrue. Just turned round and it was lying on the floor next to me.

So no, next time I'll be doing it myself again. This plumbing malarky is a piece of cake!

retired_misstyrain00

Thats brilliant, best way to learn stuff aswell

retired_shellmac13

Is that how you learned to iSketch? You are fb at that iirc.

retired_venomm

Anything DIY that involves water does my head in.

I tried to put a picture up a few years ago and managed to break a whole load of plates and glasses that were all nicely displayed - and short out the TV too. All this just because I didn't know there was a water pipe in the exact spot of the wall that I was putting the nail in. 2 hits with the hammer, all is well, then it happened on the 3rd hit, never did find that nail again. It soon becomes quite apparent that there is a fair bit of pressure in them pipes if you happen to make a small hole in one.

Talking of that, a house up the road from me that was having an extension done in the summer had to redo some of the roofing they had just put up, because the water board hit a pipe while doing "routine maintenance" in the street. It was going about 40-50 foot in the air and drenched everything for a good hour :cool:

retired_el_chanclas

I wanted to put a window on my PC, been wanting to do it for a while. Bought the window kit, a few cathode lights to go inside, and a tool to cut the window hole from the case.

The tool is an utter piece of ****. It does not "cut" I would describe it as it trys to rend the metal out. And it does it in very small amounts. And it broke after 20 minutes.

After a trip to a hardware shop, looking for a rotary tool/dremel to cut it, they had no idea what it was, so I walked back. At mid-day on one of the hottest days of the year so far.

Then I ordered one on ebay.

Comes, it's no-where near as powerful as claimed, the cutter blades snap off within 10 minutes, I've made a very small cut in the side, maybe an inch and a half long. The cutter is a piece of junk.

$60 on tools that don't work, the ebay guy won't refund it so I've had to make a paypal claim, I have to send the tool back down to melbourne (and spend $10 on postage for the $20 tool) if I want my money back.

The cathode lights worked though. Not that you can see any of it because there is no window (they have an on/off switch which is nice, they have been off since I installed it).

The 5 spread LED I put in the front drive bay (to illuminate the buttons) was the only thing that has actually worked.

Now, the funny part is that the cost of the tools and parts probably equals the price of a completely new case with a window already done.

alidog

Nasty! That's the kind of thing I'd expect to do.

Note to self: Get one of those electronic pipe / wire detectors!

retired_brinker317

Never, never, think that a job is simple. It's fatal. When I was working at Focus, we did quite a lot of DIY to make displays, merchandisers, sheds - loads of things.

The simple jobs always took longer, and had more things go wrong, than the time consuming ones.

retired_flamindragon1986

i put a workbench up in my garage today was quite proud of myself im rubbish at diy normally.