Incompetent Plumber Recourse

[Chief Engineer]

If you had a land based plumber do the work....that might be your problem right there.

[Microship]

Nope - he was a marine plumber!

[Chief Engineer]

Did he do the spinweld?

[Microship]

Yes... he used a router... did it on the dock beside the boat.

[Christian Van H]

Originally Posted by Microship

[I]Nobody is going to care as much about your boat as you do

Truer words were never posted! It's evident from your past projects that you can do anything you set your mind to. I'd share tools with ya if we were closer...and remember: nothing on your boat was designed by aliens. There is nothing you cant fully understand and repair. Except your propeller. No one understands propellers...

[Microship]

Christian - ;-) Thanks!

Yah on the propellers... I have a 3-blade Max-prop, a total mystery. Haulout coming up... I'm going to pull it and have PYI inspect it.

Speaking of tool-sharing, I've just finished building my mobile lab... it will be in the marina parking lot. I think the biggest challenge will be the endless social opportunities with fellow sailors. I'm writing about it for MAKE magazine... here's the intro piece:

Make: Online : Make it anywhere with a mobile lab

Cheers!
Steve

[Christian Van H]

Steve, I LOVE IT! To quote somebody in the Batman movie..."Where does he get all those wonderful toys?" I swear, if you had a butler and a sidekick, you could be a kick-ass superhero!

You dont, perchance, have a rocket powered car, do you?

[osirissail]

Welcome to the marine plumbing world. Little of any of it is understood by land-side and even novice "marine plumbers." The have no concept of vibration and "twist" of a boat as it moves through the water. Using PVC pipe is very dangerous as it cannot flex as well has sanitation hose. Also joints have to be "caulked" with flexible sealant not teflon tape.
- - Polyethylene tanks are used as they resist any passage of gas or fluid through the walls. But they have that waxy/slippery feel to them that makes it near impossible to get anything to stick to them. That is where the "hot welding" is necessary as "screwing" machine screws into the tank walls does little but put stress on the wall which can lead to spider cracks and more leakage. These tank split and crack when you try to screw anything into them especially over-tightening screw in pipe fittings will expand the polyethylene fitting and split it.
- - Over the years I found an adhesive known as "GOOP" - the original non-colored version that will actually adhere to the tank and use it as a fitting caulk/sealant. There may be others, I have not found them yet.
- - Use only pure stainless pipe clamps without slots - the ones with indented thread in the band and also a stainless screw. The cheap/ordinary pipe clamps use mild steel screws and a stainless band. Doesn't take long for the screw to rust away. I also use auto "muffler" sealant on hoses that are slid over pipe fitting. That stuff makes great non-odor seals.

[rover88]

If that fails, I suggest you go fishing. Then think about Karma and how you can assist it.

What you do with the fish you catch - and your plumbers truck (truck have all sorts of nooks and crannies) - can be left to the imagination.

[Microship]

Originally Posted by Christian Van H

Steve, I LOVE IT! To quote somebody in the Batman movie..."Where does he get all those wonderful toys?"

The trick was figuring out how to do it for a living... everything is research, or at least relevant to writing, spin-offs, or stray nickel-generators. The toys are central priorities; the normal accoutrements of modern life, not so much.

Osirissail - some superb advice there, thanks! I worry about the damage he did to that tank with those stupid sheet-metal screws... I spoke with Ronco (the tank manufacturer) about it, and they were really surprised to hear about that, as well as the other stuff. What amazes me is that this guy exhibits at the boat show and is still in business. I don't quite get that part.

Rover88 - <wicked grin>

-Steve

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by osirissail

... Polyethylene tanks are used ...
... Over the years I found an adhesive known as "GOOP" - the original non-colored version that will actually adhere to the tank and use it as a fitting caulk/sealant. There may be others, I have not found them yet...

I think not.

The GOOP Technical Data Sheet(s) specifically states:

* GOOP is not recommended for any items that come into contact with food, drinking water or animals.

* GOOP is not recommended for use on Styrofoam™, polystyrene, polyethylene or polypropylene plastics, aquariums or refrigeration units.

➥ http://www.eclecticproducts.com/_tds/allpurpose.pdf

➥ http://www.eclecticproducts.com/_tds/marine.pdf

➥ http://www.eclecticproducts.com/_tds/plumbing.pdf

[Microship]

Thanks, Gord. I had not investigated goop, but everyone seemed to agree that bonding to polyethylene was a problem. Some double-stick tapes work (like the ones that hold on my tank level sensors). Does Butyl tape? Anyway, at the inspection port I just needed a seal under compression to compensate for the damage (too-large hole and distorted poly from sheet-metal screws), and the universal sticky goo, Bag Balm (lanolin), seemed to hold.

The other leak at the tank was the bad Spinweld, but as I mentioned I was able to fix that with heat. Now I just have to crawl in there and re-do that inexcusable hose-attachment to the macerator pump...

Steve

[Microship]

Correction - that's a T12 diaphragm pump, not a macerator as I indicated in earlier posts. In the ongoing 2-year saga of cleaning up after Bob-the-plumber, I'm finally working on that part today... I think he just cut the hose too short, so only one hose clamp would engage the end of the nipple and still conctact the crooked hose all around. I started to loosen it to investigate, but it dripped... so I slid that to the very edge and added another one. I think she'll hold for now, cap'n, but she canna take any more pressure!

I'll be living aboard soon, so all this will move to the foreground instead of being nagging details on the to-do list. Fixing his sloppy work should only have taken a few days.

Cheers,
Steve

[Sabbatical II]

Originally Posted by Microship

I'm inclined to keep the legal option as a last resort...

So would I.

In Australia the usual remedy ordered by a court would initially be to order the tradesman to rectify his work, not monetry compensation. A common response in Australia by the tradesmman is to totally ignore the court order because they know that the courts are so clogged by other cases that it will take ages and a lot more effort to have him back in court charged with contempt. If you get a tradesman who obeys the court order when he arrives at your boat and finds that you have attempted repair yourself, he may decide that this is a totally different kettle of fish and he won't feel inclined to fix your repair. He will then wait until you challenge this new situation in court which has muddied the (already grey) waters. On top of all of this is my experience of Lawyers is that they actually make their money from prolonging a case, not solving it. Unfortunately, this is our justice sytem in the free world.

Now, how much is all that worth?

Sorry for the bad news,
Greg

[Microship]

Greg - yah, I pretty much agree... and good point about the hazards of fixing the guy's work. Here, I suspect there would be some satisfaction from "small-claims court," but a lot of time has passed now and it's just too much hassle for what it would yield. The damage is done, and, ironically, so is the good part: this guy pretty much single-handedly convinced me to take a DIY approach to even the most difficult and unpleasant parts of the boat. The only exception I make now is situations involving specialized tools... no choice with injector patterning, for example, but I'll be doing my own much-needed bottom paint next week (with the yard guys coaching).

Thanks for the thoughts!
Steve