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This article doesn't touch much about why plumbing is hard. I'm from Poland so I'm not only IT but also a plumber ;) Plumbing is hard because it is not forgivi

This article doesn't touch much about why plumbing is hard. I'm from Poland so I'm not only IT but also a plumber ;) Plumbing is hard because it is not forgiving. It's as binary as IT except you can learn the outcome with some delay, once you learnt about a damage caused by a leak. Either you do a pressure tests right or repair can be expensive. And bugfixing is always tricky. Water also goes down whether you like it or not. Think about all possible leaks inside the shower cabin. Or what is even more impressive that under a pressure the water goes everywhere possible. Plumbing is similar to electrical engineering, except it usually doesn't kill immidiately (though working with gas is tricky anyway) but requires similar strict mental model to do right. And when you see a plumber it seems like this person is just a physical worker. So work status misconception must be leveled with money...

PaulHoule 4y ago
My complaint is that plumbers frequently do poor work for the money. We had some come and install an instant water heater and they cut an ugly hole in the side of the house without much thought. At one office I worked in they called Roto-Rooter (a non-union franchise that is likely to wreck your pipes and require a call to the union plumbers afterwards) who claimed that we'd flushed a condom down the drain (very hard to believe) and wrecked the pipes so we had to call the union plumber. Another time the sink wasn't running so we called the union plumbers, they unscrewed the aerator from the faucet, saw some crud come out and the water run and left in triumph, sure of their ability to outthink a group of mere computer nerds. Us computer nerds were sitting at the faucet immediately after that, running it and talking about it. The now aerator free faucet clogged up again within 2 minutes of the plumbers leaving.
- agsamek 4y ago
  > My complaint is that plumbers frequently do poor work for the money. Hehe - now you can feel like an IT customer. I think most people feel the same about IT but the domain is just more wide and prone to excuses.
  - pasquinelli 4y ago
    people feel that way about stuff they have to pay for, generally.
    - PaulHoule 4y ago
      No, I've never felt that way about a union electrician or generic handymen.
- nkrisc 4y ago
  > My complaint is that plumbers frequently do poor work for the money. Considering the quality of many expensive website and software implementations I've been required to use throughout the years at various jobs, this problem is not unique to plumbers.
throw0101c 4y ago
> This article doesn't touch much about why plumbing is hard. I'm from Poland so I'm not only IT but also a plumber ;) I'm guessing that is a reference to Omid Djalili sketches about Polish plumbers: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K85ZtXnMxbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K85ZtXnMxbM * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8mjzu0Runo&t=1m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8mjzu0Runo&t=1m * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FM9Ps6cW9U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FM9Ps6cW9U * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omid_Djalili https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omid_Djalili
- lajosbacs 4y ago
  It's a stereotype across the whole Europe, even Poland takes advantage of it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_plumber#/media/File:Polish_Plumber.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_plumber#/media/File:Pol...
  - agsamek 4y ago
    Thanks for sharing. This was exactly what I was referring to. Also youtube links from the UK are nice, shame you are out of EU for the time being :))) Anyway - I just added a valve regulation to our kitchen floor heating this weekend, so it was not only joking :)
    - lajosbacs 4y ago
      I also found the UK vids amusing (am not a Pole) -- kind of how to make fun of a stereotype in a positive way.
georgeoliver 4y ago
I had a funny experience a week ago. One night working on a hobby web project it took me three or four hours to debug something, I finally got to bed around midnight thinking "boy, programming is hard". The next day at work we had to find a broken heat wire in a tiled bathroom floor, running 1000 volts through the wires to try to fuse the broken wire, then heating the floor up and searching with heat-sensitive paper overlays for the likely broken spot, then breaking the tile with a hammer and digging the wire out of the mortar bed. After we found it I thought, "I'd rather hunt software bugs".
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Does a thermal imaging camera not work for the finding task? That seems like it would be faster, more certain, and less aggravation all around.
  - georgeoliver 4y ago
    Good question, I don't know. The technician on site didn't have one. I guessing the camera would be faster, but the result image about the same. The nice thing about the paper is you easily can check multiple spots at once, so it's faster to divide down to the problem area.
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  Time-domain reflectometry. To Google it is to love it.
  - georgeoliver 4y ago
    Very cool! The tech did have some device that could measure the distance to the fault when tied into wire upstream, but I'm not sure if it was a TDR, I think he was making more rule of thumb calculations based on the characteristics of the wire. I would say though that between his voltage box, amp box, and general test tools he had the coolest tech on the jobsite in general.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
iancmceachern 4y ago
Yes, and it's even less forgiving when it's a gas, or worse a flammable gas, or 3000 psi hydraulic fluid.
fuzzfactor 4y ago
>It's as binary as IT Yup, it either leaks or it doesn't. IOW in the case of helium leak testing, it either leaks an unacceptable amount or it leaks an acceptable amount. For higher pressures or stronger vacuums there's always this: https://products.swagelok.com/en/all-products/fittings/c/100 https://products.swagelok.com/en/all-products/fittings/c/100? https://products.swagelok.com/en/all-products/valves/c/200 https://products.swagelok.com/en/all-products/valves/c/200? For things like aerospace or energy.

PaulHoule 4y ago

My complaint is that plumbers frequently do poor work for the money. We had some come and install an instant water heater and they cut an ugly hole in the side of the house without much thought. At one office I worked in they called Roto-Rooter (a non-union franchise that is likely to wreck your pipes and require a call to the union plumbers afterwards) who claimed that we'd flushed a condom down the drain (very hard to believe) and wrecked the pipes so we had to call the union plumber. Another time the sink wasn't running so we called the union plumbers, they unscrewed the aerator from the faucet, saw some crud come out and the water run and left in triumph, sure of their ability to outthink a group of mere computer nerds. Us computer nerds were sitting at the faucet immediately after that, running it and talking about it. The now aerator free faucet clogged up again within 2 minutes of the plumbers leaving.

agsamek 4y ago
> My complaint is that plumbers frequently do poor work for the money. Hehe - now you can feel like an IT customer. I think most people feel the same about IT but the domain is just more wide and prone to excuses.
- pasquinelli 4y ago
  people feel that way about stuff they have to pay for, generally.
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    No, I've never felt that way about a union electrician or generic handymen.
nkrisc 4y ago
> My complaint is that plumbers frequently do poor work for the money. Considering the quality of many expensive website and software implementations I've been required to use throughout the years at various jobs, this problem is not unique to plumbers.

throw0101c 4y ago

> This article doesn't touch much about why plumbing is hard. I'm from Poland so I'm not only IT but also a plumber ;) I'm guessing that is a reference to Omid Djalili sketches about Polish plumbers: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K85ZtXnMxbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K85ZtXnMxbM * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8mjzu0Runo&t=1m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8mjzu0Runo&t=1m * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FM9Ps6cW9U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FM9Ps6cW9U * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omid_Djalili https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omid_Djalili

lajosbacs 4y ago
It's a stereotype across the whole Europe, even Poland takes advantage of it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_plumber#/media/File:Polish_Plumber.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_plumber#/media/File:Pol...
- agsamek 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing. This was exactly what I was referring to. Also youtube links from the UK are nice, shame you are out of EU for the time being :))) Anyway - I just added a valve regulation to our kitchen floor heating this weekend, so it was not only joking :)
  - lajosbacs 4y ago
    I also found the UK vids amusing (am not a Pole) -- kind of how to make fun of a stereotype in a positive way.

georgeoliver 4y ago

I had a funny experience a week ago. One night working on a hobby web project it took me three or four hours to debug something, I finally got to bed around midnight thinking "boy, programming is hard". The next day at work we had to find a broken heat wire in a tiled bathroom floor, running 1000 volts through the wires to try to fuse the broken wire, then heating the floor up and searching with heat-sensitive paper overlays for the likely broken spot, then breaking the tile with a hammer and digging the wire out of the mortar bed. After we found it I thought, "I'd rather hunt software bugs".

sokoloff 4y ago
Does a thermal imaging camera not work for the finding task? That seems like it would be faster, more certain, and less aggravation all around.
- georgeoliver 4y ago
  Good question, I don't know. The technician on site didn't have one. I guessing the camera would be faster, but the result image about the same. The nice thing about the paper is you easily can check multiple spots at once, so it's faster to divide down to the problem area.
CamperBob2 4y ago
Time-domain reflectometry. To Google it is to love it.
- georgeoliver 4y ago
  Very cool! The tech did have some device that could measure the distance to the fault when tied into wire upstream, but I'm not sure if it was a TDR, I think he was making more rule of thumb calculations based on the characteristics of the wire. I would say though that between his voltage box, amp box, and general test tools he had the coolest tech on the jobsite in general.
iancmceachern 4y ago

iancmceachern 4y ago

Yes, and it's even less forgiving when it's a gas, or worse a flammable gas, or 3000 psi hydraulic fluid.

fuzzfactor 4y ago

>It's as binary as IT Yup, it either leaks or it doesn't. IOW in the case of helium leak testing, it either leaks an unacceptable amount or it leaks an acceptable amount. For higher pressures or stronger vacuums there's always this: https://products.swagelok.com/en/all-products/fittings/c/100 https://products.swagelok.com/en/all-products/fittings/c/100? https://products.swagelok.com/en/all-products/valves/c/200 https://products.swagelok.com/en/all-products/valves/c/200? For things like aerospace or energy.