Nail through pipe

[JIMMY100]

I put down a tongue and groove floor upstairs over an existing floor and, for authenticity used big floorboards nails.

I merrily whacked one in and heard a slight hiss. I lifted up the newly laid board and the hiss got a lot louder. I frantically hit a bolster into the floorboard underneath and ripped if up. A geyser of HOT water spouted up and hit the ceiling.

I'd hit the nail through the CH hot water pipe. In a panic, I lifted up the pipe and squeezed very tightly in an attempt to block the holes in the pipe (the nail had gone right through). However, the nail had splayed the copper on the bottom hole and this then speared through my fingertip.

I grabbed a towel which was on the bed and wrapped it round my badly bleeding finger as hot water still geysered up to the ceiling. I rushed to get to the main stopcock and bumped into my girlfriend. She looked at me, the blood, the geyser of steaming hot water then the towel and this is true.. she said "That's the new towel I just bought from Next and you're getting blood all over it".

 

[breezer]

 

[Stoday]

Typical.

 

[Richard C]

Many years ago I got a panic phone call from my sister one Sunday lunchtime to say the ceiling in her kitchen was bulging & BIL had gone up the pub. Rushed around there & sure enough it looked like it was gonna explode. Punched some holes in it & the water started to pour out; I shut water off & she put saucepans under the holes while I improvised with a lump of 4 x 2 & a ½ sheet of plywood I just happened to have to support the ceiling. Lifted the boards to see that BIL had been “stopping some floorboard squeaks” with 2” nails & had gone through a 22mm CH feed not once but 3 times. 1 hour later saw a complete new section of 22mm installed & the c/h bled & back on. BIL comes home from the pub after closing & says “wots that bloody great lump of wood doing in the middle of the kitchen?” It was there for 2 months but the biggest surprise to me was that once I took it down the only sign of the disaster was the half dozen or so holes I had punched in the ceiling & some slightly crushed Artex! Never did get any thanks or payment + I burned the motor out on my circular saw trying to get the floor boards up in a rush!

 

[RigidRaider]

Yep - I did the same thing when I was a teenager. Should have left the nail in the hole but instead I went and lifted the board. Next thing we had a geyser of hot water spouting into the air.

 

[Peter1919]

I put a nail into a pipe once, the worst thing was just before I did it a made a comment to my brother to the effect of listen to this it sounds like I am hitting metal

 

[Bilioustrumpstaine]

 

[foxhole]

Jumped out of bed and went outside after an almighty crash thinking someone was trying to break in, went outside to find neighbours frantically smashing the window of a car on it's roof trying to free trapped occupants, [the car had hit our Golf , (throwing it back about 20 feet) , mounted the bonnet and overturned].My wife was very shocked, she exclaimed "LOOK AT MY CAR!!"

 

[gregers]

jimmy you can now class yourself as a professional.

 

[Bloggsyboy]

Been there done that. I very carefully looked under every single nail hole when I replaced the floorboards in my daughter's room. I screwed them back down as I thought I'd be getting them up again. There are loads of pipes under there as the boiler is in the room below. It all went well. Then at the last minute I saw the corner of one board was poking up a bit. It would have been the very last screw to put in. Feeling a bit confident that I couldn't hit a pipe because I'd been so careful up till then I just went over and stuck a screw in there. After all there had been one in there before. Big hiss, big panic, bucket under the ceiling in room below. Floor up again and it was operation pipe repair.
Happened at work once, I wasn't there but we fitted out a large indian restaurant in London. The night before the grand opening the boss asked one of our lads to "just" screw this board into the hatch hole in the ceiling as it will look unsightly on opening night. As a favour he agreed but this was late at night and people were not quite as with it as they would normally have been. Two screws went right through two pipes and flooded the area underneath. The restaurant boss went crazy apparently, I'm glad I wasn't there. They had to delay the opening but all was put right the next day. Oh what fun.

 

[rottie007]

used to work in a complex of sheds which had mains water ran round in that blue plastic pipe stuff, in a couple of the sheds the pipe came up out very concrete of the floor to a tap. anyways during the icy spell we had to move some big tanks with a forklift through one of the doors. unknown to us we caught the slab with a forklift tine and it skimmed perfectly across one of the water pipes (which was frozen solid).. anyways a few weeks later my boss commented on how squishy the ground was outside the shed and the fact that the water pressure was crap all of a sudden..
was only when we opened the shed door and saw the 5 ft geyzer which had pretty much coated everything with water that we realised what had happened..
cue me having to do a live water cap-off (boss got water supplied by the metered neighbour as part of his rent and they had the stop-cock) so that we didnt get into trouble for water wastage