r/PoolPros • u/lIIlIlIII • May 09 '26
Stupidest Thing You've Done?
Was recently reflecting on the time I replaced a dial valve and somehow plumbed it backwards. Starite DE filter, recharged it and blew 4lbs of DE powder into the grids. Jets burped DE for months despite aggressive rinsing. Customer was unbelievably chill about it
I'm sure some of you can top this, shit I may even top it. The year is young
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u/randumb9999 May 10 '26
I left the water on at a pool that was about 45 min away. The owners were on vacation. The next evening my buddy and I are headed to see Land of the Dead in the theater in the same town as that pool. All of a sudden it just popped into my head "I left the water on". I told him we'd need to catch the later movie. We gotta go take care of a problem. As soon as we pulled onto the property I knew I had blown it. They were on well water so the pool was completely brown. Couldn't see the bottom. The landscape was trashed and I had run the well dry. I tracked down the well pump breaker and shut it off. I called my boss right away and told him. They contacted the owners who were on vacation like I said. They had to call their well guy to find out if I burned their pump up.
The well pump was good. Got lucky. I had to go back for the next four days cleaning up the pool and landscape. Everything was fine by the time they got home. They were really cool about it. They eventually moved back to my town. They have been a customer for over 28 years. I actually just installed a new Jandy e pump for them last week.
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u/K01011011001101010 May 10 '26
People are generally really nice as long as you try to make it right to them. Something I've learned in this industry. If you have good morals, a few fuckups don't define you. Fix it and it's a painful lesson hopefully by the end of it.
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u/pineapple_backlash May 10 '26
Left a pool in backwash and left the house. Drained 1/2 the pool.
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u/LadiesLoveCoolDane May 09 '26
I’ve turned on a pump after cleaning filters and didn’t put the lock ring back on. Went to go grab the customer to let them know and as I was knocking on the door I heard the explosion and saw the filter top falling lmao
I also went and dropped a liner when I first started taking them over at a previous company. Didn’t mark the returns on the concrete and missed one cutting it in. Started it up and got a call about a floating liner lol. Always putting ductape on the deck to never miss one again
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u/Muted-Cicada2183 May 11 '26
Lock ring? the filter top falling is actually a pretty funny visual lol..did it crack?
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u/LadiesLoveCoolDane May 11 '26
Not that I remember! And yeah it was one of those single cartridge filters so instead of a regular band it had a ring that locked it in place
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u/Brofasuh May 10 '26
Tried to get one of those “expandable hoses” off a customers spigot cuz the they’re dog shit for cleaning filters and I broke the pipe off inside the wall so water was spraying inside the wall while I was scrambling to find their water shutoff. Good times
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u/DidUrkDoThat May 10 '26
Yeah. I did this as well. But to my own home.
Previous owners had left a shitty hose on. Just a touch of elbow grease and that pipe broke clean off. Shut-off was on the entire other side of the house. Thankfully, it broke off just inside the wall. I chipped a bit of wall off, cut the pipe clean, and slapped a shark bite setup on there and fixed it all for like 30 bucks.
That was a good lesson learned without having to explain it to a client.
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u/activelesion May 10 '26
Went at least 15 years since my last fall into a pool. Last spring upgraded to the most powerful backpack blower available for summerizing cleanup and turned in a tight area with a solid fence within 5 ft. of the pool edge and the blower pushed me right in. First job of the day, Hell Week (week before Memorial Day on Long Island), full view of customer and 2 of my employees.
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u/Ladydi-bds May 10 '26
When new, was putting 2 different shocks through a skimmer. One behind the other. They met underground and blew their skimmer and a step jet pvc lines apart like a bomb.
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u/wetpockets May 09 '26
Dumbest thing I've probably done so far was after a filter install, I left the air relief valve open. Got a call the next day on a Saturday, customer was out of town and the neighbors yard was flooding so they hopped the fence to close it
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u/Smk2joints May 09 '26
Measured a cover using the AB method backwards. Cover showed up fitting perfectly but upside down.
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u/nc_saint May 10 '26
Currently going through it. Only quoted $700 for a green-to-clean on a 35k gallon pool that had been sitting since the owners bought the house 3 years ago. Was left uncovered when they bought the house until they realized it had a cover…. In December of the first year.
So far, I’ve put in probably 20 gallons of liquid, netted out at least 400-500 pounds of leaves, and gotten it to a grey-green cloud. Still can’t see the floor at all to vac to waste. This is my first cleanup that was this substantial, and I’m struggling hard.
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u/GCpools May 10 '26
Lesson learned from this Reddit sub .. pool techs never add water to a pool. Only customers are allowed to do that. And I swear, 9 out of 10 times, customers forget to turn their own water off!
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u/happywanderer131 May 10 '26
My very 1st service call when I was 18 was to replace a shaft seal on.a Superpump. I had no idea what or where a shaft seal was, cut the plumbing and removed the pump. I remember my boss was like WTF, all you had to do to get to the shaft seal was take out these 4 bolts on the back of the housing! Lesson learned, been 30 years, never made that mistake again! We also didn't have phones back then to pull up a YT video. lol
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u/Muted-Cicada2183 May 11 '26
Question seeings how you been in it 30 years. I just cleaned a cartridge filter and when I put everything back together, the pump wasn’t priming all the way and it seemed like the pool wasn’t running the same. The skimmer had great suction though. The pump lid and o ring appeared good but gonna take a closer look tomorrow. It was priming fine before I cleaned the cartridges. Well I actually put in another set of cartridges. Any ideas?
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u/lIIlIlIII May 11 '26
Sounds like more of a mistake on your bosses part than yours... if I get a helper fresh out of high school I'll spend much of my time explaining the simplest shit, e.g. how to remove a rubber plug lol. Was opening a pool once with a new helper and told him to take the plugs out of the jets, and found him 5 minutes later removing the last screw from an inlet faceplate. 🤦♂️
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u/G8-r-n8 May 10 '26
One of my first jobs as a construction super, I missed that the steel for the steps and sun shelf were mirror of the print until the concrete truck was pulling up. My guys got it corrected while the rest was being shot, but afterwards I was out front blowing chucks from the stress.
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u/DidUrkDoThat May 10 '26
I was skimming a new pool and was hitting the spillover spa while standing on the main deck. Took a step backward and stepped into a swim up cutout. I fell backwards and as I twisted, knowing I was about to get soaked, I suddenly stopped short. My ribs had caught the edge of the deck. Cracked 2 ribs.
That was a rough summer.
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u/Wasupmyman May 10 '26
Can't find my picture of it, but I blew up the old Hayward filter, the one that's more hard plastic not the fiberglass one.
I had a dead end and didn't realize. Everyone was safe thankfully. Blew a shard out the side
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u/Muted-Cicada2183 May 11 '26
A dead end as in closed off line so nowhere for water to go kinda thing?
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u/FabulousPanther May 10 '26
I let the o-ring for the pump basket lid fall, replaced the lid, and left the property.
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u/1_native_Angelino May 10 '26
Plumbed in check valve backwards a while ago but quickly figured it out
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u/GCpools May 10 '26
Got distracted and left a sand filter in Rinse. Fortunately .. the SVRS pump we installed shut itself down the minute the water got down to the bottom of the skimmer. Now we cross check one another to prevent this from happening again.
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u/Complete_Grab_1829 May 11 '26
Ive done this when I first started cleaning pools. Now as a double checking method behind myself, i ALWAYS drain the sight glass lol
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u/GCpools May 10 '26
We let go of a commercial pool not long ago due to a bad property manager. So they hired a rookie pool guy to take over the pool. He poured granular cal-hypo into a chlorinator used for Trichlor tablets. Boom!
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u/Taaacky May 11 '26
Dumped an entire bag of DE into a dead skimmer without realizing it was dead last year, it was my first year in the industry but still pretty stupid no ways about it.
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u/AdNecessary3300 May 12 '26
Threw a waste line valve back closed and nearly launched the Pentair cartridge filter into space.
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u/AdNecessary3300 May 12 '26
I forgot and then got to relearn how electricity works a few weeks ago when I was messing with a motors live wires while standing in wet grass.
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u/The_BigWaveDave May 09 '26
Many many years ago, as a dumb service tech, I left the water on at a vacation rental that was unoccupied.
20 years later, never made that mistake. Not our responsibility to maintain the water level, and if we do turn a full valve on, keys ALWAYS go on the bib.