Ran into a retired plumber at the hardware store who changed how I look at pipe joints

I was grabbing some PVC cement for a leaky sprinkler line last Saturday and this older guy saw me staring at the fittings. He walked over and said 'son, you're overthinking it - just sand the inside of the coupler before you glue'. I shrugged it off at first but tried it on my repair and the thing hasn't dripped a drop in 5 days. He told me he learned that trick in 1978 working on a high rise in Chicago and never stopped doing it. Kinda made me wonder how many little tips like that get lost when folks retire. Has anyone else gotten advice from a stranger that ended up working way better than the manual said?

2 comments

2 Comments

taylor1747d ago

Oh man, that sanding trick is gold. I bet there's a whole library of those little hacks that plumbers, electricians, and carpenters just carry in their heads and never write down.

the_morgan7d ago

It's like half of real skill is just hoarding weird, specific tricks nobody writes down.