Funny maintenance stories?

[Hostels]

Does anyone have interesting or funny (in hindsight) maintenance stories? Burst water pipes, overflowing toilets, power outages at the wrong time, etc.?

[Plakian]

A few years back our sewage pump was not working, or so we thought. The boss and I haul it out of the tank and he switches it on to test it. The problem was not the pump but a split discharge pipe. Guess who got an unwanted shower?

[chico]

hahahaa that was tipical movie scene but I gues it wasn't as funny to you then as it is funny to us now

[gordo]

it 'rains' in my office occasionally - im directly below the cool room for the bar.

we had a blocked rain pipe that had a small sink in the cool room connected to it - basically the sink is just for tipping out old dirty mop water. anyway, the downpipe on the outside of the building got blocked and the outlet for the ice machine (also goes into the sink) kept pumping water until it flooded and it 'rained' in my office. 3 of us went outside at about 3am (when i found it) to try and trace the pipes. eventually found the blockage and couldnt unblock it. we managed to open up the pipe and relase the pressure in the pipes so it stopped floodin gthe office. a few days later we got a guy in to use a high pressure hose thingy to unblock the drain.

2 days later, the nightclub below/behind our building came running into the hostel asking us not to flush any toilets or use the showers. somewhat confused by this, i went around to the club to find out what was going on. theyd been closed for a few days and it was about a foot deep everywhere in sludge and water. basically, once we flushed our system out, it all went flying into their drains, backed up and flooded the entire nightclub in nearly a foot of crap. they never twigged it was us though...

[saoghalbeag]

We were right in the midst of late afternoon check-in rush at a hostel I managed in Scotland. Our reception was (irritatingly) also the hostel lounge/library/TV room so there were punters everywhere.

The wall that divided this room from the hallway leading to rest of the hostel was directly below the 2nd floor bathrooms.

Check-in was suddenly interrupted by shouting (in various languages) and we rushed out from behind the desk to be confronted by a wall of steaming water almost the width of the dividing wall, cascading from the roof above, onto a row of guests who were now scalded and leaping and gasping for air...

There was a moment of silence as everyone kind of took in the surreal sight of a waterfall in the middle of the lounge before we started racing upstairs.

Sure enough, a helpful guest had decided to have a 'bath' in the wash basin rather than use the shower, and had left the plug in, with the hot water rushing out at full speed...

The strange part is, that the water must have been on and rushing out for HOURS for it to have completely flooded the bathroom and ceiling before gushing into the lounge (there was also water creeping into a nearby room). The place was packed and we'd not had a chance to go upstairs all afternoon, yet with all those people, how could NOBODY notice?

[PatrickO`D]

We had a major flood at our hostel as well, the high pressure fire extinguisher system decided to have a go. There was a small shop below us that we did not get along with well, and this did not make relations any better. There was so much weight from the water the floor actually sank a couple of inches. I am not a firefighter, but I was very impressed on the amount of water that it pushed out in not alot of time. In a sense it made me feel better because no fire would stand a chance against this volume of water. I suppose the moral of the story is I think it is time to retire those old mercury pressure valves and upgrade, the only reason they were there was because of the Grand father clause we have in our building codes in some US cities.

[Fountainrunner]

The strange part is, that the water must have been on and rushing out for HOURS for it to have completely flooded the bathroom and ceiling before gushing into the lounge (there was also water creeping into a nearby room). The place was packed and we'd not had a chance to go upstairs all afternoon, yet with all those people, how could NOBODY notice?

Sorry to hear what happened, indeed very disturbing. You'd think people would have enough respect for your place of business to keep an eye out for things like that but you can't always count on them. There's simply no way noone noticed the sink overflowing. Stories like this definitely prove it's essential someone on staff does a walk through periodically but that's easier said than done. Thanks for sharing.

[saoghalbeag]

oh we definitely started doing walk throughs every evening after that. we had 4 storeys so it was a pain but not worth the pain of not doing it! we also had a tiny staff cubbyhole room so when we had an extra staff member they were in charge of putting the fear of God into people on the upper levels!

We also discovered that we had quite a clear view of the upper levels from one of the pubs across the road, and my sister once raced out of the pub and down to the hostel to shout at people who were climbing out the top floor window to smoke! They nearly died of fright - they had absolutely no idea where she'd come from, and certainly weren't expecting staff to approach from the road!!

It's amazing what people don't notice - I guess it's like litter!

[Tinker's Station]

We're just starting up a hostel in Soda Springs, California where the annual snowfall can be up to 40 feet! We've done quite a bit to prepare (resurface parking lots, repair the roof, non-slip tile, etc.) but I'm sure I'll have stories to share in no time.

[Merry]

Our hostel laundry room consists of exactly one washer and one dryer. The dryer doesn't get much use as the hostel is in a rural setting and part of a program that teaches about sustainable living. So, the clothes line does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to wet laundry.

But, what happens when you have 20 people in a house, the wettest September in years, and the dryer breaks? Badly? So badly that the ordered part won't be in for two weeks? Then it turns out that it was the wrong part and a new one has to be ordered? Oh, and did I mention that we co-hosted a week-long event attended by about 100 campers? Ya. Let's just say that the greenhouse looked more like some sort of strange clothing outlet than a place to grow tomatoes.

For the desperate there was a community center just up the road, also with exactly one washer and one dryer...but their washer was on the fritz!