My old boss's weird advice about a clogged main line finally made sense last Tuesday

I was on a call for a backed-up sewer line at a diner in Springfield, the kind of job where you expect the worst. My old boss, Frank, who retired five years ago, always had this saying: 'The problem is never where the water stops.' I thought he was just being cryptic. But there I was, rodding from the cleanout in the alley for an hour, getting nowhere. The diner owner was freaking out about losing a lunch rush. On a hunch, I walked across the street and lifted a manhole cover. Sure enough, a fatberg of grease and wipes was lodged about 30 feet downstream from the building, right under the street. Frank's line meant stop looking at the symptom and find the actual blockage. It changed how I run every call now. Has anyone else had a piece of advice that seemed nonsense until it suddenly clicked during a crisis?

3 comments

3 Comments

robin59112d ago

Always check downstream first, saves so much time on those calls.

simonp7612d ago

Remember a time we spent hours on a bad sensor reading. The real issue was a stuck valve three units over. That downstream check would have fixed it in ten minutes.

lewis.terry12d ago

Read a forum post where a tech swore by checking the whole system flow first.