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stem said:
I did something similar when fitting a TV wall bracket. I used a stud detector to find a stud and checked with a metal detector to make sure that there weren't any cables or pipes behind. The third hole went straight into a plastic water pipe fastened to the side of the stud. The pipe was for a cloakroom in the room behind, but wasn't particularly close to either the basin or WC it was supplying. The stud detector had shown it as part of the stud.

Not sure what I could have done differently really. :unsure:
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Maybe there need to be rules about where pipes run similar to the rules about where electricity cables run.
 
I'm sure everybody who has done DIY work over a long period has done something similar. In 40 years, my score is 2 electric cables and one water pipe. And I knew they were there if I'd stopped to think....
 
A few years ago I was fitting new doors and frames to a refurbishment while a plumber was fitting a brand new bathroom with shower enclosure.
He did a great job.
He had passed hot and cold for the shower into the wall going up in the loft where there was a pump.
A few days after finishing tiling he started installing the accessories and drilled through the hot pipe when fitting the shower riser.
He had put the pipes there and forgotten about them! :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
Good thing he'd already installed the screen and finished all the waste, so there was no water damage, apart from his ego...
 
Just after I moved to a 1980's house was drilling into the wall to put new shelves up. Checked for socket outlets and cables, started drilling and switched the drill to hammer action, neatly went through the live on one cable and the neutral in the other and the power went off...
Found out that not only had found the cables but also the join in the metal sheilding. The cables went to a socket on a different wall.

Invested in a cable finder after that.

To complete the tale, few years later refurbished the room, where I'd damaged the ring main proved to be the ideal spot to put the fused switched for the under worktop appliances.
 
Never drilled through a pipe, but had an incredible near miss.

Doing a socket for one of my Mum's friends. This was in the middle of a bedroom wall. I marked the box on the wall in pencil then drilled the top RH corner.

It turned out the drill bit had gone in-between two 15mm copper pipes. The pipes were scratched, but not badly damaged.

Never seen that before.
 
Many years ago I was asked to go and fix a leak in some central heating. The house owner had started to nail down the upstairs floor boards. I remember thatI used all the fittings I had in my van and a fair about of microbore pipe. He had hit the pipes over 20 times.
I still wonder why he did not stop when the first leak started dripping through the ceiling.
 
In a bedroom in our current house there were two copper pipes running parallel under a floorboard. Someone had put a screw through the floorboard and it went between the two pipes touching them both but not causing either of them to leak. I noticed it because I could hear the pipes moving when I walked on that board.
 
john4703 said:
Maybe there need to be rules about where pipes run similar to the rules about where electricity cables run.
Click to expand...

When chasing a wall on the first floor to run supplies for a new wall mount tv, I went through a thin "tin" conduit for a lighting cable. There was nothing in the room or downstairs to indicate that there might be a cable. That said, if I had gone up to the loft, removed the decking and pulled back the insulation, I would have seen the cable.
 
securespark said:
Never drilled through a pipe, but had an incredible near miss.

Doing a socket for one of my Mum's friends. This was in the middle of a bedroom wall. I marked the box on the wall in pencil then drilled the top RH corner.

It turned out the drill bit had gone in-between two 15mm copper pipes. The pipes were scratched, but not badly damaged.

Never seen that before.
Click to expand...

Not a pipe but a few years ago a customer asked me to move a light switch to the right by 2.5cm (she was having glass splash backs fitted in her kitchen and the switch needed to be moved so that the glass would clear the switch).

I loosened the switch plate. The cables ran upwards. I started using my trusty Japanese cat's claw to widen the opening, and went through a light cable. It turned out that someone had run a cable out of the top, and down the side of the metal back box. Fortunately the RCBO kicked in. Annoyingly if left a slight dink in the tool.
 
Fitting a sectional garage door and drilling in masonry screws for the side brackets that hold the cross beam for the opening motor a couple of meters back from the opening and about 2.5m up the (plastered) wall. Pop and the power went off. There's a cable in that wall running down from the ceiling. No sockets or switches in line with it or anywhere near it.

Ended up digging a big chuck out of the plastered wall to get at it and repair. To this day I don't know where that cable comes from or where it goes.
 
I've also, when digging out a section of solid ground floor to fit a level access shower, hit a gas pipe running a strangely convoluted route through the concrete.

Dented it pretty badly and must have been pretty close to puncturing it with the SDS chisel before realising it was there.
 
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