A plumber is a person who installs and maintains piping for water and their drains and waste systems in a dwelling, business or industrial facility. He installs bathroom appliances such as showers, toilets, sinks, kitchen appliances (e.g. dishwashers), water heaters required in a new or remodelled houses or buildings.
Plumbers need various skills to perform their jobs successfully like blueprint reading, ability to locate through diagrams locations for installation of pipes, fitting pipes together for the correct functioning of plumbing systems. A plumber shall be aware of basic Plumbing Codes and Standards specified.
Plumbers Tool Kit:
A Plumber requires different tools to perform various operations. Some of the essential tools are detailed below.
A: Basic Tools (Easy to Carry)
- Measuring Tape
- Measuring tape is a flexible form of ruler. It consists of a ribbon of cloth, plastic, fiber glass, or metal strip with linear-measurement markings.
- Spanners
- Spanners are used for fixing and opening nuts and bolts. Different types of spanners are available such as double ended spanner, ring spanners, socket spanners. Spanners are available in set of different sizes.
- Hand Hacksaw
- This is a fine-tooth hand saw with a blade held under tension in a frame, used for cutting materials such as metal or plastics
- Adjustable wrench
- An adjustable wrench or spanner is even more likely than an openended spanner to wreck the head of the nut or bolt.
- Pliers
- Pliers should never be used to do-up or undo nuts and bolts. Use pliers on a nut or a bolt if it has already been rounded and it’s impossible to use a spanner or socket.
- Torque wrench
- For tightening important gaskets or nuts etc where bolts require to be tightened to a torque as described in a workshop manual. It means applying a certain peak torque (as measured by a torque wrench) or by a certain angle of rotation.
- Plumbers Torch
- For soldering.
- Pipe die set
- The pipe die set is used for threading external taper threads on pipes. The die set is available in the sizes varying between 6.35 mm to 50.8 mm.
- Taps and Tap Handle
- Taps are used for cutting internal threads. Normally these are available from 1.4 mm to 60 mm (1/16 to 3 inch) size.
- Plunger
- Used for unclogging drains. This can usually clear the blockage if it’s not too far into the main drain.
B: Secondary / Supportive Tools
- Bench vice
- Bench vice is used for holding flat or square work piece.
- Pipe vice
- Pipe vice is used for holding the pipe for performing various operations.
- Basin wrench
- The basin wrench is useful for getting at faucet nuts in spaces not easily accessible.
- Spud wrench
- Pipe cutter is used to cut the pipes.
