Why I use light oil on threads
As a first year guy, it was my job to remove the angle stops from the boxes and disassemble the nuts and ferrules.
I then put pipe dope on the threads, and reassembled.
One day I started to read the instructions on the box, and of course my journeyman yelled at me to quit reading and wasting time.
When I read the "use light oil" on the threads part and turned to him and said,
"We're supposed to put light oil on these."
He said,
"What? Give me that box!"
"Hey! You're right!
"Try some of the WD40 over there, it's got to be quicker than what you're doing! You won't even have to disassemble them."
At this point I'm thinking,
"Duh!........"
And that's the day that 150 plumbers started their switch from pipe dope to oil on the compression stops at Crown Custom Plumbing.
I still get yelled at for reading newspapers and books.
You can find out some neat things that way though.
One thing about plumbers that I always tell my customers,
"Don't let them throw away the instructions."
And when they buy a Toto Unifit equipped toilet,
"Make the plumber read the instructions before he starts on this one."
and
"Don't let him throw away the toggle screws that hold the seat down that are stapled to the Unifit adapter."
I know that plumbers don't like to read those things.
I hate getting calls wondering how to attach the seats when the plumber has thrown out the toggle screws at the beginning of the job.
Granted, in plumbing, some of the instructions are not written well, like the push the wax on the horn of a toilet, which I don't do either.
But sometimes they do hold some key information that should be noted.
One thing I do a lot, is to remove useless Teflon Tape from everything a homeowner can think of to wind it around. Not as messy as pipe dope, but certainly annoying.
In many cases, it's remove the tape, reassemble and Viola! the leak is gone!
Terry Love