Ever acted without thinking it through ?

Evans Electric · Dec 31, 2017

I did some work for friends who had bought a guest house in Llandudno .

Two major carrott ups inflicted by yours truly .

1) Our friends said could this door bell be removed in the kitchen , doesnt work , its ugly . Had a look , battery powered , wire went down to the cellar then got lost . I did notice some thin brass strip tacked all around , didn't mean anything to me at the time .

Removed the bell .

About 6 months later our friends realised it was a warning that the cellar was flooding and had reached the third step :facepalm:

Well how was I to know ...bloody sea retreated from Birmingham about 5 million years ago !!

Geoff1946 · Dec 31, 2017

It's not a bell they need; it's a pump.

ruston · Dec 31, 2017

The bell is probably to tell them the pump is not working.

Andy™ · Dec 31, 2017

i noticed Deke said 'Two major carrott ups inflicted by yours truly', yet only posted one

maybe the other was to rip out that unused fused spur marked 'do not turn off' that appeared to run to some box below the floor in the basement?

Evans Electric · Dec 31, 2017

Oooooo they can be realllly cruel on here !!!

I forgot to include **** Up No.2 .

In the utility at the back of the house they asked me to change a single socket to a twin . It was surface mounted at about 4ft high and right in the middle of the side wall , removed old box , marked two fixings for the twin , drill & insert rawplug in first hole ....drill second hole and a jet of water shoots out , blows the drill up , drenches me and starts to flood the utility .

I shove a wallplug and screw in the hole which reduces flow , there are no shut offs anywhere , lead piping from around the 1920's , panic is prevailing , my mate is outside with a turnkey down a hole in the pavement , water is still spurting , I look closely and announce that that valve is the GAS .

The water , it turned out , was at the corner of the road and shut off half the street .

Eventually , by chiselling out some plaster I find a lead water pipe enters the room , top left corner , runs diagonally , flush,down to the bottom right and exits the house underground to feed an outside toilet .

Talk about Safe Zones !!!!! If I'd moved the box 1/2 inch to the right it would never have happened .

Evans Electric · Dec 31, 2017

On the subject of carrot - ups this one was on a new Halls of Residence block 24 storey block of student flats .

As an apprentice I'd worked on the site but in plant rooms , boiler rooms & public areas ............didn't 1st fix any flats .

Towards the end they get me on fixing Dimplex fan heaters in flats . No one mentioned that the flush pyros were all pre- fabricated & made off to size for each flat & often if they were too long they just made a loop at a box . Pyros were held in glue on flat clips that were fitted the day before wiring , then plastered over .

So I was launched with a mountain of heaters , DP switches and a drill with which to drill though the pyros feeding the heaters. :wacko: :C

I did three , then opened the meter boxes to power them up and got three nice bangs from each flat . Lucky really I didn't do the whole floor before switching on .

Oh & don't say why didn't I test because virtually no testing was done then other than meggering every pyro at first fix.