Is this install method still in use I wonder?

[Evans Electric]

As an Apprentice I spent a year working on a new build private hospital .

The modus operandi  was as soon as the first floor was in place , which was beam & block construction ...we started to lay conduits on the deck for the ground floor lighting below .

Building was the width of a football pitch and twice as long  and every light box had to be in the right place .   Also a short bend through the slab for switch drops to run down walls not yet built .  

Reason was , the ceiling was plastered direct  and the deck had a 2"   floor screed     no false ceilings .   

So we had our drawing wallpaper pasted  to a piece of hardboard and we scaled off it to find the exact location of each light point , switch drop & to the non existing , three tier trunking to eventually run down the corridors .

Imagine , freezing winter , sweep the snow off the deck before measuring & laying conduit which was so cold it stuck to the skin . 

Not sure if I've explained this to well .   Only ever did it once more on a new school , built the same way.  

 

[ProDave]

I know exactly what you mean.  Doesn't allow much flexibility for alterations or additions does it?
 

 

[Lurch]

I think nowadays there are that many services run in a building and the way in which technology moves on that they are designed with future upgrades in mind. These days it isn't uncommon to be refitting equipment after 10 years whereas back in the day it would be "fitted for life" in that it wouldn't be expected to be changed/removed for the life of the building.

 

[Evans Electric]

Yes , you're both right ..... the place has been refurbed at least twice to my knowledge .

That was one of the jobs from a thread last week  about wiring in phase colours .     Certainly had to learn to read  drawings damn quick .

The other thing I just thought of ...............after the lighting tubes were in situ. and walls were going up we would start the power conduits .

Because there was only 2" floor screed  and the floors were zig zagged with lighting tubes  we used to aim to cross them where the tubes dived down to the boxes below . 

A few memories have stirred, now I look back at that job , middle of the '60s it was , there was a crazy black guy on site , big bloke , used to swing from the scaffolding high up , shouting  "Hey look at me ...Mighty Joe Young !!!"    ( A King Kong  copy film I think )  

Another guy I remember taught me not to judge folk on appearance .  Irish labourer called Paddy George used to keep the job tidy and was tea boy  (Aged about 40)  .  We 're both looking out of a window there, early one spring morning , sun shining through the surrounding trees , birds singing and he says  " Hey Deuruuuk  ( could never get my name right)  did yer  ever larn yer Shakespeare ?"

I said no couln't get on with it.

He goes on to quote at length a long piece about spring followed by The Seven Ages of Man   ( Schoolboy with shining morning face going reluctantly to school  etc )     Theres half a dozen chippies & plumbers listening give him a round of applause. 

One of those moments .         

 

[ruston]

That was one of the things my Dad taught me at an early age , never to judge anyone. His expression "you never know whom you are talking to."

 He was right too. I have met and worked with many people who were not just what they appeared to be.

 

[apprentice87]

I used to drive a lorry once. I was parked outside a docks in sheerness one night and i was talking to another driver from the same firm as me. Now, where i live there used to be one or two "genuine" tramps back in those days.

Now, i was talking to this drived and sying something derogatory about one of the tramps. This driver said to me. "Tell me john, how old are you??" I said "27" He said; "you have a lot of living to do yet, I would not laugh at that tramp if i were you as you do not know what has happened to him in his life, same as you do not know what will happen to you in you life....."

I have never forgotten that.

P.S. He was not wrong..

john..

 

[binky]

One of our local tramps was the former head engineer on the QE2. He lost the plot after his wife died at a relatively young age.

 

[kerching]

That was one of the things my Dad taught me at an early age , never to judge anyone. His expression "you never know whom you are talking to."

 He was right too. I have met and worked with many people who were not just what they appeared to be.

I have worked with a number of folk who reckoned they were Electricians, they weren't! 

 

[Sidewinder]

Like this for example...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/11412116/True-identity-of-tramp-Tea-Cosy-Pete-revealed-as-former-Archbishop-of-Canterburys-grammar-school-friend.html

 

[Manator]

I have just done a new build very posh office block. Concrete floors but a two foot void and the flooring was metal grid works. No conduit anywhere except the boiler room, all tray and basket.

I have however worked in prisons and they still insist in steel conduit buried in concrete.

 

[Andy™]

I have however worked in prisons and they still insist in steel conduit buried in concrete.

id be insisting on no electric at all. not even a light in the cells

 

[Evans Electric]

A photo is always good on here .

Just found these two of the job itself  and the entrance lodge was the first bit of house bashing I ever did ,  myself & another apprentice were shoved in there with some twin/eath etc  with the foreman sparks keeping an eye on us.