What Disasters Have You Had.

[steptoe]

 I'm a Carpet Fitter, I've always been insured for Public Liability, can't see why not, £80 a year, only claimed once.

Which brings me on to my first mishap, long story short didn't sleep a wink one night, not so much as resting my eyes for five minutes, on the way to the first job I fell asleep at the front of a Que at a set of traffic lights, not a good sign.  Anyway fitting the lounge carpet doing a long heat-seamed join, pulling the heat-seamer along pulling the carpet together and got to the end of the join and put the heat-seamer back on its pad, while I attended to finishing of the join, only to turn round to see I had put the heat-seamer directly onto the carpet and burnt a nice square brown shape into the carpet, thats what insurance is for.The  Moral of that story, never have an all night blazing row with your mrs and go to work, go to the pub instead. Guinness

Next is not really something that went wrong , more of a once in a lifetime event  (maybe twice) of loosing it, and swearing at a customer. Not something I'm proud of, more a reflex reaction. In the process of clearing the room to fit a lounge carpet, there was a trail of 2.5mm Twin &earth that went from one side of a doorway to the other, being all proper I advised the customer that I could not fit it under the carpet, I then proceeded to pull the plug out with my right hand and then put it with the pins of the plug into the palm of my left hand.

What the cupid stunt had done, was put a plug on one end of the wire into a socket, put a plug on the other end of the wire and plugged it into a double socket, to create an extension. "You f***@@@k~~##g w@@**?R" I said, lucky it was AC. It still makes me angry now whist I laugh shaking my head. The moral of the story and I'm no electrician, is check it ain't live then check again.

  I could go on, I'll save it for another time perhaps, opcorn

#

ah!

you have met the infamous widow-maker then.!?

very very common for 'well clued up' DIYers to use to power the house/caravan etc when they have no mains and need to use the generator.

just no accounting for the sheer idiocy of some folks.

:shakehead

 

[theBANKERSareGANGSTERS]

Steptoe, I will never forget that plug experience, ever. 

 

[steptoe]

you wouldnt believe the amount of idiots self taught electrical DIYers that have these powering all sorts of stuff,

like the aformentioned caravan, sheds, extensions to outhouses/utility rooms, [home built] 'conservatories' even,

and the most common is deffo the generator, 'in case of a power cut'  headbang

 

[matt.leung]

i was starting on a two day job, by drilling a hole through the external wall into the kitchen to feed a supply. drill bit went through a dream, so increased the bit to enlarge the hole and started again. got about half way through (a foot or so) and got an awful jerk from the drill, as the drill bit

hit some re-bar and got stuck... would not budge....

in the end i had to drill another hole next to this one, and use a hammer to bash the stuck drill bit into the new hole to get it out.... there is always a

solution in life...

 

[ProDave]

Yes I'm sure we have all had stuck drill bits.

A pair of mole grips on the shank and wind then out backwards (with a hammer) is a useful trick.

 

[Evans Electric]

Copped for this one a few years ago .    A bigger supply is to be installed at a printers in the city centre, the DNO ,of course ask for a duct through the foundation wall for their cable .

With no buiders involved , just us, it fell upon us to do it .    Simple enough you'd think.     Metering is in the cellar , below street level , and we can't go digging up pavements so we start in the cellar by taking out a couple of bricks . 9" or 12" wall my mate says.

I can only say that you need to have seen the film "The Great Escape"  to appreciate the thickness of the cellar walls .   I still have the 1 mtr long chisel we had to buy to break out under the pavement .

I remember on that job , the jointers fixed the cut-out , fibre glass jobby,  I thought thats the same size as the last job , ie: 200A    this is a 400A supply .

Diplomatically raised it with them , not my place to interfere ,  " Yeah Yeah  we know what we're doing mate "    

Oh well why does it say 200A  on here then ...........OOOps . Best get back to the depot.  

 

[boltonsparky]

Drilled straight through a gas pipe once, in the front and out the back, the drill went through it like butter, couldn't understand what the noise was when i pulled the drill out until i smelt it. 

Panic ensued till the customer found the meter and we could knock it off, surprising how quickly you can fill the ground floor with gas!

Thankfully the gas man said the pipe was in the wrong place, whether he said this to spare my feelings or it was true I don't know, hated gas before and hate it even more now.

Always wary when drilling holes from then on.

 

[batty]

Think I said before I chase cut straight through a gas pipe once and it was iron. Luckily new where consumer unit and gas meter was so quickly isolated both.

 

[betty swollocks]

Yesterday I went to complete an extension I had started, inside/outside wall lights to 2nd fix. Now last week plumber called to say the middle of three wall lights needed to be removed as he was now installing a huge upright radiator rather an conventional horizontal, he said 'can I use some of them wago things to join the two cable?' Sure I said, you will need three, one for browns one for blues one for cpc, no problem thanks...... Testing yesterday showed direct short live/neutral/cpc between 1st & 3rd light ... Hmmmm calls plumber 'Before you hung rad did you use the wagos to join the cables?' yes was his reply but I didn't need three bcos they all fitted in one! .......oops

 

[Evans Electric]

Ooooo  I could see that one coming Betty ,  Plumbers eh !!

 

[NozSpark]

Yesterday I went to complete an extension I had started, inside/outside wall lights to 2nd fix. Now last week plumber called to say the middle of three wall lights needed to be removed as he was now installing a huge upright radiator rather an conventional horizontal, he said 'can I use some of them wago things to join the two cable?' Sure I said, you will need three, one for browns one for blues one for cpc, no problem thanks...... Testing yesterday showed direct short live/neutral/cpc between 1st & 3rd light ... Hmmmm calls plumber 'Before you hung rad did you use the wagos to join the cables?' yes was his reply but I didn't need three bcos they all fitted in one! .......oops

Stuipdly I nearly did that the first time I used them (or another brand)  :facepalm: