What Mistakes Have You Done?

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What Mistakes Have You Done?

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Paul.M

Paul.M

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On site today and I had an Ashley backbox that was loose on one side because the plasterer is rubbish (another story). Anyway, I thought I'd do a quick fix by putting some fire foam on the dodgy side to hold it in the cavity wall. The walls are full of the stuff anyway.


I'm there putting a bit in at a time so not to over fill the void. Ok a bit more as nothing is showing. Ok a bit more, still nothing foaming back at me. Ok a lot more until it starts foaming back at me..... That was a bit of a mistake.

One of the building site labourers said "are you sure your not going through the other side?"

Me "No, don't think so mate. Let's just have a look to check." Then I saw this coming out of the other room:-

IMAG0399.jpg


Paul you rounded door handle. I've only gone and put way too much in and its now running down the wall like a slow moving waterfall! Btw this picture was taken just as the flow began, ten seconds later I was too busy to take a pic but it was worst than that!

Twenty mins spent cleaning the foam from the other backboxs and cables, another 40 mins cleaning the bloody foam from my hands and screwdriver, what a prat :). Oh, that's a £40 socket that I've just wrecked, its in the bin, they can clean it if they want because I'm not.

Head spark just laughed at me and then banned me from using the foam gun again unless supervised! Think he was joking but I'll put that to the test tomorrow :):).

Lesson for today Paul, don't be out done by the words of wisdom from a builders labourer again lol.





What silly mistakes have you done in the past? This could be an interesting thread if people own up?
 
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working as a subby terminating swa supplys to the isolators on aircon units at the back of marks&spencer, castlepoint--
the air con units were all shapes & sizes but 2 were the same, so-- i take the panel off of the first one, to check the best&clearest place to drill a 20mm hole in the case, for a brass bush&lock ring to pass the supply conductors from the rear of the iso-- no probs
the next one was the same as the last, so i figuard the insides were too--wrong! i drilled the hole in the exact same place-- next thing-gas &oil ****ing out every where, i hit a copper pipe within
 
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Got sent to do a periodic inspection on a one bedroom terrace house that one of our clients had purchased. We were a bit pushed for labour that week and the gaffer asked me if I could pop in early, get it done and then move on to my scheduled jobs. Rocked onto site at six in the morning. Tried the key in the door of the property but it would not fit. Thought…”The plonker has given me the wrong key. I haven’t got time for this bo***cks”. A bit of sneaky jiggery pokery and I was in through the front door. Got the job done and moved on. About three o’clock in the afternoon the client rings me; “I have been waiting for you all day. I thought you were coming to do the testing”. I said; “ No worries, I got in early and got it done. By the way, there is a problem with the front door lock. I couldn’t get the key to fit. Luckily you left the door open for me. Anyway, I will call past on the way home to drop the key off”. Got back to the property and the client was waiting outside for me. I went to go into No 44 and he said; “No not that one. This is the one No 42!”. Checked the paper work and it definitely said No 44. Only tested the wrong property and had to go back the next morning to do the right one.
 
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DurhamSparky said:
hahahaha!!! good job no body was at home!!!
Click to expand...


Very true. That might have had a completely differed outcome then…lol
Another one for you. Got sent to a hospital to wire a new fire alarm system. Was given another spark on site to give me a hand. The electrician in charge warned me that the other new spark was “a bit special”. The warning bells should have been ringing but I thought I give him the benefit of the doubt. Set the cable reels up and we pulled in the first pyro. Then I showed him how to tie-wrap the pyro to the tray work. Then carried on pulling the pyros in by myself while he followed with the tie-wrapping. Once I finished the wiring I started making the ends off. After three days the other lad came to see me to tell me that he had finished the tie-wrapping. The next day he got send to another job. A couple of days after that the electrician in charge came up to me and ask me “What the f*** was going through your tiny little mind when you did the tie-wrapping?” I instantly got on my high horse and told him there can’t be nothing wrong with it. He knew I couldn’t have done it, started laughing and told me to go up in the roof space and have a look at it.
Well…they could hear my screams from several miles away. I was going to f*****g kill him, his mum and dad, his brothers and sisters, his uncles and aunties, burn all their f*****g houses down. I was going to genetically wipe him of the face of the earth. He had made his birth certificate a worthless document…lol
The little dipstick had only used 10000 tie-wraps and just wrapped them nice and neat every twelve inches around each individual pyro but not to the tray.
It was my fault really! Should have checked his work!
 
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Some real good ones here. We've all bu**ered up some time or another. After 30+ years i got some beauts.

Many years back, when artex ceilings were all the rage, i worked on a one off new build where the owner/builder had the novel idea of flat plastered ceilings. Never seen them before and they looked good after several coats of white.
Then i turned up to secondfix and marked the kitchen ceiling out very carefully for the big old r80 downlights we used to use. Not having a compass big enough i twisted a piece of copper wire around a screwdriver and pencil and used it to mark the circles ready and cut them out with a padsaw.
What i didn't realise at the time was the wire got slightly longer on each one as i had not twisted it tight enough!
First light - nice fit.
Second light - bit looser
Third- like a dick in a sock

The other three went straight through the hole!
 
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Decent homes work in Dunston in Gateshead we had not been issued with official ID at this point, I bowl up for work one day and my gaffer tells me and a mate to go to an address because the heating is on a plug top and it needs to be on it's own circuit etc etc.
Me and Gary get to the address, knock on the door which is answered by an old guy with a zimmer frame. We tell him why we're there and he lets us in, "Where's your boiler" I ask, he shows me to a cupboard in the bathroom and there is a nice shiny new boiler with no sign of it working on a plug top. Everthing that should be there is present and correct so I nip downstairs and find a stat on the wall. Happy days I think, "Right sir" says me "There's been some mistake, everything is done here so we'll leave you in peace"
As we're heading to the front door in walks his wife "Who are you and why are you here!" she demanded so I explain what the crack is "This isn't even a council house so you'd better get out now" she shouted, so we left.
I sat in the car to ring the gaffer who told me to sit tight while he checked out what was what because he was out on site. Fair enough I thought, cup of tea bacon sarnie then a tab.
Incorrect, as Gary was getting back in the car I could hear the sirens getting closer. Then just as I took my first bite two Police cars drove into the street and blocked me in. Four officers jumped out and we had some serious explaining to do.
My mobile was ringing like hell but they wouldn't let me answer even though it was the gaffer but eventually, after hearing from the rest of the lads working in the street he turned up and told them the crack. The thing that got me was some of the guys working a few doors off were direct, had official ID and could have vouched for us.
No that wouldn't have been half as funny though would it? Wasted best part of a morning but got lots of easy jobs for a few days after to make up for his cock up though
 
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My mates an aerial fitter and went to a job nearby in a new house,guy comes out and says he has worked out where the cable is to be run and wants it done his way.Now my mate is quite happy to go along with this until it comes to drilling through the wall,right where the guy wants the hole is the gas service pipe,now he tries to explain this but the customer isn,t having any "tell you what give us the drill and i,ll drill the hole myself" he says.With that he picks up the drill and fired it straight through the wall. "see no problem" and he pulls out the drill,at this point there is a loud hissing sound and a very strong smell of gas,my mate opens front door to find a hole dead centre of service pipe all the way through it.After he stopped laughing he got in his van and left,guy rang up the following morning to say would he come back and fit the aerial,the gas board had repaired the pipe and not charged him as the pipe wasn,t visible so it wasn,t his fault.Dont know what was funnier him hitting the pipe or him telling my mate that he hadn,t been charged for the pipe as it wasnt visible.I mean how can you not see a bright yellow pipe running up the wall of your house?
 
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It took two of us to make this cock up. We had 3 boxes of 8’ tubes delivered to the work shop followed by a message from the foreman to “sort the mill house lights out”. OK it’s a dirty horrible job but not to bad as we had access from the overhead crane. So takes the tubes up to the crane access gate and my mate starts to slide the boxes through the gate, I’d gone to pull the control pendant up on to the crane platform. Looks round and there’s my mate leaning against the crane handrail, the tubes must be aboard then. Sets off towards the far end of the building. It’s hard to describe the sound of 75 fluorescent tubes being sliced in half, the prat hadn’t pulled the boxes fully through the gate.
 
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a few years ago on a big extension a labourer asked me why his lead light wasnt working, he tried a new bulb but nothing. to be honest i couldnt be bothered as was having a bad day. So gave him a new fuse and siad probably that. Still no light. Is the socket even live gave him a plug in tester it beeps away , still no light. Okay give it here. Undo plug check connections find live loose and so moaning and basically ripping the ****e out the labourer sort it out and hand it back. This is all in the space of 5 mins just me and him. Tea break time comes and all there and one of the lads says that the lead light is buggered to which i said no i did it and that i was like god by letting there be light etc. He plugs it in no light. Thought well i've checked everthing else theres not a scratch on it and cable fine so I take out bulb undo bulb holder. Aha another loose live so i twist the cores to fit in the terminal and BANG 230V up me arm, light smashed, pride obliterated, red faced laughing stock. ALWAYS disconnect. ha ha
 
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Few years back we were doing a massive office refurb in basingstoke, and i fetched up one day to have my boss tell me to fit start fitting modular lights in one of the large areas where the ceilings were finished.
He told me they were a right so and so to fit and it took him and another lad all day to fit x amount.
So left to my own devices i started dropping them in, easy as anything. clicked into place nicely, flex pre-made and plugged straight in. when through that area like a dose of salts. Did twice as much as boss and his mate without even breaking into a sweat. What a pair of jessies.
Talking to one of the other lads working on a board, he said christ they struggled. Balancing them on their heads while they put the clips in. Why on their heads....cos the bloody things fitted in from below!
Wondered what the bag of clips was for. In my defence i had never before come across modulars that fitted from below.
Very steep learning curve that day. Lucky for me my boss almost wet himself laughing. Until we went to remove them and found that nice clicking sound which i thought was the fitting clicking into place was actually the enamel stratching off them. Had to go round with touch up paint on dozens of the bloody things!
 
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Had to work on replacing the oil on an 11kv transformer one night, just me and another lad with me on site, job was going ok everything in place, radio on etc...

About 20min after knocking the power off to the tx, I could hear a helicopter flying over the quarry, thaught nothing of it.

10min after this had a shout from outside the door of the sub, "come out slowly this is the armed response unit"

Yeah, I'd compleatly forgotten to let the police know the power to the explosive compound would be switched off so they thaugh the place was being robbed. They had used the thermal camera to spot our pickup outside the sub with a hot engine still.

That took some explaining, got a good ribbing off the lads the next day.
 
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tidyboiler said:
Ah right, thought I recognised the name. Had a fantastic few holidays down there when I was young, free and single! :devilish:
Click to expand...

Is that an omission of making a mistake or was the mistake made by the girls whilst you was on holiday lol.


If some of my x-girlfriends/victims could see and reply to this thread they would have it up to page 47 by now :rofl:
 
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I did a right stunner of a D'oh! only yesterday - having pre-cored a 38mm hole through a wall with a triple cavity a couple of weeks ago and left a nylon pull cord (BT style one) in it for prep, I thought that feeding 4 CCTV cables through would be easy, even in the pouring rain soaking down by neck. Nah. Who made the schoolboy error of pushing the first couple of metres through rather than pulling? Yep, 3 or 4 metres of cable and drawcord all nicely tangled and looped in a knot inside the cavities. Had to remove a 5" fan duct next to it to get my hand/arm into the cavities to sort it out, and the draw cord ended up getting snipped into about 20 bits! What should have taken 5 minutes ended up being 2 hours schlopping about in a muddy trench in torrential rain. Glad I always keep spare socks in the van!
 
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RoB2 said:
Yeah, I'd compleatly forgotten to let the police know the power to the explosive compound would be switched off so they thaugh the place was being robbed.
Click to expand...

Similar situation. Turned off both feeders to an MCC panel to do some alterations on the bus-bars. The easiest way to get to them was to climb inside the panel. So there I am quite comfortable cracking on with things when I hear voices, strange, I’m the only person on the plant???? Sticks my head out and I’m looking at a pair of wellies and bright yellow over trousers, Ooopps! The MCC panel was for the 12 X 150HP hydraulic pumps that fed the plant.
I’d isolated the CO² system and the slam shut fire doors, but clean forgot about the silent alarm to the fire brigade. The central hydraulic reservoir contained 200,000 liters of oil, the minimum brigade attendance was six engines.
Two engines from three stations had to be paid for by the company. For some reason I wasn’t the most popular person in the world on the Monday morning.
 
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not me but my mate-we ran a new240mill 4core swa from a trench up the wall(fixed by cleats) to the top and through a hole that we drilled through the brickwork, then fed it through said hole and cleated it along the side of a joist all the way to the new mains board
it was friday so we packed up early, when my mate went to take the ladder back to the store uhh-ho
he had passed the swa through top rung of the brand new ladder
ohh how we laughed
 
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ayjay said:
not me but my mate-we ran a new240mill 4core swa from a trench up the wall(fixed by cleats) to the top and through a hole that we drilled through the brickwork, then fed it through said hole and cleated it along the side of a joist all the way to the new mains board
it was friday so we packed up early, when my mate went to take the ladder back to the store uhh-ho
he had passed the swa through top rung of the brand new ladder
ohh how we laughed
Click to expand...

So now your ladder is missing a rung... right? lol
 
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my boss was as tight as a crabs arse and never bought any plant
well he bought a brand new pair of steps(this is a long time back) well- i had a job and put said steps into my austin a40 farina
they didn,t fit(too tall) and were stuck out of the passenger window quite a bit
well going thro highcliffe village a national sunlight laundry lorry came the other way, i forgot how far the steps were sticking out, crash!!- they hit the oncoming lorry, and the legs/feet pushed out the rear window which didn,t break btw, it just cane out onto the road
the steps were completely destroyed,
i got back to the yard later and told the boss, he hung then back on the wall in the store, and there they stayed for years
 
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Now this ones not down to me, but to the owner of a shiny new house some years ago...

Doing a bit of new build work some years ago. Was on this site for quite a while.
Site agent came and got me one day, looking agitated and very annoyed. asked if i had done a private on a house recently moved in. Now the custom was on this site that if customers wanted extras the sales lady used to put them onto me as it was cheaper than going through the builder.
Anyway we walked down to this house, nice place, big 5 bedder, top standards etc, and asked if i was responsible for fitting several lights to the outside of the attatched garage. Wasn't down to me, and the customer changed his story when confronted from saying that the site sparks had done it to owning up and admitting that he had been responsible.
Apart from the fact the wiring looked like it had been thrown in by a child, the plum had also drilled through a boxing in the garage without checking what was inside it. The soil pipe from two upstairs bathrooms! He not only drilled clean through it but also managed to thread the cable straight through the pipe to an outside light.
Problem only came to light because of the smell of sh** in the utility room backing onto the garage. The bottom of the unit also swelled up and blew and the floor vinyl started rotting.
To coin a modern phrase LMFAO
 
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Guys/gals,
I'm not long back from my hols and just catching up with posts on the Forum. Have to say, I've laughed so much my sides hurt. :cry_smile: Good to realise that I'm not alone in delivering some "Auntie's Bloomers" whilst on the job.

A while ago, I had an apprentice helping me with an alarm installation - his job was to drill from inside the loft to the outside to route the bell cable. He was using a long masonary as the building had solid external walls. I heard the drilling, but could see no sign of the drill bit. Cutting a long story short, the customer runs out of the house to say there was a large drill coming in and out of her stairwell, going across the landing into the external wall. The lad had got confused entering the loft and was drilling through the stairwell. The cust took it in good humour, but exit one embarrassed apprentice & boss!
 
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mickys86 said:
My sisters house has hollow walls. I've no idea what they are but I'll post a pic, someone will know. I was an apprentice and Was doing her dining room under supervision of my boss who came in and instructed me what to do. "put a bigger box in for the switch in case they want a dimmer." he goes. I get the scutch chisel out and ever so gently taping the wall to try and make it bigger. Next thing ya know a hole appears and I can put my whole arm through her wall. Luckily she laughed about it and they also stopped taking the p about it now
View attachment 13970
Click to expand...

spanish brick a nightmare
 
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