A Man's Got To Know His Limitations

HandySparks · Jan 6, 2015

What job have you committed to and then regretted because you'd bitten off more than you could chew.

Either because it took much longer than planned or because you ran into unforeseen technical problems which a more experienced contractor would have spotted in advance.

(Inspired by a current thread.)

davesparks · Jan 6, 2015

My first non-domestic EICR was on a small commercial building. I priced it for two days on site and half a day of paperwork. After five days on-site and another full day doing the paperwork I was less than impressed!

ImpededLoop · Jan 6, 2015

Not so much biting off more than I can chew, but I vowed to never do a rewire single handedly again! A second pair of hands makes the job 3x quicker imho!

Octopus · Jan 6, 2015

Replacing a ceiling fan yesterday and fitting an in-line fan and sofix vent - all went to plan until I looked at the estimate I had sent and realised I had mistyped the price! I was £30 down!

123 · Jan 6, 2015

Squeezing in a small commercial job for an existing client. Job escalated and so many extra's got added to it, went from 7 days work to 6 weeks work with the same deadline for handover

SPARTYKUS · Jan 6, 2015

Murdoch said:
Replacing a ceiling fan yesterday and fitting an in-line fan and sofix vent - all went to plan until I looked at the estimate I had sent and realised I had mistyped the price! I was £30 down!

Doing that tomorrow.....

PEG · Jan 6, 2015

Years back,i took on a re-furb job of a "mobile cattle incinerator". It was for the father of a good pal of mine who was a formidable Gypsy bare-knuckle fighter,in his day,so,let's get stuck in...Went to collect it,in me mates Brimec,and found it had stopped functioning,half-way through incinerating a full grown cow...3 weeks previous.
Jumped in,to secure top covers,and sunk to me knees in rotten milker....Got it back and no two parts of its' system worked with each other,had to make,borrow and blag parts,found out company who made it jacked when they could not make it function...
I got the offer of work in Israel,so i went.
I sent a mate down to my customers chalet,with the money he had fronted me,and he went rabid,11 seconds in to the explanation!
It taught me a lot about weighing jobs up....and also,how some coming-home presents,have to be REALLY special :icon12:

Knobhead · Jan 6, 2015

I’d a fortnight to install a new 11/.433KV 1000KVA transformer and switchgear. With a good gang of lads, a doddle of a job or so I thought.

It became a catalogue of disasters.

The original plan was 7 new 500mm[SUP]2[/SUP] cambric singles, that became 35 new singles. The original transformer tails were unfit for further service. (You try getting 450m of 500mm[SUP]2[/SUP] at short notice.)
The earthing to all the gear had to be replaced. The original was way undersized.
The LV panel was late being delivered and then we found out it wouldn’t fit between the existing gear without major dismantling.
Just as we were making headway one of the two 11/3.3KV transformers decided to throw a wobbly, the tap changer burnt out.

At one stage out of 6 transformers only 2 were working.
I gave up hope of going home and resorted to snatching naps on the mess room table.