School Boy Errors.

[Thefailsafe2012]

Took 2 bedroom floors up, carpet and laminate, to try and find the supply to living room and kitchen light fittings that weren't working. Only to realise about 4 hours later, that all the lamps in both were blown. They were those bloody awful 12v fittings with half a million of those little crappy lamps.

Hahaha that's a good'un!

 

[Thefailsafe2012]

Drawing round cavity wall boxes facing the wrong way and finding they slip right through

That was the first job I was given when I started on the tools, and I did exactly that. Gave the boss a good taste of what the next few years was gonna be like!

 

[Thefailsafe2012]

Flicked the dregs of my tea out of the mug whilst up about 4 lifts of scaffold, the mug snapped off the handle and sailed into the neighbours drive :frown:

 

[ExArmy]

whilst testing a house that had sustained severe water damage (but dehumidifiers had been in for a month so it was dry now) from a burst pipe, i really needed to go to the toilet(house was in the middle of nowhere) but there was no water in the toilet, so i thought i'd just turn the stoptap back on. still no water, so i go out onto the drive to see if i can find the main stoptap, found it, turned it on, went back to the house to see it raining in from the hole in the ceiling, bloody water everywhere so the bloody pipe had not been fixed! ran back 100m to turn it off, got back to the house, bloody soaked. quickly mopped it up with rockwool and parked some dehumidifiers on there to dry it out and went home to the toilet. by the time i got back it looked dry so i got away with it, and i heard through the grapevine they done some tests to see how it was drying out the next day and there was water trapped in the stud walls and they had to rip them out because if it was still there after a month then it was never gonna dry out. whoops

 

[Guest55]

Took 2 bedroom floors up, carpet and laminate, to try and find the supply to living room and kitchen light fittings that weren't working. Only to realise about 4 hours later, that all the lamps in both were blown. They were those bloody awful 12v fittings with half a million of those little crappy lamps.

that is shockingly inept sirkit , lol.
sounds like someone needs a neon screwdriver from santa this year.
;-D

 

[Sintra]

Got keys today for a vacant house to check out the time clock. Opened door took jacket off had a look at time clock decided it needed replaced. Go out to car to get new time clock, door slams behind me house keys and car keys still in my jacket inside. Lucky enough I had my phone but I had to stand for over an hour freezing.

 

[silver surfer]

The daftest one I can remember was seeing another guy installing YT2 mini trunking drops by fixing the trunking lid to the wall first !!
DIYers changing a pendant for a Centre light chandelier etc and terminating all the reds/browns together and all the blacks/blues together when the switch wire ain't been flagged.

 

[Tim]

I worked at bbc television centre for a while, one of the guys had to add a few floor boxes to install an office, the office is electrically split in 2 halfs as it controlled the news 24 tv channel, he isolated the wrong half, and news 24 was a blank screen for around 3minutes.

 

[drew35]

Just yesterday after a long day I went to get in my van which was parked in a line of vehicles but the remote wouldn't unlock the doors. I kept trying the remote, and all the doors handles, "bloody thing why won't you open" and worse. I was scratching my head for a few minutes.

Then I realised my van was parked behind the one I was now trying to break into, exact same van.

Mine must have been sitting their lights flashing away, I got into it red faced, head down, and left quickly...

 

[ferg]

Far too many times I've driven to the back of beyond only to realise I've left something on my desk, in the shed etc.
I learned eventually... now I'm psychotic about checklists and packing the van the night before
If a wise man learns by his own mistakes I must be an effing genius by now.

 

[Donkey_Dave]

I spent all day fitting 20 external lights to a block of flats.
I got the wrong block of flats.
Oh how we laughed.....

 

[Paul.M]

Other day I installed 2.5mm 3 core swa to an outside whirlpool bath. Driving home (now dark) I remembered that I did'nt earth the gland of the steel. Whoops, turn around and look daft infront of the customer getting ready for a dip.


Another one from last week was agreeing to finish off a small commercial unit for a friend. Nightmare customer, I can see why it got passed onto me. Cheers mate, you know who you are

 

[Amp David]

Taking a reading thinking its your Ze and not Zdb, then when its too high, getting the DNO out for a high Ze problem

 

[markc123]

Seriouslly all these are genuine.

I may aswell start this with its own sub-topic, as when i first passed my driving i had a compete nightmare with Petrol Stations:
1) First time i filled up at the pump - I put the nozzle in all the way, and the anti-fuel theft device operated and the pump got stuck inside my new van, had to call the AA out to come and free me.
2) Filled up with £20 instead of £10. Didn't have my bank card and was 75mile away from base, some kind man lent me a tenner and we swapped addresses so i could re-pay him.
3) Worst till last - Got in the CAR at pump 2 instead of my VAN at pump 3 and the woman alarmingly shouted at me "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING" i embarrasingly said sorry, and went to my van.....I hadn't completley got in, i had opened the door and got 1 leg in though.
At Work:
1) Shroud's not on SWA's about a million times.
2) 16AMP 3pin-plugs, not putting the base on and just connecting the wires. Annoying.
3) Drilling wholes in new caravan's for the cable and going through gas/water pipes underneath.
4) In the apprentice days literally cutting every wire that little bit short.
5) Forgetting to put the lid over the wire first on plug-in lighting systems.

The list is literally endless.

 

[dpiers1980]

When I was working down Avonmouth in one of the chemical plants they where hanging tray from ceiling with uni strut and threaded rod hangers when the guy running the job said canter lever the rod all the way down the old man just laughed and said wait till they start pulling armours and cables down it, resulting in the sparks doing the job getting a -------ing and the tray snaking all the way down looked terrible. And another the old boy was in this room with loads of cables coming in those intrinsically safe big multi coloured cables and he's up in there standing on a panel fighting a cable and a guy pops his head in and says what do you think your doing and the old boy goes who the <<<< are you and he goes i'm the guy running the job and he goes goes I could'nt care if your Mickey Mouse right now %%%% off.