Share your moments of madness !!

castlon11 · Oct 1, 2009

I had a job years ago in my apprentice day where a customers lounge lamps kept blowing, after testing , lifting floorboards and changing lamp after lamp for over two hours i finally realized that the lamps the tenant was giving me were 110v lamps which her husband had brought home from a site.

How dumb did i feel !!!
Anyone with any better moments of madness? please share.

jbec-john · Oct 2, 2009

I'd been called out to a faulty socket in a healthwatch call centre. Apparently there was a strong smell of smoke, then all the sockets tripped out. The IT guy had re-set the breaker, but couldn't get one socket to work. I asked whether everything was as it was at the time the sockets tripped out, and told yet it was. There was a rather large UPS plugged in, so I suspected that, but it seemed to work perfectly when I tested it on a different socket, so I moved onto the socket. The socket itself seemed fine, and had 230v when I tested it. For the sake of £2 I changed it just in case, and moved on to the actual supply. It was wired in MICC, so I did an insulation resistance test. >1000 on all counts.
So after screwing everything back together, and re-energising, I did an earth loop to be sure, and that was fine too. I plugged in the UPS and it worked. Problem solved and time for a brew.........

Then 10 minutes later he said another socket had stopped working and the smell of smoke was back....

Turns out he hadn't actually left everything where it was. He'd been dragging a faulty UPS round plugging it into various sockets, convinced that they were all broken, when in fact, the UPS (Which absolutely reeked of smoke!!) was the cause of it all!!

castlon11 · Oct 2, 2009

Nice, I will give that a 7 out of 10 on the stupidity counter. Anyone with anymore please share them for our amusement.
Thanks

Modernelectric · Oct 2, 2009

i did a job for a shop in donacaster which required tower scaffold to get to the ceiling some 15 metres above....i needed to replace a lamp in a low bay metal halide fitting. after replacing the lamp it still didnt work so i decided to swap the gear tray, did this and still didnt work.. after scratching my head for 5 minutes i suddenly realised i had been using a sodium lamp instead of a metal halide.. that cost me a days wages almost!

roukel01 · Oct 2, 2009

I was chopping a double 35mm box into a wall in an old terraced property. struggled to get a good fixing, but drilled, plugged and screw it back, and managed to get a real good fixing in the end. came back and second fixed. All was fine.

about a week later the neighbour came in playing holly hell with me, she was only trying to pull her bed out to make it and couldn't. Turns out, the partition wall was one brick thick and I'd screw the back box to her bed leg!!!

Mint.

castlon11 · Oct 4, 2009

Lmfao !!! 10/10 :d

sparks1234 · Oct 4, 2009

We were wiring a house in west london, pulled a floorboard up for wiring on the ground floor, below the floor was more timber beneath the joists but you could see through the gaps and there was a big void there, we broke a hole through it so we could pass cables, my mate did the same at his opening in the floor and could see light. Turns out he was above next doors reception room which was beneath the room we were in and now had no ceiling

gaffer · Oct 5, 2009

When I was an apprentice I got sent to do a new kitchen,I ripped out all the old surface install and started to chase out for the new.Then I found out why the old stuff was surface, it was only single red brick between the kitchen I was in and next doors kitchen,there I was with great big kango holes into next doors beautifully clean kitchen.Red face that day!!!!!

Notsosmart · Oct 5, 2009

chrisbrockway said:
Nice, I will give that a 7 out of 10 on the stupidity counter. Anyone with anymore please share them for our amusement.
Thanks

I once... er hang on a minute your not an NIC inspector are you

you can't fool me

roukel01 said:
I was chopping a double 35mm box into a wall in an old terraced property. struggled to get a good fixing, but drilled, plugged and screw it back, and managed to get a real good fixing in the end. came back and second fixed. All was fine.

about a week later the neighbour came in playing holly hell with me, she was only trying to pull her bed out to make it and couldn't. Turns out, the partition wall was one brick thick and I'd screw the back box to her bed leg!!!

Mint.

ha-ha very funny; Absolute quality story

sparky paul · Oct 5, 2009

Many moons ago i worked for a large contractor doing council house rewires

I was given a new apprentice to train,so i shoves him up the loft to pull the cables over for the upstairs lights,shower etc,finished the rewire all good.

A few weeks later we where called into the office to explain why we had wired the cable through the legs off a ROCKING chair

Turns out the guy had been keeping it up his loft for a mate ,you can imagine his face when he popped up to get it.

Needless to say me and the new kid got a royal roasting and had to go back and sort it out unpaid.

castlon11 · Oct 5, 2009

sparky paul said:
Many moons ago i worked for a large contractor doing council house rewires

I was given a new apprentice to train,so i shoves him up the loft to pull the cables over for the upstairs lights,shower etc,finished the rewire all good.

A few weeks later we where called into the office to explain why we had wired the cable through the legs off a ROCKING chair

Turns out the guy had been keeping it up his loft for a mate ,you can imagine his face when he popped up to get it.

Needless to say me and the new kid got a royal roasting and had to go back and sort it out unpaid.

I'll give that a 9/10 and no im not N.I.C inspector you'll agree when i tell you another story of when i was an apprentice.

Working in a house with loads of other trades i was told to wire up an earth cable from the bath leg back to the consumer unit. I'd already attached the clamp to the leg of the bath into the loft and down to the consumer unit cupboard ready to terminate into CU. At the same time the plumber was still fixing in the bath and a chippy was sitting on the floor in the lounge leaning up against a radiator (i bet you know whats coming next), yes !! as i rammed the c.p.c into the top of the CU it hit the main phase terminal causing a few screams from the other trades and myself with a big black face.
This one is not so much funny but an insight to how not following the standard procedure can seriously put yourself and other people in danger and also how to become the stupidest and least popular person in the company.

Pat Tester · Oct 5, 2009

I was asked to put up two extra security cameras on an industrial unit, a computer company, they provide hosting, back-up and maintenance services for commercial it departments.
Anyway I visited the unit had a good look around from the ground then went in and worked out where the
Cat5 cable should pass through the wall. Measured it all out but decided not to drill out from inside as there were all manner of cables externally for air-con etc.
Moved ladder into position and began to drill 10mm hole, went through the brick ok then hit something, I then had to get a longer drill, went from 200mm to 900mm ! Started drilling again pressing as hard as I could eventually the drill went through.
Went back inside to find the hole, No sign of it at all, back outside and pushed the drill through by hand the full length, removed it and went back in to look, still no sign.
Back out side again and used my cable rods pushed the first through then the second and eventually it stopped. Great I thought.
Back in side I found the rod, It had gone through the power section of three compartment trunking just missing all four 2.5 t&e cables and then 500mm into the back of a server cabinet !!!! and was sticking into a cooling fan. I pulled it out quick and the fan started spinning, however it was so loud staff in the adjacent office came in to see what the noise was.

What can you say ? fortunately they could see the funny side and chose not to charge me for the repair.

castlon11 · Oct 5, 2009

LOL sometimes measuring just don't work does it

Oh i have one more.
I had just finished second fix of kitchen rewire and screwed all the sockets back, placed my old level on all of the sockets HHmmm that's strange their all crooked i thought, so leveled them all up and screwed back. put my level back on one of the sockets and it was crooked AGAIN GGGRRRR, tried the rest, and the same. Went round again and again doing the same thing until i realized an hour later that the cylinder on my level that holds the bubble was loose.
Sometimes you just need to trust your judgement and not second hand tools

acvc · Oct 7, 2009

Well I decided one morning that I had had enough of trailing extensions in the corner of my bedroom for computer and bits, and guitar gear. So I decided to put in two new double socket.

I cleared the area and duly knocked out for the boxes into the red brick, quite straightforward I remember thinking, pulled the cables through and left it for second fixing after some breakfast. As I went down the stairs, i looked up and saw two brick shaped lumps sticking out of the wall above my head, only held in by the stretched wallpaper!

yep, all I had done was push the dam bricks back and out the other side of the single skin wall, and fix the boxes to the pushed back bricks. Lucky it was my own place and not on a job.