What Mistakes Have You Done?

[Paul.M]

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:-

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?

 

[Brightspark2]

Evacuated a site or two with forgeting to turn the fire beams off in my early years. Then up you go on your scissor lift, reach the top of the building and off goes the fire alarm. oh sh*t!!!. Back down again to gather outside, the shame as you walk out and news has already spread its your fault, especially if its raining. Then up turn the fire brigade lol.

 

[ian.settle1]

When I was serving my time many years ago before the H&S culture took over we where putting in a fire alarm system in pyro into a very large printing site.

We had to run a leg into the buildings large boiler room so I asked the maintenance fitters chargehand if it was OK to go into the boiler room to install the pyro? no problem he said, we were pulling the pyro in when a large coil dropped onto the lever which operated the CO2 fire suppression system, me and the spark out of that boiler room at such a speed that Usain Bolt would have come third if there was a race between the three of us.

Went and told the chargehand there had been a slight accident and we had set the CO2 off he replied thats OK we set a bottle off every so now and again to test the system I said yeh but we have set off all 14 bottles, oh but don't worry he said it's our fault as we should have put the safety pin in to stop it going off.

 

[sparks1973]

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:-

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?

wiring out an RCBO for Zs (my MFT won`t do a low current loop)....fizz fizz puff of smoke...and killed it.....what a dic....should have known better...lol....come on Paul...you were there to witness it..lol....went and replaced it like for like..(40A b curve wylex)....

 

[Paul.M]

wiring out an RCBO for Zs (my MFT won`t do a low current loop)....fizz fizz puff of smoke...and killed it.....what a dic....should have known better...lol....come on Paul...you were there to witness it..lol....went and replaced it like for like..(40A b curve wylex)....

Yep I wasn't happy about that one but ssshhh**** happens, its how we deal with it that counts.

 

[sparks1973]

Yep I wasn't happy about that one but ssshhh**** happens, its how we deal with it that counts.

well got another of ov Leigh....so it got sorted....i think the guy was happy enough though i went and put another in for him after work...

 

[Ponty Massive]

I think my worst was wiring a ring main in a house in 3-core (1.5) thinking it was T+E. A complete ball ache !!

 

[Paul.M]

It's almost as bad as an X Arms member from this forum that went to the Elex show in Manchester this year. "Im off to get my new (2nd hand) PAT tester calibrated FOC."

Watching him plug it in like a kid with a new toy i/we (Phil D) noticed he was going to press the full test button dumping the full load onto earth. "Dont push that......... button," too late. He only burnt out the rcd for 6 stalls so they couldn't display their expensive goods or show demos on their lap tops.

Phil D and myself did what any good friend would do and walked away laughing. The look on the stall owners could have turned coal into diamonds, it was that intense.

 

[sparks1973]

It's almost as bad as an X Arms member from this forum that went to the Elex show in Manchester this year. "Im off to get my new (2nd hand) PAT tester calibrated FOC."

Watching him plug it in like a kid with a new toy i/we (Phil D) noticed he was going to press the full test button dumping the full load onto earth. "Dont push that......... button," too late. He only burnt out the rcd for 6 stalls so they couldn't display their expensive goods or show demos on their lap tops.

Phil D and myself did what any good friend would do and walked away laughing. The look on the stall owners could have turned coal into diamonds, it was that intense.

yep it was special wasn`t it....:stuart:

 

[sparks1973]

dont know about `burning the RCD out` though Paul....more like it disconnected......

 

[mickys86]

done that last month, wasn't thinking straight...dont want to relive that feeling...

How do you go about fixing that????

Edit**
Apart from just telling the plasterer you f***ed up

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[Paul.M]

dont know about `burning the RCD out` though Paul....more like it disconnected......

Ok so why did it take the on site sparky 45 mins, after ripping the board to bits, to reset it?

I still don't know because I was too embarrassed to ask him lol. Funny, just funny.

 

[Geordie Spark]

The biggest mistake I ever made was marrying the Sunday School teaching daughter of a bunch of po-faced religious maniacs who had no sense of adventure & even less sense of humour !!!!

 

[timbobelfast]

While doing a nightshift in a large super market chain I was menovering the scissor lift round a tight corner on the shop floor. Turned out I slightly mis-judged the length of the lift and managed to crumple the bottom shelf with the rear wheel. Good news was it was only cheap lemonade. Bad news was that the store manager wasn't too happy

 

[1shortcircuit]

Before I even started training in this field I was experiencing issues with my shower. It kept tripping out, anyway I did some investigation work and found that the 6mm shower cable had been trapped between a floor board and noggin. Whoever installed the cable had obviously completed everything before putting boards back down so just refitted the board over the top.

Anyway, after realising this I just thought that I would chisel out some of the noggin so that the cable wouldn't be pinched anymore... Cool, Job done. Refit boards and go back downstairs to find a massive crack in the ceiling!. It would have appeared that the nogging didn't only touch the floor boards but also the ceiling.


When I started working on a rewire I put my foot right through it.... yep, the ceiling lol I have pictures somewhere The floor boards had been left up on the landing stairs and when I was asked to bring the ladder up I was concentrating more on not damaging the decor on the wall (which also had lots of picture frames etc). Must have caught the very edge of the last board and my ankle turned over.... Should have seen that hole lol. I will find the pictures and post them up lol

 

[i=p/u]

drilled through a 4 inc pipe in sisters house when done my first downlights . cud of cried .. doing swa and forgetting shrouds, list could go on as i nearly trained myself