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?

 

[sparks1973]

Reminds me of the new loo on a site that WAS connected Ok - just that there was no bog roll. Up goes the youngster, does the works - "S***e no paper" -"Oh whats this yellow fluffy stuff? - that'll do nicely" says youngster

Moral:

Never ever use fibre glass insulation to wipe your a**e

Will

yep...should`v chosen a fistful of that shredded stuff they use as insulation instead....

 

[ayjay]

the bricks in the pic are called "pots" they are used extensively around the world, europe to thailand
normally only one skin-no cavity
to sink a box into them u need to use a small disk cutter

 

[Paul.M]

First day on a new site, 40+ men all on the same floor getting in each others way.

Plasterer gets a full bucket of pva and puts it on the top of his step ladders. He drops his brush, bends down to pick it up and his left arse cheek nudges the steps and the full gallon bucket of pva ends up all over him. I tried sooooo hard not to laugh out loud but I couldn't help it, thank god he saw the funny side of it.

 

[Guest111]

Went to connect a breaker on a board that was live,put it in wrong way round and the clip shorted all 3 phases ended up frying the main isolator and taking out a 500a fuse in the sub.1ST degree burns to one hand and arm no eyebrows and a suntanned face,worst thing was I was going on holiday that afternoon.

 

[MNR]

Best ones have got to be cutting a 6" chunk out of a gas pipe completely no way of knowing it was there. Mass panic trying to find gas meter.

Cut a 6" hole for a kitchen fan pull the drill out with the core of brick and out comes millions and millions of those little polystyrene balls that they stuff bean bags being used as wall insulation. Filled the whole kitchen up to my knees. The labourers hates me for weeks after lol

 

[ayjay]

we did the same mnr, but at a lifeboat 3 story building at warsash, we made a hole in the brick wall on the ground floor for an armoured supply to go through on a friday
there was beaded cavity insu inside but only a bit came out

over the weekend there was a storm
we came back on monday morning to find MASSES of polystyrene beads everywhere, even on the beach and in the sea
it took ages to bag it all up

 

[MNR]

I gave he labourers my Henery and bought them a beer at the end of the day lol

 

[ipf]

Driving in traffic when I spotted a mate of mine up a ladder, painting the window frames of a building with his kex badly split. Honked him and started taking the p*** and laughing with my work mate. Got a fist shake and thought that was the last of it. Traffic comes to a halt about 50 yards down the road. All of a sudden, the sod appears from nowhere, white superglossed my windscreen and shot off laughing.

 

[ayjay]

classic!

 

[needasparks]

I had to fit a small storage heater in a flat to a plasterboard wall was in and out fitted, wired and tested in less than an hour.
got a call from the builder later that day to say he wanted to go home and could not shut the front door.
the plasterboard wall separated the hall and the front door was left open against the wall, I did not realise the wall was only 2 inches thick so me using 3 inch screws and getting lucky finding the studs to fix to meant i had screwed the heater to the front door through the wall.
took a while to live that one down.

 

[plugsandsparks]

Fixed a coolant pump on a lathe, needed, fuses, new contactor/overload, new cable and re-wound the motor, basically everything was fubbared. About a month later the lathe operator called me over when i was doing another job and said that coolant pump you fixed has stopped working. Thought oh sod it , so went over and sure enough just a dribble coming out, thought it might be down a phase so checked it very quickly and thought this is odd. So for some reason i disconnected the outlet pipe and asked the operator to start and quickly stop the pump whilst i was holding the pipe. Well a colomn of cutting oil flew up 10ft in the air and landed directly on my head, drenching me, big time. Operator had to stop work as his stomach was hurting and i disappeared off to the toilets to get cleaned up. Big laughs all round, the friggin pipe was blocked, unblocked it and all was good.
Phew - that stuff really stank. :-(

 

[Jimmy Boy]

When he said " Do you take this women"......The mistake was is I said " I do"

J

 

[tidyboiler]

Probably being talked out of becoming a doctor, I zoomed head first into the Motor Trade instead, and I can't help but wonder how different my life would have been had I stood my ground. I think I would have emigrated when most of my family did and had a career and family abroad. :thinking:

 

[trev]

Suppose you had, who would then keep Geordie in check?

 

[tidyboiler]

Suppose you had, who would then keep Geordie in check?

Futile exercise Trev...................:svengo: he's beyond control.....:smartass2: