Biggest mistake as a sparky

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Old Jag Lover

Time to man up confess your sins,what are your worst disasters for me,2.First drilling through a bundle of 6 bundled pyros in a large office block as an apprentice,my then boss said 3 ft from the wall,not true it was 3 metres,3pyros 4000Amp risers using ESR system second 3 2000A risers DC 3 wire for elevators in Sydney lots of downtown didn't get the AC till 1979.Second,sending a guy to replace a contactor in a Ward Leonard setup said look here the diagram does not agree 6 and 9 are reversed,told him don't worry factory mistake,no no no,resulting in no field on output motor,causing birdcaging,causing catastrophic rotor failure repair costs to us,100000 bucks.ouch.
 
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Old Jag Lover said:
Time to man up confess your sins,what are your worst disasters for me,2.First drilling through a bundle of 6 bundled pyros in a large office block as an apprentice,my then boss said 3 ft from the wall,not true it was 3 metres,3pyros 4000Amp risers using ESR system second 3 2000A risers DC 3 wire for elevators in Sydney lots of downtown didn't get the AC till 1979.Second,sending a guy to replace a contactor in a Ward Leonard setup said look here the diagram does not agree 6 and 9 are reversed,told him don't worry factory mistake,no no no,resulting in no field on output motor,causing birdcaging,causing catastrophic rotor failure repair costs to us,100000 bucks.ouch.
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Wow! Thankfully I've been pretty fortunate compared to that, my apprentice put his foot through a ceiling in a loft twice in a year, but cant compete with the above

i suppose my biggest mistake as a sparky was agreeing to work for builders, my biggest mistake before becoming a sparky was deciding becoming a sparky!
 
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Two blocks of flats at different levels, with me so far? good, two stair wells common feed from the same source, linked together via the roof spaces of each block, still with me? Boss says up you go Pete 18" chisel bar 2 lb lump hammer chop a hole through the 18 " dividing wall. What Pete forgot was the difference in height between the two blocks, yep you've guessed it chopped straight through after about 10 mins only to see some pretty wall paper on the other side of the hole, occupier not happy, neither was the boss stopped my pay for the day, barsteward.
 
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christ , everyones fails are small change lol !

picture this scenario.........

on the opening nite of a newly built casino that youve wired as part of the electrical contracting team......
youre asked to hang around in the background to deal with any teething problems on the big nite........
everythings going well with all the VIP's mulling around with there glasses of champagne.......
manager informs me the big neon & fairy light sign outside hasnt come on........
a poke around the mains rooms and find the timeclocks playing up and i decide to bypass this and leave the sign on 24 hrs ( the casinos open from 11am till 4am anyway)

all i need to do is switch off the control circuit and shuffle a few wires around what could go wrong ? .......... ;-)

apart from selecting the wrong mcb which fed the dimmer pack for the main gaming room , leaving everyone in total darkness , and its a 5 min reboot time to get it back on being all digitally controlled and whatnot.

i hear screams and swearing from the staff and feared for my life lol.

i have to be honest here and decided to reset mcb and do a bunk out of the emergency exit , like im gonna hang around for aftermath lol
 
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anyway, i once needed a labourer on some house rewires so my sparky mate got his friend (who unknown to me was a smackhead)to help me, he was of course as much use as a soft cock at working but very good a stealing wallets, which to my cost i found out the next day when i turned up for work and got arrested on suspision of theft. my "helper" had pulled a sickie. when i was released without charge i told my sparkie mate not to bring his smackhead mate anywhere near me again.
 
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Not mine but a lad I used to work with,he was rewiring a large 3 story house and being a bit tight decided to do it on his own.Anyhow he has boards up on first landing and boards up on second landing,he went into the loft with a roll of 1.5 to wire top floor lights,the idea was to poke the cable down a hole in the middle of the room then take the roll to the next hole,cut it and poke it through going from room to room.Well he ends up snatching the cable and the drum rolled along and fell through the hatch,it fell through the ceiling below,where he'd lifted the boards and then through the one below that before finally crashing through a large display cabinet in the ground floor hall.
 
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Once had a really bad stomach on-site, nowhere to go to toilet so I had to empty my bowels into a bin liner that I found (it was an emergency). Next day saw a guy trying to clean my product off a pair of curtains. I thought the bin liner was for rubbish......seemed I was wrong.
 
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kingeri said:
Once had a really bad stomach on-site, nowhere to go to toilet so I had to empty my bowels into a bin liner that I found (it was an emergency). Next day saw a guy trying to clean my product off a pair of curtains. I thought the bin liner was for rubbish......seemed I was wrong.
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Good job he never found out who did it otherwise it could have been curtains for you lol.
 
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Mine was touching the nice shiny copper thing when i was an apprentice ... it looked harmless and pretty .. i like pretty things but Im a little more cautious now.
 
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Once did a scotchcast joint in the roof on a factory,and whilst working below it didn't realise that the excess resin was dripping down onto my head.Only found it when it had gone rock solid,ended up with a big spiky bit stuck up at the back.
 
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Two weeks ago I was putting in a loft light, plastic feet on the ladders and on laminate floor! Ladders kicked out from under me and there I was hanging from the hatch like a dogs dangley bits. Ladders hit a door frame scratching the paint work that is only a year old. I spent more time on repairing the door frame than what it took to fit the light lol.
 
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Fight Fight Fight lol ....
Digressing back to the theme... my work mate was up some ladders in an office block of mainly women but was a little distracted as to the traffic of girls walking past him and somewhat under breath giggling ... as i walked in and saw what can only be described as a disturbing site of all his man baggage hanging through a rip in his pants of which he was totally unaware.. 4 fricken weeks therapy i needed after seeing such a disturbing site :thinking:
 
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Just remember one thing, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones haha. I like your location under your avatar by the way, very funny, made me chuckle :rockon2:
 
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Ha ha, never noticed that :-)

- - - Updated - - -


So what are you doing then?
 
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Back end of last year I put a 22mm drill through a wall and hit a pipe! Did'nt do much damage pmsl :rofl:

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The manager of the shop just laughed and nicknamed my "the plumber" after fixing the pipe and wall lol. (first pipe I've hit in 15 years)
 
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MDJ said:
Just remember one thing, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones haha. I like your location under your avatar by the way, very funny, made me chuckle :rockon2:
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ive no problem with taking flak, i know my limits.
glad u like the location haha
 
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Biggest mistake as a sparky
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Old Jag Lover,
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Geordie Spark,
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