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Posted By: sparky To Boldly Go where no sparky has before... - 05/04/01 10:40 AM
I don't know any contortionists, but i'd bet we'd have a lot in common. It seems our trade is always going into nooks and crannies not meant for the average human.

any war stories??

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(Posted in another topic)

I've fit through 14.5" x 8" spaces with roofing nails protruding so most any place is accessible to me if it is open at all. Proved that one in a ceiling fan install in a room that the lady had denied my suggestion to rough in for one when it would have been easy to do so.
When the carpenter removed the drywall in the laundry closet to install a hatch, he said I'd never fit. I'm 6'1" and 140 lbs., so needless to say, I have a high aspect ratio. Quite limber too...
Posted By: Tom Re: To Boldly Go where no sparky has before... - 05/04/01 10:45 PM
As an apprentice (back when there were dinosaurs) I was helping out on rewiring a farm house in California. There was one corner where there was very little clearance between the bottom of the joist & the ground. Like '66, I'm tall & fairly thin. It was tight enough that the journeyman had to pull me back out by my ankles.

Tom
Sparky,

Once in an attic with almost flat roof and about 12" at peak I had to crawl across (blown-in insulation) to pull wire from Fan to switch. I get down to the other end and saw a pair of eyes shining back at me in the Flashlight beam! - Couldn't turn around, had to back out slowly to the hatch.

That was a memorable one! [Linked Image]

Bill
Good one Bill!
once you've overcome any claustraphobic tendencies the trade presents, you find you've got the wee-beasties to deal with!
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I was working under a major fish processing plant, much of the discarded fish falls down into this crawl space.
This crawl space is hundreds of feet long and very dark with no lighting at all.
As I scanned around with my flash light I saw a cat the size of a dog, this was no house cat, it was wild and I was in its kingdom........needless to say I got out of that place in a hurry.
Bill's story puts me in mind of the time I had to install washer and dryer circuits to an apartment in an old building. It was in the low part of the roof, blown in insulation about a foot thick, August, 130 degrees in the attic, my glasses were fogging with the ventilator on (didn't have a valved-type) sweat pouring off me, I could just see the hole where a previous sparky about 50 years ago had fed a wire. The roofing nails were protruding in, my glasses had to come off to fit further, after four failed attempts to feed the wire through the same hole, I opted for feeding it through the nearby closet in conduit.

I have never been so claustrophobic in my life. I hate blown-in insulation. I felt smothered in there. (Shudder) Not to mention the scratches from old tetanus infected nails...

It's the only time that I've been beaten.

No wee-beasties or otherwise to deal with...only battling my own mind, and lost.

Then there's the yellow jackets tore out of a hole that a backhoe was digging about 10 feet away from where I was installing the meterbase. I was the first target of their aggression.
Of course there's also the artifacts we tend to also come across on these ventures...
i wish i had an eye for the value of such things, i've probably crawled right over items of Smithstonian caliber.
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I've always wanted to find a Confederate uniform in someone's attic. No luck yet!

To tie in the claustrophobia/ Smithsonian thing:

I've helped carry sabre-tooth tiger bones out of a Cave in Pendleton County, WV. They were going to the Smithsonian. All I saw were bags of dirt, but still a cool story!
We set up a fire brigade in the cave and handed the couple hundred bags out. So I held every bone that came out!

Haven't seen said tiger on display in the museum yet though...
Virgil;
hope you find those confederate duds, you should wear them on your web site if you do!
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My old boss was bending GRC at a fish hatchery. It was winter time and below freezing. He was bending 1" pipe with a hand bender, slipped, and ended up in one of the ponds! He climbed out with trout coming out of every pocket, sleeve, pant leg and boot!
How about twenty four stories up in the roof water tower of a city housing project. Had to call police to remove the junkies so that we could set up on the roof. Had to carry an extension ladder up the stairs, as it wouldn't fit in the elevator. We did about 30 bldgs like this installing pvc coated rigid for new security lighting.
On my very first day as an apprentice, I was doing the grunt work for a JW installing conduit in a industrial MCC. The overhead area was a maze of conduit as the MCC room had over 100 starters. We had bent up the conduit and he had climbed up in to the racks. I gave him the piece and he installed it. He was on the wrong side of the newly installed conduit and couldn't get out of the rack.
Don(resqcapt19)
Two that I can remember. #1, like some of the others, low attic work, clear out to the soffit edge, trying to drill down to drop a switch leg. I was using a Milwaulkee right angle drill with an auger bit. Barely enough room to set drill, let alone push down on it. Had it basically right infront of my face. Drill bit hit a nail. drill torqued around and hit me in the jaw. Out for at least 30 seconds, maybe more. No fun.

2nd story. Had to crawl under our local airport FBO office, to remove some old conduit. About 4' of clearance, but alot of old water & sewer piping, and heat ducts in the way. Had to go over and under most of these. Got to about 20' from where I needed to go, and guess what I saw/heard. Baby rattlesnakes!!!. Where the baby is, are the adults around? I whistled to see if any adult snake would answer (?) and said a fast prayer. I'm still here, so you can guess I didn't encounter anymore snakes. I just won't be going back under there!!!

Rick Miell

PS Great thread sparky
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