Sparky's Laws

1) The box with the bad connection will be the only box you haven't opened yet.

2) The weakest Knock-Out will be one size larger than the one you needed.

3) If you have just enough decorative screws for a light fixture, you will drop one in the snow.

4) The batteries in your drill/flashlight/meter will die just as you get to the end of the crawlspace.

5)The bit that is in your drill will be the wrong size, or dull.

6)The tip that is in your screwgun will be the wrong type or worn out.

7)The tool that you need right now while your holding the part in place, won't be in your toolpouch.

8)The check valve in the bucket truck will stick when you're 35 ft. up, in a blizzard, (with no cigarettes).

9) The house you just wired that has a staple that is 54-1/16" from the next has a greater risk of failure/fire/electrocution/lawsuit than the 1900's 30A 120V service and Knob and Tube wiring that the neighbors refuse to replace.

10) The best way to find bedrock is to start driving a ground rod.



Be creative...add your own!

[This message has been edited by sparky66wv (edited 09-02-2001).]

Very nice.

Don't have much time right now, but one I do know for sure is that the farther you're working from the supply house, the less likely it is that you have what you need on the truck.

Tom

If it is in the truck, the tool or material you need will be in the bottom of the pile.

Sorta off topic:

I tell folks I'm an electrician by day and a musician by night. Sounds glamorous, but really it means that I untangle cables 24 hours a day...

the one widget you really need to complete the job ( and get paid) will always be on B.O. ....


Virgil,
don't quit yer day job!

* someone will always want changes AFTER sheetrock......


* the inspector will always find that one thing you wished he'd pass by....

I've decided to compile these and put them on my web site.. any objections?

Any additions? C'mon guys, sparky, Tom and me aren't the only ones here with a sense of humor are we?

Bill, maybe compile a section of (and for) all sparky jokes here too? We seem to have quite a few spread all over the BB...



[This message has been edited by sparky66wv (edited 05-18-2001).]

The day after you trash your collection of leftovers & oddball electrical parts, you'll need that part that was gathering dust for 10 years.

The life of light bulbs is inversely proportional to the distance from the parts house.

Tom

[This message has been edited by Tom (edited 05-18-2001).]

Virgil,

Great idea here!! Love the #10 item in the first post - bedrock is found by Electricians driving rods, not Geologists!!

Got the same 24/7/365 cable untangling [or unweaving] situations going on also - when I was a Drum Tech [which also made me the repair tech, carrier of drums plus amps and cables, and all that baloney because no one else could -??] that was the deal.
Now, it comes with LAN work, then home entertainment stuff for everyone in the neighborhood!!

Like you said "Sounds glamorous, but really is untangling cables 24 hours a day", just my stuff doesn't sound glamorous to anyone except maybe bored extra-terrestrials.

Steve,

I'm jealous!! Thought that changes and additions after drywall is hung, taped and topping is drying only happened to me [joke!!]
My favorite for these on our Bank projects is there's always some changes to the walls with the cladding in them, plus the ceiling spaces are cladded.

Here's a few to add to the Sparky's Laws list:

* Unibit falls out of chuck and into a finished wall when drilling the top plate on steel stud framing,

* The speednut that you hand tightened enough to hold the ballast so you can grab the other one, holds fine until you just touch the 2nd stud - then it lets the ballast fall,

* Your last orange wirenut for that same ballast falls out of your hand, then rolls away so fast it cannot ever be found again - resulting in 93rd trip to truck for more,

* The fixture with the loosest lampholder allows the last of your T8 lamps to fall out and "Pachinko Ball" bounce it's self clear of the fixture - ends up all over the floor,

* The open unused free spaces on the subpanel's bolt-on bus are the only ones without the screws [trip 94 to truck],

* Plug your battery charger into an existing receptacle - when plugging it in noticing that it's cover plate is almost brand new, while the rest are old and cracked - after pushing the receptacle into the 2 layers of drywall laminations, it stops on the 1/2" raised ring, then emits a shower of sparks,

* Removing a panel cover and having it "Attack You" when it springs away from the wire packed subpanel,

* Finding out from your Inspector that he/she doesn't like the #14 green conductor connected to a 40 amp 2 pole breaker, nor likes the orange wire for the common neutral - all in your ready to inspect new subpanel.
After assuring yourself that it's not a dream, you see the same thing! When you remove it, the next day there's a hostile note from some specialty type vendor telling you not to mess with his stuff,

* All the LOTO in the world cannot stop the most determined morons,

* Drywall stocking crews figure the best places to stack the sheetrock would be in front of the gear, subpanels, right under your ceiling J-Boxes, across your floorduct outlets, across your open sawcuts for floorduct, against the wall with the most electrical outlets, trapping your job boxes in a restricted movement,....,

* The one and only room on the entire project that you go to work in because there's no one doing anything in there, becomes priority 1 in the minds of all other trades - resulting in 17 people working in a 10' x 10' room,

* The 1/2" KO on the hot panel that you cannot shut down, pops out with such ease, it bounces all around, then falls right against a hot subfeed lug and lays against the deadfront mount - but luckilly doesn't blow up because no one has messed up the paint on the mounting bracket [this happened once to me and it scarred the HE** out of me!!],

* The sizzorlift you are using on a 250,000 square foot concrete tilt-up, has a top speed of 0.001 MPH when the deck is lifted even 1/192" up. When lowered that last fraction of an inch, it takes off at 0.002 MPH - so the trip across the building takes all day, regardless if you have the lift all the way up to 20 feet, or fully dropped,

* Same sizzorlift goes into tilt alarm when running over a piece of 1/2" EMT,

* Pulling that same lift out of the mud because some clown took it off-roading while you are on lunch break.

I'll have some more for this thread after this weekend's work

Scott SET

Laughing Out Loud... And it is even worthy of not abbreviating that!

That's awesome, Scott... I'm in tears here!

Ammendum to #10
The bedrock that the piling drivers so desperately tried to find, will appear at the first hammer swing when driving a ground rod.

More:
An unexplained and mysterious gas line will be hiding behind the hole you're about to cut. (Did that once, didn't cut into the pipe, but it sure played heck on the switch location I had chosen!)

As soon as you climb onto the last step on your ladder, the "whitehat" will walk around the corner...

Any more from you guys? We could have a book here!


[This message has been edited by sparky66wv (edited 05-19-2001).]

After climbing to the roof of a 40' tall building, you'll find that the equipment you need to work on has all metric bolts.
The roof ladder will always be located on the opposite corner of the building from the spot you need to go.
You'll go to fix a machine to find that they have a great set of schematics...in Mandarin Chinese.
When you've hurried to reach a point for your inspection on a fast-track job, you'll always finish on a Thursday...and City Hall will be closed on Friday.
As soon as the inspector OK's the release of power for an eager customer, there will be a major utility problem and it will take all the utility workers days to repair it...they won't get to you for a week.
When you finally get an applicant for that service truck job that really seems like he'll be great for your company, you'll find out he's just been released from prison for embezzling and has no driver's license.
The chance of having a load of fixtures damaged in transit or built wrong is 10X greater if you need them urgently or they have a 2 month+ lead time to replace. In stock items will be OK




[This message has been edited by electure (edited 05-19-2001).]

Electure's ladder comment reminds me that the access hole to the attic/crawlspace is gauranteed to be as far as possible from where you need to go.

The foreman gives you the new 200 foot fishtape, but not without a lecture on taking care of it, wasting money etc.

On the very first wire pull from the top of your 10 foot step ladder, you let the tape pay off over your shoulder (figuring that you'll roll it up right after the pull is finished), you're unaware of the welder sitting against the wall with the wingnut terminals on the front. Yep you guessed it, 53, two foot long pieces laying on the floor!

Uhh, boss? About that new fishtape....

Matt

[This message has been edited by Matt M (edited 05-19-2001).]

. The existing panel should never have a panel schedule but if it does, it will be wrong.
. The guy you sent to find a spare circuit and make a hookup found one with no load...until the lighting control turned on that night and overloaded the circuit blowing the breaker and leaving the building dark.
. The guy you told to charge the scissorlift overnight put in a plug just for that purpose...and connected it to a lighting switchleg that shut it off as he left the room.
. You can't get to the panel because there's too much junk in the way

[This message has been edited by electure (edited 05-19-2001).]

. That resistance you felt with the sawzall was not a nail after all......it's a live waterline.


Great thread Sparky! I'm still wiping the tears from my eyes.

GJ

Home Depot will always be out of at least one item on your list.

Home Depot really doesn't carry anything I need, except as a last resort.

Tom

Matt,
Your story reminded me of one!

My first week on my current job. Trying to be a hard charger, I decided to move the service truck out of the garage and get ready to go one morning.

Being the new guy, I didn't know that it took every last bit of clearance to get the truck out. Ripped the bottom section out of the roll-up door with the ladder rack.....Oops, sorry about that!

Seven years later, I'm still here, so I guess that first impressions aren't everything.

GJ

If it's OK, I'm going to edit some of these to reflect a "future tense law-speak" rather than past tense when I post them on my webpage.

Thanks for all the input!



Sparky's Laws and other observations...

who are you kidding? everybody goes to Home Depot whether they want to or not.

Always bring the second battery up in the Attic because the drill's going to stop halfway through.

Bill

Scott said:
>The 1/2" KO on the hot panel that you cannot shut down, pops out with such ease, it bounces all around, then falls right against a hot subfeed lug and lies against the deadfront mount

Now would you kindly finish the story...
Did you use a magnet or how do you get it out of there?

There's no such thing as a "quick 30 minute to 1 hour job"

Drywall installers always bury one or two of your boxes in the room you forgot to count the number of openings.