ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area On the job mishaps/ screw-ups

In reply to Electric Eagle's first post, thank your lucky stars you were not up on the 35th floor of a highrise condo when you cut into this h2o pipe. Second, I hope this thread stays acitve for a few days so I can post some of my real good zingers, but I have to get to my current project right now.

Helping the boss install a Delta-480v main fire station. We replaced a 1980s unit with a brand-new, half-sized, computerized unit. Had 2 feeds coming in overhead, one was back-up/emergency from a generator and one was main feed. He pulled the old feeds out and placed them in the same way. On the new unit, the emergency was on the other side. Checked continuity on all phases...except the last one. Both of us completely forgot for some reason. Flipped the disco, kaboom. Phase C was grounded. Grenaded the solid copper on the inside and turned the crimp sleeve nice and black. Almost tore a hole out of the side.

Running Romex in a remodel house. Walking through the attic only not to see a telephone cable running along the joist, trip, kaboom. Size 12 through the ceiling.

On a more recent call...
I had a troubleshoot for an entire trailer park about 50 miles from home. (6 trailers out of the 140 space park were out)
I put the toner on one of the dead pedestals and started trying to follow the lines back to the main gear which was about 600' away.. I finally locate the problem... Some plumbers had nicked the direct burial 1/0 AL and the dissolved themselves apart.. By this time it's already getting dark out, so I called into the shop for some backup to put some pvc in the ground and pull new wire for the damaged section.
The office sends me a journeyman and a couple helpers that I'd never met before...
By this time I have a bunch of people standing around waiting for their power to come back on..
I tell the helpers to start digging a trench from pedestal to pedestal, and warn then "THERE'S OTHER UTILITIES IN THE SAME TRENCH!!! BE CAREFUL!!!"

Not 30 seconds later I hear a loud WOOSH.. and a 20' geyser was flooding out everything! couldn't locate the shutoff for about half hour, Now I have people complaining about water running under their trailers as our work area is becoming a mud pit
I finally find the shutoff for the 1" watermain and now have people complaining about no water UUGGHH!! I get a plumber out and run to the orange box about 5 miles away for a couple pumps and hoses. I get back and pump out everything, by this time, it's midnight... after this we see the cable TV line with a nice slice out of it.
We finally get power restored at 7am...

We later found out the CATV line was abandoned (whew!) and backfilled... I hit the sack at just after noon...

A friend of mine is a foreman for a big drywall out fit and his brother is an apprentice for him.. one friday the brother is firetaping above a drop ceiling in an occupied hospital.. big snow storm monday.. comes into work tues and the super , gen forman, hospital bigwigs are steaming.. whats up? here all the sinks in the hospital get a flush of special solution to keep bacteria and the such from building up.. it flushes 2 gallons every hour.. while fire taping a piece of tape fell into the slop sink and covered the drain hole ... 5 gallon sink... 48hrsx2 gallons=alot of clean up.. they had to replace ceiling tiles and some drywall on the floors below.. i sucked to be him that day

Here's one, I was doing a bathroom remodel with my bro-in laws, one a GC, the other a plumbing contractor. they were on the job before me, starting to put in the jacuzzi, with the box cut open and laying on the floor of the bathroom or so I thought. As I walked on the cut open box my whole leg went thru the box and the dining room ceiling. There was the homeowners little daughter, sitting at the table eating breakfast, when she saw my leg come thru the ceiling she started to cry and got up and ran! That was horrible, but it's funny now!

Here's one, I was doing a bathroom remodel with my bro-in laws, one a GC, the other a plumbing contractor. they were on the job before me, starting to put in the jacuzzi, with the box cut open and laying on the floor of the bathroom or so I thought. As I walked on the cut open box my whole leg went thru the box and the dining room ceiling. There was the homeowners little daughter, sitting at the table eating breakfast, when she saw my leg come thru the ceiling she started to cry and got up and ran! That was horrible, but it's funny now!

Here the fine for damaging a utility is $5000 so we never drive a rod, without a mark out.

Asked my dad for one of his old stories.
Working in a high-rise building pulling 750 kcmil in the elevator shaft.
Someone had the bright idea of lifting it to the roof with a crane and then lowering it down the shaft so that gravity would help the pull.
After feeding it down a few floors, the wieght of the cable got to be too much for them to handle and gravity took over.
The whole run payed out down the shaft and when the end of the spool come off, it fell down the shaft too.

Another one of my experiences..,
Pulling in 1000' of 500kcmil triplex primary cable between manholes.
The bazooka tube (feeding tube) broke between pulls so the foreman welded it back together during lunch. He didn't get it smooth on the inside and when we started pulling the next run, the wire got skined about every three feet.
We couldn't tell until the wire made it to the next manhole (abt. 200')
Long story short, we had to pull the whole thing back out with the big truck and let the apprentices cut it up for scrap.
They got to take home 3000' of 500 kcmil.
Good day for them!

Went to add a couple of circuits to a house that my friend (HVAC contractor)has as a rental. The house was built back in the 50's. Panel was on the outside, so I intend on going up thru the soffit board and into the attic to run the circuits allll the way across the attic. Drilled hole but wire would not feed thru, so I figured they had some blocking up there. The roof was a 4/12 pitch so I knew it was going to be tight...especially for me and my beer belly...lol. Went up in the attic and had to crawl across the ceiling joists on my hands and knees (ouch). Get to the other side of the house and I try to reach over and clear the rockwool insulation so I could see what the problem is...and boom...a half sheet of sheetrock falls from the ceiling under me with all the rock wool following it down. I am laying there spread eagled on the ceiling joists and thinking...well, I don't think I am going to make a profit on this one! The sheetrock was 3/8" instead of the common 1/2 inch. I called my friend and gave him the bad news...he came over and we patched the ceiling. I finished running the circuits and told him there was no charge. We still laugh about that to this day.

Not me, but I remember about 21 years ago, a theatre carpenter was wiring up a 220 outlet for a turntable, and he somehow got the idea that you put both hots on one terminal, and the neutral on the other.. he turned on the breaker (20a), and the 400a main went 'thud', and the building went black. The police responded when the alarm went off, thinking the box office was being robbed..