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Posted by WhiteTea77581 on July 2, 2009, 9:37 pm
I thought it might be entertaining to see posts of your favorite
experience with someone else's "Handiwork."
Two of my favorites.
1. My brother and I found voltages of 33 and 66 volts at a house that
someone was fixing up to sell.
2. Telephone wire used to wire up a fluorescent light in a restaurant.
Andy
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Posted by David Nebenzahl on July 3, 2009, 3:36 pm
On 7/2/2009 6:37 PM WhiteTea77581 spake thus:
> I thought it might be entertaining to see posts of your favorite
> experience with someone else's "Handiwork."
>
> Two of my favorites.
>
> 1. My brother and I found voltages of 33 and 66 volts at a house that
> someone was fixing up to sell.
> 2. Telephone wire used to wire up a fluorescent light in a restaurant.
Since we seem to be playing "Top this!" here, how about:
Rewiring a restaurant in Flagstaff lo these many decades ago, one that
had previously been run by hippies (nice place, by the way), I
discovered a circuit that ran into the kitchen *directly* from the meter
panel in back. No fuse, no breaker, no nothing.
--
Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism
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Posted by The Ranger on July 3, 2009, 3:58 pm
> On 7/2/2009 6:37 PM WhiteTea77581 spake thus:
>> I thought it might be entertaining to see posts of your favorite
>> experience with someone else's "Handiwork."
[snip]
> Since we seem to be playing "Top this!" here, how about:
[snip]
When we experienced our first (of many) first-time homeowner issues, it was
over the hot water heater dying a messy death and refusing everything my FIL
and I attempted at resuscitation. A call to a random yellowpages ad for
plumbing emergencies netted a gentleman that was one of the BFP I'd ever
met. He (I nicked him, Man Mountain Mike) stood 6'10", 450 lb, had a long
beard and hair pulled back in a ponytail. He FILLED the closet area that
held the water heater. He was also able to lift said water heater through
the garage and to his truck. As he pulled the tank from the wall, I heard
him breathe, "What the holy hell?"
I peaked around the edge to see pipework (galvanized, corroded,
calcium-encrusted) that rivaled anything from the movie, "Brazil." Through
every female elbow bend to the dozen branch crosses and pipe trees, it was
finally connected to the back of the water heater; a double connection. As
Man Mountain Mike pulled the heater out, it was pulling the piping from the
wall. He was a little annoyed and thought I'd done it. Once I was able to
disconnect the mess for him, he offered to "clean" up the mess for no
charge.
Many MMM-inspired epitaphs and monologues later, it was a much neater
set-up. The best from MMM was, "I don't know the idiot that did this but he
was either a genius or certifiable idiot. I know which I'm leaning
towards..."
The Ranger
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Posted by Stormin Mormon on July 3, 2009, 9:19 pm
Some years ago, I was in HEP building supplies. The guy
behind the counter was telling me about a guy who was buying
yards, and yards of 18 gage lamp cord. He finally asked, was
the customer appliance repairman. No, he was rewiring his
house, and the lamp cord was easier to fish through the
walls.
--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.
Since we seem to be playing "Top this!" here, how about:
Rewiring a restaurant in Flagstaff lo these many decades
ago, one that
had previously been run by hippies (nice place, by the way),
I
discovered a circuit that ran into the kitchen *directly*
from the meter
panel in back. No fuse, no breaker, no nothing.
--
Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism
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Posted by Kyle on July 5, 2009, 8:15 am
Two stand out for me.
Back in 1976 (in the days before most people did home inspections as a
part of the buying process), my parents bought a "handyman special"
and it was a treat. There was a window a/c unit in the family room
plugged into an outlet we thought was running 220v. The a/c unit
didn't work, so we went to trace the wire to see what circuit it was
on and discovered they'd daisy-chained a couple of household extension
cords from the breaker box through the crawlspace and up behind the
baseboard radiator, cut off the multi-outlet block at the end of the
second cord and attached a 220 box.
In 2005 my wife and I bought a row house in our neighborhood to fix up
and rent out. In the basement the owner had put up a wall to divide
the back part (workroom, weirdly large powder room) from the front.
He'd used 2x4s to frame the wall, but then instead of putting up
drywall he'd just stapled that corrugated paper brick up - you know,
the type of stuff they used to use in the cheesy fake fireplace
Christmas decorations.
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> experience with someone else's "Handiwork."
>
> Two of my favorites.
>
> 1. My brother and I found voltages of 33 and 66 volts at a house that
> someone was fixing up to sell.
> 2. Telephone wire used to wire up a fluorescent light in a restaurant.