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

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

David Nebenzahl wrote in message
.com...
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

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
..


"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
.com...

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

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.

On Jul 5, 10:15*am, Kyle wrote:
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.

My 'most dangerous' was visiting to repair a TV in an extension built
on back of a small house at end of this street. Next to the graveyard.
It contained two children's bunk beds. The only heat in the cramped,
congested and uninsulated space was an open glowing electric heater,
probably a kilowatt or so. It was fed with a rickety taped up
extension cord that also fed the TV. There was one tiny window that I
don't think even a small child could have exited. I told them the
whole thing was completely unsafe.
Strange thing is that another son afterwards acquired the very small
piece of land no room for anything except a house, and has built the
biggest residence on the street; two people living in (for this area)
a giant of a house. No trees, house occupies most of the land!
Anyway along with all the trees the rest of us have grown, that house
makes a nice windbreak! During some heavy wind a year after it was
built some vinyl siding blew off that house while we were nice and
snug and had no problems!
Anyway back to scraping paint on my low singel storey bungalow!

"WhiteTea77581" wrote in message
...
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

Not a safety issue but nevertheless pretty stupid...

Scenario: you're an HVAC "professional" installing a 2-zone heat + A/C system in a new house. You
get to the part where you're wiring the downstairs thermostat to the zone controller. The
connection requires cable with 6 wires. You only have 5-wire cable in your truck. Do you:
1) Go get some 7-wire cable, available almost anywhere (this is in MA, there have to be 10 HVAC
supply houses within 5 miles), and wire it correctly.

2) Kludge it with 5-wire cable, scribbling instructions on the zone controller for the homeowner
to move wires and jumpers around inside the controller to switch from heating to cooling mode.

Guess which option the guy chose?

Eric Law

PS Don't know if it was the same guy, but the house had an oil-fired water heater in addition to the
furnace, and a power vent. When both operated at the same time, the power vent wiring bridged two
branch circuits together. I found this out the hard way when I moved one circuit to a breaker that
was on the opposite phase ;^)

On Jul 6, 8:14*am, "Eric" wrote:
"WhiteTea77581" wrote in message

...

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

Not a safety issue but nevertheless pretty stupid...

Scenario: you're an HVAC "professional" installing a 2-zone heat + A/C system in a new house. *You
get to the part where you're wiring the downstairs thermostat to the zone controller. *The
connection requires cable with 6 wires. *You only have 5-wire cable in your truck. *Do you:
* * 1) Go get some 7-wire cable, available almost anywhere (this is in MA, there have to be 10 HVAC
supply houses within 5 miles), and wire it correctly.

* * 2) Kludge it with 5-wire cable, scribbling instructions on the zone controller for the homeowner
to move wires and jumpers around inside the controller to switch from heating to cooling mode.

Guess which option the guy chose?

* * Eric Law

I guess the "Professional" did not get a Christmas card from you. :-)

A company did a roofing job for my mother.

They agreed to:

1. Re-roof the garage
2. Replace some rotted trim.

They did 1 but not 2.

Maybe they think their reputation is not all that important or
that they will always be able to find new customers.

I think they way underbid the job, but it was their mistake.

Andy