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As a GC we all see alot in a day. From time to time things happen that scare the heck out of you and later make you laugh or that make you laugh as soon as they happen. So… here’s a couple to start us off,
My men were working on a site using a skid steer to move some concrete tubes and earth. When I arrived back from picking up material, they approached me with ashen faces. I was led down a sttep hill below where they had been working to find a circa 1917 cedar strip canoe, with an 8″ concrete pillar right through it like a Torpedo. All I could do was laugh. No-one hurt thank God. $1,000.00 fixed it. Would you believe 6mnth later a landscape contractor did the exact same thing. God’s Truth.
Now my turn, I was ripping a pc of trim on a portable table saw, in the living room of an addition. I was working alone BUT not alone on site. As the pc cleared the saw blade I lost control. The blade grabbed it and flung it like a javalin through a brand new window and about 80 ft into some short brush. A very stupid mistake. Again no-one hurt. I’m sure I am not the only one who has had close calls or bad luck! Bring-em on but let’s keep it clean. No grizzly stories. This was brought about by the ‘so how was your day’ entry. Have fun and keep safe.
SteveM
Replies
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My favourite is the time I was doing a little drywall finishing at a remodel for a friend. He had taken out a 2x4 partition wall and I had told him to put a few cleats across the opening to fasten a strip of drywall to before I left the previous day. When I got there at 7 a.m. the next day and discovered that the cleats were not there I set about doing it myself. Of course I was not prepared to do any woodwork so I had to get the material and make the cuts which was not making me very happy.
After finding a handsaw and some 1x4 I managed to get the amount of cleats needed made and then to fasten I found an OSHA approved milk crate to stand on and grabbed my drywall gun to put in the screws. On the first cleat I was holding it in place with my left hand and running the gun with my right and ran the screw up into the drywall through the cleat and right into my finger! Well we all know how well a drywall gun will operate in reverse. So I was pondering my predicament when a voice upstairs said "Hello". I said "Down here" and in a few a young female came down and stood in the doorway of the room I was in and asked about the owners. I said I didn't know about them but would she mind handing me the cordless drill that was by her feet! She did and I handed her the worthless drywall gun and undid my hand from the ceiling. She went about her business which was painting upstairs and I went about mine.
Later in the day I was upstairs tending to a patch in the drywall and the young girl was painting a room so I said "Hey, thanks for saving my life today" and she gave me a very baffled expression so I said " Yeah, thanks for handing me the screwgun earlier" and got the same look. She hadn't gotten any inkling of my predicament!
We pass each other on the street now and then and I always say hello and thanks again. She gives me a baffled look----
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My husband and I were having our house built in late summer, so we signed the kids up at their school right away and I drove them back and forth until the house was finished. On the day they were pouring our foundation I thought the kids would get a kick out of watching it. So we climbed up on top of the excavated soil, to stay out of their way. While I was up there I tried to make sense of the labrinyth of forms to imagine the finished product, when I finally raised my hand and sheepishly asked the foreman where my basement windows were going to be. I knew immediately there was a problem when he turned white and said "what windows?" It seems that because our footprint was flipped from the blueprint, he traced the outline by holding the plan up to his windshield, but forgot to make some important marks! It turned out fine in the end though; they had to come out the next day and saw the openings out. Good thing I was there.
*
I can promise no blood because at the moment it happened, I couldn't see any blood at all. It was only after I pulled my left hand from behind the drywall that I saw the blood.
Working by myself on a warm Saturday, I was using my utility knife to cut space for installation of new electrical. With brain only working on one cylinder, I cut a small hole in the wall above the box and began using the knife to cut through the drywall between the studs. It just didn't seem to be cutting like I thought it should, so my idea was to stick my fingers up into the empty wall cavity to feel the back side of the drywall, and that way I could easily tell when the blade was coming through the sheetrock. To make it short, the knife was most definitely cutting through the sheetrock. The job came to a very quick stop and didn't get finished until my wounded finger and pride had healed.
*A landscape crew I was running was doing a new development, about 12 houses right in a row. All yards pitched back to a common swale at the rear property line. It was common practice for us to do these all at the same time. So at 6am (the best part) we fire up the tractors, I pull the Ford 6000 with a gill ( a cultivator of sorts) line up in yard number one, throw it in 2nd gear, high range, sink the gill into the ground and dump the clutch. I couldn't hear the yelling over the roar of the diesel - I never looked back because I had to pay attention to the scenery flying under the tractor at 20 mph. I got to the end of yard 12, raised the gill and stared in silence at the wires coiled up out of the ground. For whatever reason, these houses were fed with phone and cable from the back, despite the fact that there were vaults in the front yards (we checked). As I sat there I watched as the owners came out, in sequence and turned bright red. Not missing a beat I yelled to the guys to finish pulling the wires up so we could finish, then I informed the owners that their utilities were supposed to run these on the surface until after the grading was done (the truth). Despite the fact that we were technically correct, the scorn was unbearable. As luck would have it the cable and phone trucks showed up 20 minutes later. The discussions went downhill from there.-RobThis still makes me laugh today!
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Here's another one. About five(?) years after our house was built, I was getting up around noon (from a night job), and as I passed the front door I noticed the next door neighbor getting a tree planted. I didn't think anything of it since they had talked about doing more landscaping. A few minutes later, I noticed the same guys planting a tree in my front yard! Stunned, I asked them what the ____ they thought they were doing, and was told they were required to give everyone a boulevard tree. I told them I had a hundred in the wooded back yard, and the front was the only place our yard got any sun - take it back! They laughed at me and finished what they were doing. Then they saw me on the phone and left the neighborhood, leaving me wondering "what the heck..." The city didn't know anything, but speculated the builder had something to do with it. Sure enough, but the landscaper was supposed to have notified everyone before going ahead. They never did take the damned thing back, and despite my best efforts it's still alive. So that's the story of my drive-by tree planting.
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No blood? Well I'm out. Actually, talk about dumb, I was hanging ceiling grid and needed to pop rivet track to wall angle. I had bought all new drill bits for this project. I managed to, while holding pieces together, drill not once, but twice into my finger that I had run through a table saw several years before. I'm not sure a drill bit has hit a finger of yours, but before you have sense enough to release the trigger it makes a fair amount of hamburger and a more than fair amount of pain.
But, to out do myself, many moons ago when I needed a summer job I went to work for a construction company. I was assigned to a drywall hanger. I watched for a day or two and decided that while he was screwing up the sheet, I could measure and cut the next one. He must of loved me, because he was making hanger wages and only screwing rock in place.
Anyway, I was cutting a piece one day with a T-square and as the knife approached my hand I thought, "you know I should be careful as I could cut my finger", that was in the way, holding the T-square in place.
No sooner had I thought that than I had cut 3/4 of this tip of my right hand ring finger practically off.
A few stiches later and I played Basketball that weekend, but!
No Blood? No foul. If I don't bleed in some way, I didn't work that day.
*Great Question!2 short ones:Rototilling area for new garden. Rototiller locked up. Seems the electrician was lazy when he ran new wires from house to well head.Watched a monster (8' diameter tires) dump truck that was hauling ledge blasting debris in a new neighborhood backing to a steep 75' cliff-like bank for a dump. Saw panic stricken face on driver as he jumped out the door just before truck took a backflip. Brakes failed. No blood.
*Many years ago, my uncle took his crew to a job, knocked on the door, told the woman who answered the door that they were there to put in a fireplace, and commenced cutting through the ceiling and roof. A few hours later, my father showed up to check on their progress. Everything was great except for the fact that they were supposed to be next door! The woman assumed that her husband had made arrangements for the work, so she said o.k. It turned out o.k. The husband said that he had always wanted a fireplace and had them go ahead with it. Eventually the neighbors got their fireplace and a good story to go with it.
*Summerof 1981 small sidwalk replacement job, take out existing re-form new and pour. Lots of control joints(with a deep jointer) nice edge, floated and troweled twice.Wait for a firm set under the summer sun then a light broom finish.A good day, we load the trucks and bid the homeowner fairwell who asks"don't we need to cover it in case it rains?",to which I replied looking at the clear blue skies "nah it would have to rain cats and dogs to hurt this stuff, in fact it wouldn't hurt to mist it with your garden hose in an hour".20 minutes into our 25 minute drive to the shop the skies opened up and cats and dogs did indeed pelt our winshield.Our boss was waiting for us as we pulled into the driveway having just talked to said homeowner who now had an exposed aggregate finish. We returned to try and salvage but to no avail and ended up going back the next day and repeating the previous days work, tear out to finish.
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One of my dummest mistakes was to go the work in an attic to work on the insulation. The home was equiped with a water source heat pump. The PVC piping in the attic seemed to fill every square inch of attic space. It looked like white spaghetti on a big plate. The water pump would every five minutes or so pump water throughout. The owners, who were not home at the time, told me that the brick floor on the first floor had been drying out for several months so that it could be sealed. I learned that day how easily PVC can break on a cold day. I was also amazed at how much water could pass through an upstairs ceiling fan and that carpet and CDX subflooring were never designed to hold water. The downpour made it all the way down to the brick floor at ground zero. It's difficult to know how I made through that day or to know why I still do what I do.
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Well we all know that sheetrock hangers think framers are the worst, so pardon me if any rockers can read this!
Last summer, I had the misfortune of doing some work for an old builder friend with a rookie superintendant. It turns out that this super was formally a hanger. UH OH!
Well eventually he became irritated at our "improper nailing techniques" at the bucks, and proceeded to show my rookie framer how it's done.
Get ready for the laugh!
He borrows the rookies hammer and proceeds to angrily show him how it's done. He sets the spike, and on the next blow, he bounces the hammer off the wood and smacks himself square in the forehead!
Needless to say, I've since had to spend a great deal of time teaching my dumb rookie to stop smacking himself in the forehead!.
Sheesh, I wish those rockers would stick to teachin' the hangers!
blue, framin' in MI
"Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot."
*Rip hammer? Lobotomy? (I'd rather have a bottle in front of me...)
*
This was relayed to me by my carpenter that works for me now. I barley knew him then however from what I did know I have no reason not to believe it to be accurate. He was an accomplished framer in the early 70’s and while subbing framing for houses in a development in Portland an inspector from the county happened by the job, he was taking exception to some form of valley tie-in that was his preference not necessarily code compliance, (if you know what I mean) in the course of conversation which included several descriptive adjectives being by both parties (the one party with the hammer being on the roof at the time) while other party was standing below looking up all the while trying to make his point subject A decided enough was enough and threw his hammer at subject B to add emphasis to his argument, sort of Tomahawk style. His aim was accurate landing in approximately solar plexus region, with a dull thud.
.....End of discussion......
spector picked himself up realized he had probably been as articulate as he could be and after some dusting off of his pants and pride got back in his state owned vehicle and drove away never to be seen or heard from (at least on this jobsite) again. (Field work just was not going to be his calling) Charlie (the framer has since calmed down with age and maturity but he actually still has the same hammer)of which he speaks of fondly to this day.
mrl
*This was relayed to me by my carpenter that works for me now. I barley knew him then however from what I did know I have no reason not to believe it to be accurate. He was an accomplished framer in the early 70’s and while subbing framing for houses in a development in Portland an inspector from the county happened by the job, he was taking exception to some form of valley tie-in that was his preference not necessarily code compliance, (if you know what I mean) in the course of conversation which included several descriptive adjectives being given by both parties (the one party with the hammer being on the roof at the time) while other party was standing below looking up all the while trying to make his point subject A decided enough was enough and threw his hammer at subject B to add emphasis to his argument, sort of Tomahawk style. His aim was accurate landing in approximately solar plexus region, with a dull thud. .....End of discussion...... spector picked himself up realized he had probably been as articulate as he could be and after some dusting off of his pants and pride got back in his state owned vehicle and drove away never to be seen or heard from (at least on this jobsite) again. (Field work just was not going to be his calling) Charlie (the framer has since calmed down with age and maturity but he actually still has the same hammer)of which he speaks of fondly to this day.mrl
*Well- I'm an inspector who just can't give up the weekend stuff. I was building a deck on a house, and was cleaning up from the tear-off of the old deck. My truck was down, so I had borrowed a buddy's truck to haul the stuff to the dump. I built up the side rails to haul as much as possible, and as I threw a two-by into the bed, I recall saying to myself, "you better watch out, this truck lacks a guard at the rear window, you'll put one through the glass if you're not careful." Next one, right into the cab. To top it off, it looked like rain, so I used some tape to hold the patch in place untill I bought the new glass. Regretfully, I used vinyl tape used for vinyl faced insulation. This stuff won't come off, and now the truck has interesting markings.....and my buddy has a story to rib me with....every chance he gets. Better stick with the day job.
*All good stuff folks. Thanks for sharing. I needed to know I'm not the only one who makes mistakes. More important, I'm not the only one who laughs at them. Some of them make you grimmace for a while but in the long run you get a belly chuckle or two as well...We hope! SteveM
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A few quick ones via my father in law who was a builder in the 40's and 50's. About the time they were pitching lefover bricks into the back of his new pickup from high up..and missed and hit the roof of the new truck-three times! or the time he didn't see his new extension ladder on the ground and ran up the full length of the ladder with the truck and bent all the rungs or the time a concrete truck got too close to the edge of the basement being poured and ended up IN the basement with a full load of concrete on board! Or the time the trigger stuck on the skill saw as he was setting it down and it ran around the room three times before cutting it's own cord in a blast of sparks.
mine are of newer vintage but still told at family gatherings. like the time drilling from the basement up into a wall to feed a tv cable in the living room above where the lady of the house was knitting on the couch..to have the drill bit come back with carpet stuff entwined! Or the time I drilled from outside a ouse into the back of the dresser in the master bedroom, into the underware drawer of the lady of the house!
*
This happened to me just last week.I was late for a family function and did not have time to hang the last piece of gutter on a job.Not wanting to leave any aluminum overnight on a job site,I bungeed the last gutter on top of my ladder rack(the gutter was only 22' long but destined for an awkward location on the house) and drove home.I opened the garage door and carefully checked to see if I had enough overhead clearance and then smugly pulled inside.Well you guessed it,When I hit the remote the closer brought the door down right on the custom colored gutter trashing the last 2-3'.Turns out if I had pulled in another 4 inches it would have missed it completely.Could have been worse but the door was fine and it only cost me another $22 the next morning for new gutter.(my supplier hardly even snickered when I told him the story,thats why I buy all my materials from him.Of course maybe thats why he hardly ever laughs at me)
*
I stopped by a site to check on progress...
Plumbers are upstairs roughing in. One breaker had been installed in the panel box for on-site power. Music is blaring from the basement. I went downstairs to see where the party was. Young apprentice was getting set up to work on the service panel. He wasn't authorized by his boss to do this, he was trying to "help out" and "prove himself". He had the cover off the panel, wires hanging, and tools balanced on the bottom "shelf" of the panel box.
"WTF" I ask. "Working on an open panel with the power on? Get your tools out of the service box." He comes back with "I shut the breaker off". Sure enough, the main breaker was off. I told him to pack up and leave the panel alone, something's screwed up since the power is still on. He counters with "The breaker is off, so the panel is DEAD."
I'm in the middle of telling him that with music playing and power drills drilling upstairs, the power is NOT off, when he interrupts, says again "The main is OFF, look...". He then wets his finger and touches the board, ZZZzzzaappp! With the exception of a bit of burned flesh and a filling that popped out of one of his teeth, the kid was okay. I sent the plumbers packing, then went outside and pulled the meter and capped the box.
Turned out the main breaker was bad, it shut off the juice to one side of the panel, but no the other. Manufacturer came back and said "Yeah, we know about that, it happens in about 3 out of 1000 boxes.
*This is one of those cases that gets you laughed out of court -- say he had sued the manufacturer. Another story was the guy who decided to use his lawnmower (heicopter type) to trim his hedge. Really.
*Send your goof into The Family Handyman magazine, and they'll pay you $100 if it's published.You have to be fast, though. Just as my neighbor across the alley added a carport to the left side of his garage for his van and discovered afterward that it was too narrow to let anyone out of the van's right side, the same goof appeared in the magazine.My near goof was very similar. In order to make some room in a cramped 1930's kitchen, the new cabinetry would have the range's right side against a wall. Along the wall, fairly close to the range, was a window. The designer and I used her computer program to determine cabinet sizes and placement, and we were all set to send these into the custom cabinetmaker when her installer came out to the house for a final look. After looking around the kitchen awhile, he asked, "How're you gonna get the oven door open?" "Huh?" I asked. "Well, the oven door's going to hit the window casing when you lower it." "Oh, s***!" We were able to intercede before the cabinetmaker started cutting solid hickory and added a spacer on one side of the range and narrowed the base cabinet on the other side. Neither the designer nor I picked up on this -- hat's off to the actual site worker.
*Back in the mid-60's we were running in some extra plugs in an older home. My partner measured to locate the wall in the living room, went downstairs to measure where he would drill to get the cable up in the partition, then after he doublechecked his measurements he started drilling. He had run the ship auger in about 12" and was still getting chips falling in his face, so he figured he had the misfortune of drilling up a stud. He pulled the auger back out and discovered that some carpeting came along with it. After a bunch of head scratching and searching we discovered he'd missed the partition by about a foot or so and had drilled almost dead center up the leg of the grand piano.
*One time while installing cabinets, I couldn't find a stud. (This was before the days of stud finders.) Finally I just drove a 16d nail through the back and hit something solid. (I'd tell you that this was before the days of drywall screws, too, but I might be dating myself.) After several more nails that all bit, too, I was done until I got a call back. Seems I'd nailed a pocket door in the open position. On this same job I was delivering a set of laminate counter tops on my truck rack. They were tied face to face, but with no rope around the front. I stopped quickly at an intersection and they slid off the front, breaking the laminate. The color was so ugly that it had to be special ordered, so 2 weeks later I redid them.
*
leaving a job one night,left instructions with
carpenter[laborer at best] as to what to do in the
morning as i was going to be late getting to the
job.I knew he had experience with chainsaw so i
asked
him to cut out the plywood for the window
openings.These windows were at ground level so he
was
cutting from inside,The only thing i forgot to
tell
him was that there is abrand new extladder against
the wall,guess he is afraid of heights ,now we
have a
bunch of four foot ladders,even one set with
wheels.Better yet the owner tells me later that he
was about to cut the foundation coating can in
half .
Like they say, SAFETY FIRST!!!! well most of the time.
*
I knew a carpentry, who in the heyday of energy-savings tax credits in the early 1980's, followed an insulation crew to patch up the holes in the top of each bay through which they had pumped insulation. A new guy was a little bit overeager on the drill. Their truck held enough insulation for 3-4 houses. Halfway down the length on one wall they ran out. Only then did anyone go inside the house to find the entry and hall closet full to the top with blown insulation. Also the baby's room with the crib almost covered. They ran out while trying to fill up the living room. Not only had the exterior walls been drilled all the way through, but the back of the TV set had hole saw marks on it. -David
*I have concluded that a dear and intelligent friend of mine must have been adopted. Because of what her father did one day at Sears. He was shopping for lawn mowers. Asked the salesman if it came with a cuttings bag so the salesman went to the back room to check. He said not to touch the mower in his abscence. But the guy did. Started it up. And, with the motor running, wonders what the blades look like in motion. Curls his fingers under the deck to lift it up and loses 4 fingertips on one hand. 2 on the other. It gets worse. He tried to sue Sears for the injury! -David
*
Many years ago, I was sent to the home of one of the local "well-to-do" residents of my home town. The job was fairly simple: the owner had a free-standing aquarium that needed electrical power. No problemo ! After all, I had been out of my apprenticeship for over a month by this time. Measured three times, and armed with the big drill and a two-foot ship auger I ventured into the basement to drill through the floor into the aquarium base. Transferred the memorized measurements to the task and began drilling. When the auger had gone through what I thought was more than enough wood to reach the cavity, I began to worry. On and on it went, the wood chips had a real different odor for pine, but I bore on. When I reached about twelve inches of depth, reality kicked in. Thinking I may have hit one of the vertical members of the aquarium framing, I decided to re-measure and adjust my sights. When I went upstairs and remeasured, I found that I had transposed the measurements in my inexperienced head. I measured and measured, over and over. I could find no holes through the white carpet. After an hour of investigation, I found the solution. I had unerringly drilled a ten inch deep hole into the leg of a very expensive white grand piano !
*2:00am in the morning 8-8-98. My 29th wedding anniversary. It is not supposed to rain in Okla in August. In spite of my brother's admonitions, I had both sides of the roof open to the rafters. We had laid tarps and plastic over the open areas, just in case. I had a bunch of 5 pound cast iron window weights, just the thing to tie on the tarps and drape over the eaves. Wind comes up, wakes me up. I head for the attic in boxers and maglight. The tarps are flying in the wind. Get one side down, turn around to grab the other side only to stop one of the window weights with my mouth. Cost 158.00 for a new crown. Had to listen to my brother for a month.
*
One for me, one for an old friend.
I was trained in furniture-making, so the first
real carpentry I did--which I didn't like to ask
directions about--was full of fussiness. Probably
the one everyone remembers best and likes to
retell has to do with the new joists. One wing of
this fixer had some termite-damaged flooring and
joists. I pulled off all the flooring, and
replaced the (2x10) joists, about 6 of them. I
remembered to put crown side up, like I'd read.
But then, puckered-at-both-ends-wise, I got out
some string and stretched it end to end of each
joist, just to see....... A carpenter buddy caught
me there, hand-planing those joists true.
An Elaine-from-Seinfeld sorta gal told this one at
a party where everybody was telling dumbs things
they'd done as kids. She and her girlfriend went
to explore the new house being built in the
neighborhood, when it had been dried in and
rocked. They managed to pull down the attic stairs
and she went up there while her friend waited. She
remembered these planks lying around kinda
randomly, like paths. But at some point, she
stepped off the plank and through the sheetrock,
her fall broken by a couple of joists in the
armpits. She yelled at her friend to do something;
the other girl grabbed her feet and pulled her on
through.
*
How about a little ladder luck.
I was a summer helper to a neighbor painting contractor. Typical work was cleanup, masking and refilling the paint pot. Except on an old repaint of 2 1/2 story house. I became chief scraper. Well, having circled the house to the first 2 levels that final undereve peeling paint was beckoning me. I had the extension ladder at full extension and began moving ladder base closer to foundation to gain height. Finally I resorted to help in the form of an unused garden hose, I threw around the cast iron stack protruding from roof. Must have been my lucky day as I stood on the top rung of ladder with both ends of hose in the non scraping hand.
Years later on my own repaint of 2 story. I was painting near gutters and having trouble reaching the last bit unreachable from either side above hot tub. The obvious solution was to just place the ladder base beyond tub and extend long enough to reach gutters. I had just completed gingerly resting the ladder on gutters and was returning with paint and brush to see the ladder sliding down the house.
And now the coworker's story.
As a high schooler working for an excavater as a gofer. His boss was doing some dozing on an isolated plot when he was sent on an errand in the NEW pickup just picked up earlier that day. He returned to see the boss completly done clearing land and pulled up behind him. You guessed it, the boss on the still idling dozer backed up just enough to squash the truck like a bug. Luckily no one hurt.
*
My Dad swears this story is true. A long time ago he had a college kid as a part time laborer. They showed up at the jobsite early one frosty morning after laying and tacking roof sheathing the day before,. The helper jumped out of the truck and loaded up his big baggy carpenters bib overalls with 8 box nails and headed for the ladder to begin nailing off the sheathing.My Dad told him he should wait till the frost melted off and he said he would be fine if he stuck to the hips and ridges . A few minutes later my Dad heard this clawing and scratching sound and looked up just in time to see his helper sliding down the roof gaining speed directly toward the ladder whose rails were sticking above the roof eave five or six inches.He said the baggy leg of his overalls went over the ladder rail and the ladder actually pole vaulted him through the air and nearly head first into the house next door scattering nails the whole way .He must have been in shock because he jumped up unhurt and started picking up the nails he had lost and headed for the ladder.My Dad said when he saw the kid was okay he could hardly stand up from laughing so hard.
*I spent a few summers working construction to pay my way through university (university boy, eh? you can tell what's coming).One summer, we poured concrete bases that an underground gas pipeline would rest on. The pipe had to be grouted to the base. As there was only one tap on the whole site, we'd use the Bobcat to haul a 50 gallon barrel of water to our worksite so we could mix the grout. I'd never operated a Bobcat before, but one day it was time to learn so I was sent for the water. I drove to the tap and filled the barrel without incident. On the return trip, the Bobcat started to slowly veer off to one side of the trail. I tried to straighten things out by pulling back ever so slightly on the other lever, but all that did was start the machine bucking. I had a deathgrip on the levers, so when the machine lurched forward, I'd pull the levers back...when it reared backwards, I'd push the levers forward. This, of course, made the bucking even worse. One second, it was "hi-ho silver" on the back wheels, then it would crash forward onto the bucket and the back wheels were in the air.I was soon soaked by the water that had been in the barrel. The bobcat threw the now empty barrel into the air...it landed just in front of the machine. 3 bucks later, it was pounded flat by the Bobcat's bucket. In the roll cage, I knew I could stop the bucking, if I could only let go of the levers. Finally, one hand, then the other let go and grabbed onto cage...within moments, it was all over. The barrel was flat, I was soaked and completely embarassed/freaked out. Though, I did get a nice round of a applause from some nearby welders who had witnessed this display.One more bobcat story...I was using it to haul some busted concrete away, when I saw the boss gesturing me to come over...I drove toward him, while he approached...when I stopped near enough to talk to him, he was yelling something that I couldn't understand...finally I throttled down the engine so I could hear him. "Get off my #$%^&#%# foot!" he said.Suffice to say, I'm not in the landscaping business now.
*One of the first jobs I landed after going off on my own 18 years ago was a roofing job. It was an old house with some mature evergreen bushes growing next to the house. I had to haul the bundles of shingles up to the roof one by one, so I got my ladder out and found that I could not get the base of the ladder far enough out from the house to miss the bushes when the top of the ladder touched the roof. After several unsuccessful tries in different places, I decided to go ahead and rest the middle of the ladder on the bushes. I reasoned that my weight with a bundle of shingles on my shoulder would push the ladder down into the bush so that the top of the ladder would then hit the roof. I started up the ladder with a bundle of shingles on my shoulder and my tool belt full of roofing nails. When I got just past the bushes I noticed the ladder was not yet resting on the roof. One more step....just past the pivot point, and the top went down, the legs kicked out, I lost my footing on the ladder and slipped through -- straddling a rung. The ladder continued to slide backwards until the top went off the roof. When it stopped, I was hanging from a rung by my knees upside down, roofing nails falling like rain all over me to the bush below, and the top of the ladder right smack through the top pane of the front room window!! What a mess.... Some lessons come hard.To add insult to injury, I soon discovered that when I measured the roof (a simple gable) I only measured one side then forgot to double it. That was an expensive job.
*Steve C,I have got a cartoon at home that depicts a similar scene and the caption at the bottom reads"don't try this at home folks,we're trained professionals".( I also early on had the experience of not doubling the measurement)My favorite cartoon is displayed behind the counter of my supplier and it shows a man standing behind the counter of "THE ACME ROOFING CO." The caption reads "we don't make house calls"
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As a GC we all see alot in a day. From time to time things happen that scare the heck out of you and later make you laugh or that make you laugh as soon as they happen. So... here's a couple to start us off,
My men were working on a site using a skid steer to move some concrete tubes and earth. When I arrived back from picking up material, they approached me with ashen faces. I was led down a sttep hill below where they had been working to find a circa 1917 cedar strip canoe, with an 8" concrete pillar right through it like a Torpedo. All I could do was laugh. No-one hurt thank God. $1,000.00 fixed it. Would you believe 6mnth later a landscape contractor did the exact same thing. God's Truth.
Now my turn, I was ripping a pc of trim on a portable table saw, in the living room of an addition. I was working alone BUT not alone on site. As the pc cleared the saw blade I lost control. The blade grabbed it and flung it like a javalin through a brand new window and about 80 ft into some short brush. A very stupid mistake. Again no-one hurt. I'm sure I am not the only one who has had close calls or bad luck! Bring-em on but let's keep it clean. No grizzly stories. This was brought about by the 'so how was your day' entry. Have fun and keep safe.
SteveM
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A house in my neighborhood had been empty for several years when it was sold for back taxes. The man that bought it hired some (in my humble opinion) less than qualified worker to get it into shape to sell. After it sold my new neighbor John was complaining that he had trouble getting hot water at random times during the day . One day his son dropped a toy in the toilet. John went to fish it out and learned the hard way that his toilet was plumbed with hot water.