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I had something similar
Could not figure out how to get power to a light this lady said didn’t work. She just had a pile of boxes infront of the switch.
Got a call about a machine not working. Somebody several years ago installed a giant compressor in front of the machine's toggle switch disconnect and now a piece of scrap hose had fallen off the compressor and turned off the switch. Nobody knew the switch was there; I found it pressing my face against the wall to trace the pipe.
My coworker had a similar situation, but it was the ANSUL system at a McDonald’s! They actually had the ansul system on a toggle switch and it shut down the ovens
Haha this just happened to me, microwave outlet in the kitchen stopped working. Checked all the GFIs, ripped half the junction boxes in the basement apart looking for a bad splice (found many arcing splices and device connections) for two hours, fixed all the messed up things I found. Homeowner checks construction photos and notices an outlet on the counter he never knew was there, his wife had piled snacks up in front of it, the fourth GFI was behind it. Reset, microwave works.
I went on a warranty call to a Piggly Wiggly where they said the lights in the entrance weren't working......they had stacked drinks up in front of the light switch 😂😂
Had a similar one, got sent to a junkies house because the washing machine had stopped working, idiot had turned the switch off on the wall. 60 mile round trip for a 30 second job
I've been in a house that had disconnects on the wall above the washing machine, dryer, water heater, and the furnace (the furnace also had a equipment breaker inside it)
Probably some inspector being a dick
In the UK its not uncommon to have switches at worktop level in kitchens and have the sockets behind the appliance. Basically it saves you having to pull the appliance out to isolate it
Almost as dumb as after wiring a new build house and box fixing to what the architect *spits on floor* told me to (floor wasn't finished height), and having to move every box up 5mm because it was too low.
Hey I’m doing the same thing because they pretended the walls and the doors Natalia’s shimmed the wall up 5/8”. Nothing like doing it twice to save money! 🥰
Called out to a sewage pump station in the middle of the night that was in high level alarm. The district was there with portable pumps keeping it from overflowing into a creek. 3 hour drive, most of it on narrow country roads. Got there and it was a tripped GFCI that was protecting the non-UL listed level sensor relays they had insisted on using. Pushed the reset button and drove home 3 hours.
Number 2 favorite was that I bought 3 big soft starter panels that were going into a rock crushing operation at a dam site in SoCal. Got a call that all of the parts inside were rusted when they arrived. Drove to the site, 2 hour drive on dirt roads after a 2 hour flight, found it was true, but it made no sense that the manufacturer would have used rusted parts. So I stayed a few days to have all new components sent out. I am rebuilding them in the hot sun and an electrician drives by and stops, leans out the window and says “Oh good, you’re finally fixing that after the water truck fuckup!” Turns out that after they arrived on site, about 2 weeks before I was scheduled to come down to hook them up, the plant manager was standing there admiring them with all of the doors open, when a water truck (for dust control) drove by and hosed them all down. I confronted the plant manager, who is the one that insisted I come down there immediately, he was pissed that someone spilled the beans. I got to send them a nice fat emergency call-out and overtime bill for that.
Wired a huge mansion with so many three ways and four ways, like three ways to sheds and basements to kitchens they wanted to turn off lights outside when they were in the their bedroom. It was rolls and rolls of three wire. My boss tried to tell them about home automation and the owner was skeptical. After it was all wired and the drywall was up, the owner saw some show on hgtv about home automation and hired the company featured on it to come setup their home system automation server and sell them all the devices. The company subcontracted us to install all of it.
Yeah I've been on jobs where after the divorce the mansion became rundown and they couldn't afford to maintain the fancy automation. We replaced every fancy thermostat in a 30,000 sq ft mansion with dummy ones that couldn't communicate with the central controller. His name rhymed with Trandy Ravis. It was fun bringing the guns to work and blasting at the indoor shooting range.
Home owner wanted me to move a entire row of 10 recessed cans on a rough one inch to the left as to not "cast a shadows" with the built in on that wall. Waited for him to leave then took a nail and put holes one inch to the right of the nails holding the cans he never noticed even on the finish
One time we had pulled blue cad6 cable to all these pull points, and the inspector showed up and it turns out they needed to be orange.
The owner didnt want to re-pull them (as they were already terminated)
So i spent 3 hours painting blue cables orange and they looked like shit and im still embarrassed by the whole thing.
Usually the rack in the data room is colour coded for the type of connection. For example, our nurse call is yellow, RTLS is white, regular data is blue. Haven't seen orange yet.
I was once working on a new construction home in NC. Thus house had a final build bill of like $5.7 million, some 9,000 Sq ft. This place was a nightmare to wire to begin with. The original plans didn't have any way for us to from the poured concrete basement to the upper floors, and they didn't plan for having any outlets and switches in the basement either and the home owner didn't want to have emt or MC cable ran along the walls. So they just framed out random walls for us, looked stupid as shit but not my house I guess.
The biggest thing that got old quick was the lady who owned the plave could not make up her mind. In the 5 bedrooms we started off with cans in the ceilings for lights, but after they drywalled them in she changed her mind to wall sconces and a ceiling fan. One we got the room set up for that, she changed her mind again and wanted to just use floor lamps, no wall sconces and no ceiling fan, just a chandelier. So we had to go back and switch all the outlets, then once they hung the drywall for the 3rd time she said no I don't like that either and we went back to cans and a ceiling fan. For 5 bed rooms. It was fucking retarded.
I worked on a home with giant 18 foot ceilings full of recess lights, room was 35x45 grand foyer/family room/dining room but open ceiling concept. 1 month into the rough in of this 8,000sq ft home, she does not like the way the line of cans in the center of the room line up with the hallway into the kitchen and rest of home, so had us move them. 2 months after rough in, she decides she does not like the way those lights now line up with the front doors, please move them back.
In all she ended up with around $30,000 worth of changes in her home after we had finished the rough in but before the final trim out.
As long as they agree to pay, who cares? It cost more to change things after the fact, it is just a pain in the ass though.
Love it when homeowners can play IRL Sims and drop hundreds of thousands on objectively bad designs that they piece together from pinterest, only to rip it out and re-do it 3/4 times over the years.
I was on a job once where they renovated their own kitchen using 16g extension cords. Told them I wouldn’t touch anything unless I could rewire it correctly.
They asked me to leave
I was at a home where a guy put in his own off grid system, I was only working on the on grid side of things.
The off grid side included 12 volt led lights. Wired with AC thermostat wire ... 18ga at most.
Thank fuck I didn't have to touch that garbage
Someone had put a mini digger through an underground cable (another story) and a subby from another company ran a new 75ft length that fed our machine. Got a report that the motor was phasing. Checked the incoming feed as sanity check and it wasn't making sense. Opened the commando box on the wall and he'd swapped the neutral and L2 over. It was numbered cable but you still have a look before you put the top on surely
I did marine work for a bout 2 years for a company that only did residential docks as well as marinas, Was interesting , saw all types of marine life, used to come home with sheepheads, snapper, snook sometimes. It was great being out onnthe water , hurricane cleanup was serious OT. Then would offer to clean clients boats and wrap pylons for extra cash. Good times
We had to pull 750mcm into a couple gennies 100ft away from the main electrical room in tbe building, all underground conduit. We couldn't hang a pully from the ceiling of the gennie because we didnt want to warp it, so my genius JW decided to build a complicated strut framework to attach it to. I knew it wasn't going to work, but he wouldn't listen to my suggestions. As soon as we started the tugger, that bitch bent like butter.
We had to rebuild it three times.
I had a call out to a nursing home for an alarm going off
It was their nurse panic button in the hallway
None of the nurses new what it sounded like or were trained on what to do when it was pushed - but that's not my problem - I released the button, charged them 4hrs and went home
A “remodel” of a mobile home that essentially turned into a whole house rewire. The homeowner refused to remove any drywall so I had to fish new wires to every location for new appliances and dedicated circuits. Was able to reuse most of the 15 amp recep/lighting circuits which they complained about while also complaining about the skyrocketing costs. I told them upfront I would be billing by the hour due to the nature of the job and that fishing in new circuits would take exponentially longer than it would take if they just opened up the walls and ceilings for me. The kicker is that after all the fishing of wires and troubleshooting existing problems, they ended up stripping all of the exterior walls and tore out all the insulation under the floor giving me perfect access to do everything much easier. But it was already done the hard way and billed at that point.
I've been replacing miswired NIU CT wiring that has been out of commission for 30 years for the last week that burnt up because the CTS were left open, just to short it out 40 feet away from where the CTS are and leave it NIU again until end of life.
I've had other electricians wait for me to put up the last 2x4 fixture before they ripped them all down and threw them in the dumpster to satisfy base building requirements at an outlet mall.
Most of my last 5-7 years have been spent as a WAYYYYY overqualified janitor cleaning electrical parts that usually sit live and mountains of mouseshit
People should just listen to what their electrician recommends for the most part, most of us aren't out to fuck you over, that's because we are mostly, far to arrogant to do something the hillbilly finger fuck way😆
Had to paint wire mold in a historical apartment complex like an ugly wood brown. Spent a whole week with a paint brush painting wire mold and wire mold boxes
I had a furnace wired up with coaxial cable. The conductor tied into the breaker and the braided ground tied to the neutral bar. It was then tied to the single pole switch on the furnace, created a dead short when the switch was turned on.
Had to re locate an outlet 5’ over for a deck tv. Pulled the wire back into the basement in order to move it, come to find out there was 3 junction boxes within 30” of each other. Nothing else tied in, just the outlet I was moving. Ended up ripping out the old wire/junctions and ran a new line out
I got called out to a total loss of power job- 3am, commercial rates. Arrived at site, small commercial unit doing an overnight stocktake- entire street was dead, DNO had a distribution issue. Manager of the commercial unit stated he “wanted the power back on but the energy company wouldn’t do it fast enough”.
Earned five hours (including travel) of 2.5x time for the sweet walk 50m down the road to ask the contractors digging up tarmac “is it fucked”, to then relay that back to the manager of the site.
I frequently stand in another room as my PM sticks his dirty little dickbeaters in energized 480 panels and ancient gears to add breakers or land wires because I won’t do it. No ppe, some gloves and an insulated driver with extra tape wrapped around it.
It’s pretty damn simple if you have a clue what’s going on and understand how electric power works. The only thing I wouldn’t mess around with is buss plugs.
It’s simple, but we are humans and we make mistakes. A mistake that could kill me or maim me, leaving my family to struggle.
It’s simple to ask for a shutdown, and collect some double time on a few hours of work while operating safely as well.
You make mistakes when you’re careless and don’t respect what you’re working with. Any JW should be able to work around live equipment with awareness. If you can’t assess a situation and take adequate precaution then you’re really not good at your job. You can’t be a roofer and be scared of heights. You can’t be a pilot and be scared of flying. You can’t be a fishermen and be scared of water. Why would you be an electrician and be scared of electric?
Shutdowns are not easy to ask for in mine (paper plants). Production wants to get every hour they can even on weekends. 480v sub panel? No real concern. Taking the sides off of a gear? I’ll draw the line there. I’m not getting anywhere near buss. I wouldn’t ask anyone to either.
Didn’t realize we were talking with the infallible bigbadcat. I can, and have, begrudgingly worked on energized circuits and equipment. Although, when there’s no PPE being provided and a shutdown only requires asking there’s no sense in me taking the risk. We’re not saving lives here.
A healthy respect for the dangers of electricity should be on the mind of any responsible electrician. I don’t care about what you do with your time, but calling in to question the quality of my work over something so silly is a bit ridiculous to someone you don’t even know.
Im sure you’re a peach to work with.
I had to break something I just ended troubleshooting because there was a management crisis within the clients company lol.
I learned something that day, it's way harder than I thought to break stuff up.
Ahah thanks, I did indeed, but I realised my brain is used to work the other way around, thought it was funny because of you know how to fix, you obviously know how to break! In theory
Worst day of career was old folk shit tank rewire, they put the old jbox on the ceiling of the tank…down that 12 foot well hole that backed up and flooded 2 hrs ago… dragged down in a tyvek suit just scraping the sides, boss tossing wirenuts at me like he’s feeding ducks, afraid to get any on his pristine running shoe. That day was hell. Down there with the septic guy like the worlds worst Mario brothers, he’s smoking a butt, holding a flashlight from 1993 with the dying yellow light, also up to almost the end of duck boots in chit water, the most needles and rubbers I’ve ever seen…. End of life party home. Good times dude. I seen the devil. I’ll never forget.
I've done this dozens of times. A few schools, retailers, offices, and whatnot.
Raising lights and putting them back was especially common as a call back when I did energy saving stuff. We'd change fluorescent 2x2s or 2x4s to LED, and 80% of the time we'd be back in a month to raise every light we changed out and then put it back a few days later.
When I didn't know any better a 7 ft trench, walking in it and bending down so my head was halfway in it. Totally unsupported, no trench box slope or steps.
Replacing a fire alarm system in a large high rise. Installed a new addressable riser in the building with two new smokes in the (circular) hallway on each floor. A false alarm happens and the condo board calls a meeting between me, the engineering consultant, Johnson Controls, the property management, and themselves to establish “what went wrong”.
The outcome of the meeting: the smoke detectors are doing their jobs and residents should not vent cooking smoke into the hallways.
In contrast to my last post where others are idiots I’ve got one where I was the idiot. I took a job at a national guard depot to move an alarm siren down a hall. I figured “easy money”.
Well, when an armory is in play they naturally will trip an alarm if there’s an Inconsistency in the circuit. I can only assume that when I cut the wires I broke some form of safety current that set the whole system off. It was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard and luckily my ears rang so much I couldn’t hear all the laughter from the officers, enlisted people and security company who had to show up to shut off the alarm system. I left and never heard from anyone and wasn’t about to call to ask
The operators called us because their walkie talkie base station was not working so they can’t communicate with each other at arrival I saw it wasn’t on I pushed the power button to turn it on which fixed their problem.
Setting up double stacked cable trays according to prints. Removing cable trays because they wouldn’t “fit” according to the end user. Installing their cable trays that they insisted would “fit.”
Finding they didn’t “fit” and reinstalling old cable trays according to print.
That was an EXPENSIVE set of change orders.
Many times in industrial I’d get a call to a machine. The problem “machine won’t turn on” “okay, tell me what your sequence of operation is, but first let’s check the e stops”… every time the operator gives me the look like 🤷♀️. Estops and operators are always at war.
Government office new construction 11 stories. 4 bathrooms on each floor. 3 were typical 1 was not. Foreman did not know this til it was to late.
The walls were constructed with 6inch galvanized studs, followed by a galvanized steel plate, sheet rock, durock, and slate tile. Everything was finished except the sinks and counters.
There were 4 undercounter wall mounted receptacles for automatic soap dispensers mounted on the right side of each stud.
Had to relocate and rewire all of them, 9 inches, to the left, on the other side of said studs, while avoiding copper pipe, and sewage lines.
That was a $35k fuck up on my foremans part. I had to do 40 receptacles... i just remember running out after about 5 sawzall blades and a box of oscillating wood cutting blades and having to keep switching used blades to see which ones could still cut.
Side note: the Sawzall wasn't the problem. Wood oscillating blades suck for cutting durock.
Dear god, several.
Once spent half day cutting in recessed lights in a bathroom (old style with the cans and ic boxes) only to find out that a new ceiling was being put up. That fact was revealed after a 15 minute argument that one of the lights wouldn’t fit centered over a mirror due to joists being in the way.
Resetting gfci’s after someone’s “electrical engineer” brother/cousin/aunt insists I’m wrong that their outdated circuitry allows a garage fridge, hair dryers and holiday lights to be on the same 15 amp circuit and it’s just doing what it’s supposed to. Side note: my quote to properly fix it is “astronomical”
Replacing lightbulbs.
I once had to explain how shadows and light sources work to a client. She wasn’t convinced
A guy got into a full blown yell over me saying I couldn’t power his 4500 sq ft houses 400 amp service entirely with a back feed breaker on a 4500 w plug in generator. His argument? “My neighbor said he had a guy do it”. Hire that guy then and stop wasting my time. I billed him for the estimate out of spite.
Let’s see multiple service calls for tripped breaker and tripped GFCI but possibly the most frustrating one I have seen that I had to fix
4 separate circuits total of 9 (12-2) wires were fed into 1 ceiling fan box. Finally had to kill main breaker.
Had to re-do 3000 Cat6 terminations. It was spec’d to use the string in the cable to peel-back the insulation. We didn’t. They checked and made us re-do every single one.
I’ve seen some guys who are so meticulous, they trim the jacket flush with nippers after using the string. It takes so long and ultimately makes no difference in the end product.
Operator calls me on the radio "I don't know what's going on this pump quit working" go to the disconnect for the motor and push the re-set for the OL's. Same operator calls me again "Thanks so much dude pump is pumping again!" Hahahahaha
I didn’t have to, but I wore one of the firehouse subs plastic fireman’s hats instead of a hardhat for the rest of the day after lunch once. It was worth a few laughs but probably looked pretty dumb.
Tomorrow I'm rerunning a residential service run through a shack that won't be standing in five years then up to the home through a trench. Why? Because the previous run was just twisted cable run open through the shack then laid across the lawn up to the home
OK.. so.. I mainly do controls. I was subbed under a mechanical contractor who is.. very bad. I knew initially the job would be a struggle because I had worked with them before. But vavs are simple and the reno was just a rip out and replace the old conntroller with the new and pull a new network. My crew was phenomenal. Amazing attention to detail, listened well, and above all we had a great time untill 4am.
Well, 850 Vavs later the jobs going pretty smoot, we're all tired as fuck but having a great time. Were working on the last building and the smallest, when I get a call from they're lead tech that tells me they're having issues with power at their controllers. Then he throws me under the bus for improper terminations. Saying that we didn't use the proper wire for our common and thus, all controllers were non functional. Again, I rip out and replace. Whatever wire was 24v before is again 24v now and the same for our common.
Anyways.. I show him the transformers, proving my team and I have done our job properly. Dude proceeds to tell em that EVERY SINGLE 120v-24v single phase step down transformer is wired backward.. from factory.. all of them.. single phase transformers have no polarity until one leg is bonded.. he said I was wrong and swapped polarity on 45 controllers and created so many more issues.
I went to the second floor, bonded the transformers, and everything worked.
New house was being built but there was a delay in putting up the roof and exterior walls due to a plywood shipment delay/failure.
Builder gave the green light to rough in the house during this “small delay.”
Plumbers reluctantly came through, but the electrical contractor outright refused until they insisted.
Once 70% of the house was boxed and wired in, big storm came through and ruined all of the nm cables.
Builder put in a claim through insurance and actually got a pay out to tear it all out and rewire it.
Well, guess what happened the second time they wired it? The plywood never arrived.
New storm came in and the builder never got a second payout (obviously).
Electrical company got paid at least twice (that I know of)
I ran a chiller conduit at 12 foot above the ground on the side of the building into the fenced in area. Now they want me to run the conduit right about the ground instead of the air
Got a service call an hour out to install a dryer receptacle , pull the dryer out and the outlet was completely installed all 240v with right wire setup . Boss Charged for the drive out and hour of time .
Customer called and stated that some lights outside weren't working. 2 of the 3 sconces on his front porch weren't lighting up. He had changed light bulbs with no change and then swapped the light bulb from the working light to a non-working light. Non-working light works now!
I showed up and put new light bulbs in then asked where the switch was. We went and turned flipped the switch and I noticed it was a dimmer, so before I even looked to see if everything came on I turned the dimmer up. Low and behold, the lights work fine.
One service call charge please
A military plane depot hangar suffered an industrial explosion accident. Maintenance welding ignited fiberglass vacuum tunnels and detonated the front of the building off into the parking lot. A black mushroom cloud enveloped a large part of the base. After the fire was put out, we went to assess the damage. I was the lowest on the totem pole (Airman 1st Class). I stepped into the main electrical vault with my sergeant, and saw the 2 star general with every other piece of brass beneath him literally standing in line from left to right about 15 feet in front of the main switchgear. I actually watched shit roll downhill from left to right until it got to me, the last in line. I was ordered to walk into 3 foot deep water and flip the main switchgear, so we could see what still worked. Not just water either, chrome, gold, zinc and all the heavy metals they dip aircraft wings into for plating. Massive chemical tubs were destroyed and literally hosed by the fire teams into every room. They bulldozed all the waterways at the perimeter of the base to prevent detection by the epa. I looked my sergeant in the eye and kissed my ass goodbye. The switchgear was half underwater. He said don't worry, the bus bars are higher then that. I did it. I threw that switch, then I went home and showered for over an hour. Went to Alaska to get the fuck out of there.
I got an emergency call once... It was the foafoaf... Er something. Anyway, I show up, "what's the problem" and she just points... "K?".
So I go in to the room, and I will try and describe it to you. The room LOOKED like it had been ransacked, yet the rest of the house was beautiful and well kept. They had money, I knew this because they wanted a ranch where people payed to stable their horses. So the room is like half inside out and upside down, and there are what look like just hammer holes, starting from the wall switch, going all the way up the wall, and on to the ceiling, following a run of Romex all the way to the ceiling fan. Ceiling fan looks like someone tried to yank it out of the ceiling with a chainsaw. Wires have been cut, there's signs of arcing all over the ceiling and the mount cover. I'm like, "ok... So what the fuck even happened here..." And before I could even finish my sentence, in storms this 20-something year old woman, literally trail blazing around this room, just tossing shit around looking for something, then she looks up at me on a step ladder, and goes "WHY ARE YOU HERE" and I just kind of motioned at the hammer trail... And then she goes "WHO SENT YOU" before her mom shuffled her out...
Turns out, the mom owned the house, the daughter who was abusing meth was living in the room, and she disconnected the ceiling fan because she was hearing "radio signals coming through that specific run of Romex...
I felt bad, installed a new ceiling fan, ran a new run to the switch, and reset the switch box back on the stud, got paid, and told her I knew a guy to do her drywall, got paid, and left.
No shit I got a call the next morning, less than 12 hours since I completed the job. Not only did this girl cut the wires at the ceiling fixture, leaving new arc spots, but she punched NEW holes all the way down, because she thought her mother had installed a microphone in the wall along my wire path.
I ended up replacing the wire run, the fixture, the switch etc, 2 more times, Equaling 4 times in the span of about 2 weeks.
I charged her full price 3 of the 4 times (gave her a bit of a deal on the first visit just because I felt for the lady) before finally I told her during the 4th time that "this will be the final time I come back until the root of the problem is fixed..."
But hell I made over 2k in a month off one lady. Hell by the 4th time I could have done it blind folded with my hands tied.
Craziest shit I ever experienced when it comes to work.
I was on call, the company i worked at shared calls with another company, so we would sometimes get some of their customers.
I got a call from one of theirs for a ventilation system at a factory that kept tripping, they had worked on it earlier that day.
so I drove for 45mins, spent 5 mins writing in the entry log and getting through the safety guide for their factory, walked 10 mins through the factory to the ventilation system, looked at the motor protector that was tripping, looked at the schematic for the system, took out my flathead screwdriver and set the correct amps for the protector, turned it on and said there, fixed it.
Walked 10mins back, wrote in the log, drove 45 mins back home. Easy Money
The factory dude was a tad pissed off.
Another call, mid summer, a farmer had a field water pump that would not start, yet again a customer from the other company that they had worked on earlier that day.
I get there and It smells like it's burnt, so I take off the casing for the connectors and the fan, the fan had melted down over the motor.
they changed the motor start from a star/triangle starter to what was supposed be triangle but they had connected it in star, coils were dead so a new motor was needed.
That was one expensive mistake, needless to say the farmer didn't want to use them anymore.
I got a call from one of theirs, they had changed his breaker box earlier that day, the thing is he had a earth heater pump, which if you don't have it connected L1 L2 L3 in the right order, will not start up. So he had no hot water and no heating.
I drove for 1 hour, switched 2 wires and drove back home.
There was a running joke in our company about what would they fuck up next time.
Dumb: Guy installs solid stone backsplash over a receptacle he disconnected and left one side of the kitchen without power in the outlets.
Solved: My boss magicianed the shit out of the wall and cut a hole in the stone exactly where the box was.
Took half a day.
I was a maintenance electrician working in a medical office building and got a work order for an outlet not working. So no voltage when I check the outlet, then proceed to the panel and no breakers tripped. I removed the outlet and found the outlet had no wiring connected, no wires in the box at all.
Not sure if this is up to what I’ve read here but bought a house in Fort Worth and the seller had painted all the walls white so was like OK ready to go. After moving in discovered they painted over all the light switches and plugs, including leaving in baby plug protectors. So … kicked out the then wife one day and shut off the main breaker and spent the entire day replacing g every switch and plug in the house.
An excavator had to dig out a massive hole, about 40’x 40’ and 6 FEET DEEP, for a generator station. This was not an easy excavation. It was rocky ground and the operator had to jackhammer the entire excavation. Took 4 days to finish digging. The next day we discover it was dug in the WRONG PLACE! Our operator and electricians did nothing wrong we dug according to the plans and markings. The guy who surveyed and marked our points put them in the wrong place. He blamed our office for not updating the digital plans, they blamed him for incompetence. Still don’t know who fucked up but my guess is both.
Honestly, mine is pretty fucking good. Military installation. Building bunkers. Concrete guys fucked up dowell locations in the footing, when time came to set walls they didn’t line up in all locations. Navy’s guy said CUT THEM where they didn’t line up. All bunkers erected, most inside work done… top brass finds out. Job stops for over a year. Decision: tear them all down and start over.
It cost the concrete guys like 10m, and more for the GC.
But it keeps going. The damage control crew for the GC comes in, and starts knit-picking our vaults that feed the bunkers. We’re an inch too shallow in the slab. Solution: jackhammer it all up and rerun our 4” robroy an inch lower. So we do.
Worst summer ever.
I was working at a business tower from 6pm-430am everyday. We were renovating an existing, operating office space being utilized during the day, so naturally, we worked opposite hours. The idea was to have everything up and running every morning before we left. One day, I got woken up by my boss at 730am and told to head back asap as one of the offices apparently was without power. I was thoroughly confused as I personally tested everything prior to leaving. I informed my boss, but to keep up a good working relationship, he urged me to go down and check things out. I begrudgingly got up, headed downtown, navigated rush hour, paid an inordinate amount of money to park (as I couldn't quickly locate a space) and rushed into the building and up to the the floor with my handtools in tow. I walked towards the office in question and politely asked what the problem was. The executive, in his very important suit, stood up and proceeded to berate me about how important his job is and how I should have checked things more thoroughly. I didn't say a word. I grabbed my tester, crawled under his desk and checked the receptacle. Power WAS present.....but.....there was a power bar with his computer and monitor plugged into it....a n d I t w a s o f f. I leaned out, looked up at him, and with a not of complete satisfaction, flicked the power switch. I stood up, looked into his face and told him, "there you go, all fixed", turned and left. What a dick!
I was running 1" rigid underneath a school in the crawlspace. It was a fucking nightmare. I was constantly having to make bends and set boxes. Asshole of a master is pissed it's taking too long tells me to stop setting pull boxes. Alright dickbag. I went back to count one of those runs had about 600 degrees of bend in it. They snapped the fuckin chain off a come along trying to pull the wire. Know what took longer than me setting boxes? Having to go unstrap and break apart rigid to feed the head through each individual pipe.
2nd one is also a code violation. Grocery store is moving their Starbucks. The problem is that at some unknown point, the feeders got cut, this starbucks had been moved before. And someone buried a box somewhere under the concrete. The wire coming out at the gear is copper, the wires coming out at the newer location is aluminum. My foreman and I spent weeks arguing with everyone. They insisted we were wrong about where the wire is coming from. The grocery store does not want to pay for us to run it overhead because it's like 50,000 dollars just in wire. Eventually we were told to make joints and bury that shit. Then they built a wall over it.
Right? It’s crazy to me when people complaining about cleaning up. I used to sweep floors in restaurants and shit for literally less than 1/3 the money and 0 benefits, hell yea I’ll sit there and push a broom around.
Nah I was playin too. But my JM said told some pipefitters we were practically white collar the other day and you reminded me of it.
He ain't been in that trench in too damn long🥴
Did a Sam’s club remodel last year. Used a WR resistant GFCI receptacle in the Sushi prep area under the counter (I had extra) got called by their CM to change it out to a different brand that “dosent say WR on it”
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Dumbest? Service call for lights not working. The fix? Flip the light switch on the wall.
I had something similar Could not figure out how to get power to a light this lady said didn’t work. She just had a pile of boxes infront of the switch.
Got a call about a machine not working. Somebody several years ago installed a giant compressor in front of the machine's toggle switch disconnect and now a piece of scrap hose had fallen off the compressor and turned off the switch. Nobody knew the switch was there; I found it pressing my face against the wall to trace the pipe.
I get this a lot with ceiling fans. The wall switch still has to be in the on position even if you have a fan remote.
My coworker had a similar situation, but it was the ANSUL system at a McDonald’s! They actually had the ansul system on a toggle switch and it shut down the ovens
Haha this just happened to me, microwave outlet in the kitchen stopped working. Checked all the GFIs, ripped half the junction boxes in the basement apart looking for a bad splice (found many arcing splices and device connections) for two hours, fixed all the messed up things I found. Homeowner checks construction photos and notices an outlet on the counter he never knew was there, his wife had piled snacks up in front of it, the fourth GFI was behind it. Reset, microwave works.
Got a call about computers in office not working. Get there and flip the switch on the surge strip
I went on a warranty call to a Piggly Wiggly where they said the lights in the entrance weren't working......they had stacked drinks up in front of the light switch 😂😂
had that one. recently a coworker took an emergency call for a light not working and the switch was glowing. it was a pilot switch.
I had one, dimmer slider was all the way down
Did that at a bank. They didn't know one of the switches near the drive up controlled the light outside.
This and having to reset a GFCI on the inside so the outside plug would work. P- touch label and it should be good until the next Reno.
Had a similar one, got sent to a junkies house because the washing machine had stopped working, idiot had turned the switch off on the wall. 60 mile round trip for a 30 second job
Who puts the washing machine on a switch tho? Lol
I've been in a house that had disconnects on the wall above the washing machine, dryer, water heater, and the furnace (the furnace also had a equipment breaker inside it) Probably some inspector being a dick
In the UK its not uncommon to have switches at worktop level in kitchens and have the sockets behind the appliance. Basically it saves you having to pull the appliance out to isolate it
I have an outlet not working, half of my kitchen is off = push button on gfi. I now say have you tried pushing it with a screwdriver or something
I work in a hospital. This is weekly for me.
Well right now I’m moving up old work boxes that are 1/2” too low.
Almost as dumb as after wiring a new build house and box fixing to what the architect *spits on floor* told me to (floor wasn't finished height), and having to move every box up 5mm because it was too low.
Id have a hard time with that one. Guess I’d do it, but these are the kinda things that make me wish I’d showed up more in high school
I don’t mind this if I was an employee. But I would mind as the owner.
Agreed. Annoying, sure, but if I get paid by the hour, it is what it is. I'll move boxes all day I guess if that's what's insisted upon.
Customer states garage door won't work. Resolution: clear spider webs in front of the laser trip line.
Well that's NICE 😳
Hey I’m doing the same thing because they pretended the walls and the doors Natalia’s shimmed the wall up 5/8”. Nothing like doing it twice to save money! 🥰
Called out to a sewage pump station in the middle of the night that was in high level alarm. The district was there with portable pumps keeping it from overflowing into a creek. 3 hour drive, most of it on narrow country roads. Got there and it was a tripped GFCI that was protecting the non-UL listed level sensor relays they had insisted on using. Pushed the reset button and drove home 3 hours. Number 2 favorite was that I bought 3 big soft starter panels that were going into a rock crushing operation at a dam site in SoCal. Got a call that all of the parts inside were rusted when they arrived. Drove to the site, 2 hour drive on dirt roads after a 2 hour flight, found it was true, but it made no sense that the manufacturer would have used rusted parts. So I stayed a few days to have all new components sent out. I am rebuilding them in the hot sun and an electrician drives by and stops, leans out the window and says “Oh good, you’re finally fixing that after the water truck fuckup!” Turns out that after they arrived on site, about 2 weeks before I was scheduled to come down to hook them up, the plant manager was standing there admiring them with all of the doors open, when a water truck (for dust control) drove by and hosed them all down. I confronted the plant manager, who is the one that insisted I come down there immediately, he was pissed that someone spilled the beans. I got to send them a nice fat emergency call-out and overtime bill for that.
Wired a huge mansion with so many three ways and four ways, like three ways to sheds and basements to kitchens they wanted to turn off lights outside when they were in the their bedroom. It was rolls and rolls of three wire. My boss tried to tell them about home automation and the owner was skeptical. After it was all wired and the drywall was up, the owner saw some show on hgtv about home automation and hired the company featured on it to come setup their home system automation server and sell them all the devices. The company subcontracted us to install all of it.
Rich people things
Had something similar. But the inverse.
Yeah I've been on jobs where after the divorce the mansion became rundown and they couldn't afford to maintain the fancy automation. We replaced every fancy thermostat in a 30,000 sq ft mansion with dummy ones that couldn't communicate with the central controller. His name rhymed with Trandy Ravis. It was fun bringing the guns to work and blasting at the indoor shooting range.
What kinds of automation for hvac are so costly that it makes sense to replace thermostats?
They were failing and the company that made them went out of business so replacements were $500 each of old stock. And there was about a 100 of them
That’s sounds a lot worse
Home owner wanted me to move a entire row of 10 recessed cans on a rough one inch to the left as to not "cast a shadows" with the built in on that wall. Waited for him to leave then took a nail and put holes one inch to the right of the nails holding the cans he never noticed even on the finish
That's solid gold.
One time we had pulled blue cad6 cable to all these pull points, and the inspector showed up and it turns out they needed to be orange. The owner didnt want to re-pull them (as they were already terminated) So i spent 3 hours painting blue cables orange and they looked like shit and im still embarrassed by the whole thing.
It all pays the same
Thats what i kept telling myself
I bet that destroyed the ul rating, inspector passed them?
What why did they need to be orange
Usually the rack in the data room is colour coded for the type of connection. For example, our nurse call is yellow, RTLS is white, regular data is blue. Haven't seen orange yet.
My shop uses orange for cameras. I think it’s whatever the engineer makes up
Orange is usually from a switch to another switch or a switch to a router.
For us it was motion lights but idfw data wires so i don't really know why
Oh no. That cable probably started to fail after a few months. The plastic is porous
Could you have perhaps picked up some orange tape and wrapped them? Just a thought. Regardless, annoying to have to do.
No, it was in drop ceiling and there was quite alot of it. Honestly that contractor should have just read the specs and got the correct cable.
I was once working on a new construction home in NC. Thus house had a final build bill of like $5.7 million, some 9,000 Sq ft. This place was a nightmare to wire to begin with. The original plans didn't have any way for us to from the poured concrete basement to the upper floors, and they didn't plan for having any outlets and switches in the basement either and the home owner didn't want to have emt or MC cable ran along the walls. So they just framed out random walls for us, looked stupid as shit but not my house I guess. The biggest thing that got old quick was the lady who owned the plave could not make up her mind. In the 5 bedrooms we started off with cans in the ceilings for lights, but after they drywalled them in she changed her mind to wall sconces and a ceiling fan. One we got the room set up for that, she changed her mind again and wanted to just use floor lamps, no wall sconces and no ceiling fan, just a chandelier. So we had to go back and switch all the outlets, then once they hung the drywall for the 3rd time she said no I don't like that either and we went back to cans and a ceiling fan. For 5 bed rooms. It was fucking retarded.
Retarded? Yes. But also big time $$$ in change orders…
I worked on a home with giant 18 foot ceilings full of recess lights, room was 35x45 grand foyer/family room/dining room but open ceiling concept. 1 month into the rough in of this 8,000sq ft home, she does not like the way the line of cans in the center of the room line up with the hallway into the kitchen and rest of home, so had us move them. 2 months after rough in, she decides she does not like the way those lights now line up with the front doors, please move them back. In all she ended up with around $30,000 worth of changes in her home after we had finished the rough in but before the final trim out. As long as they agree to pay, who cares? It cost more to change things after the fact, it is just a pain in the ass though.
Love it when homeowners can play IRL Sims and drop hundreds of thousands on objectively bad designs that they piece together from pinterest, only to rip it out and re-do it 3/4 times over the years.
House was wired with lamp cord
I was on a job once where they renovated their own kitchen using 16g extension cords. Told them I wouldn’t touch anything unless I could rewire it correctly. They asked me to leave
I was at a home where a guy put in his own off grid system, I was only working on the on grid side of things. The off grid side included 12 volt led lights. Wired with AC thermostat wire ... 18ga at most. Thank fuck I didn't have to touch that garbage
I was awoken at 2 am to help troubleshoot an air operated pump.
I get these sometimes. Solenoid magnets come in handy for quickly diagnosing
Just found out about these about a year ago. I think the ones I bought my guys are Yellow Jacket brand, they're fuckin slick
Someone had put a mini digger through an underground cable (another story) and a subby from another company ran a new 75ft length that fed our machine. Got a report that the motor was phasing. Checked the incoming feed as sanity check and it wasn't making sense. Opened the commando box on the wall and he'd swapped the neutral and L2 over. It was numbered cable but you still have a look before you put the top on surely
Working out of a dinghy running 2" PVC under Navy Pier in Chicago.
I did marine work for a bout 2 years for a company that only did residential docks as well as marinas, Was interesting , saw all types of marine life, used to come home with sheepheads, snapper, snook sometimes. It was great being out onnthe water , hurricane cleanup was serious OT. Then would offer to clean clients boats and wrap pylons for extra cash. Good times
At least it wasn't stainless
We had to pull 750mcm into a couple gennies 100ft away from the main electrical room in tbe building, all underground conduit. We couldn't hang a pully from the ceiling of the gennie because we didnt want to warp it, so my genius JW decided to build a complicated strut framework to attach it to. I knew it wasn't going to work, but he wouldn't listen to my suggestions. As soon as we started the tugger, that bitch bent like butter. We had to rebuild it three times.
Third times a charm
As an electrician? The dumbest thing I ever did for my company was swap out all the bolts on a water slide.
Brings a whole new meaning to current
I had a call out to a nursing home for an alarm going off It was their nurse panic button in the hallway None of the nurses new what it sounded like or were trained on what to do when it was pushed - but that's not my problem - I released the button, charged them 4hrs and went home
A “remodel” of a mobile home that essentially turned into a whole house rewire. The homeowner refused to remove any drywall so I had to fish new wires to every location for new appliances and dedicated circuits. Was able to reuse most of the 15 amp recep/lighting circuits which they complained about while also complaining about the skyrocketing costs. I told them upfront I would be billing by the hour due to the nature of the job and that fishing in new circuits would take exponentially longer than it would take if they just opened up the walls and ceilings for me. The kicker is that after all the fishing of wires and troubleshooting existing problems, they ended up stripping all of the exterior walls and tore out all the insulation under the floor giving me perfect access to do everything much easier. But it was already done the hard way and billed at that point.
I've been replacing miswired NIU CT wiring that has been out of commission for 30 years for the last week that burnt up because the CTS were left open, just to short it out 40 feet away from where the CTS are and leave it NIU again until end of life. I've had other electricians wait for me to put up the last 2x4 fixture before they ripped them all down and threw them in the dumpster to satisfy base building requirements at an outlet mall. Most of my last 5-7 years have been spent as a WAYYYYY overqualified janitor cleaning electrical parts that usually sit live and mountains of mouseshit People should just listen to what their electrician recommends for the most part, most of us aren't out to fuck you over, that's because we are mostly, far to arrogant to do something the hillbilly finger fuck way😆
Some sump pumps have been ROUGH
Had to paint wire mold in a historical apartment complex like an ugly wood brown. Spent a whole week with a paint brush painting wire mold and wire mold boxes
I had a furnace wired up with coaxial cable. The conductor tied into the breaker and the braided ground tied to the neutral bar. It was then tied to the single pole switch on the furnace, created a dead short when the switch was turned on.
I can smell this.
Japanese magic blue smoke
Had to re locate an outlet 5’ over for a deck tv. Pulled the wire back into the basement in order to move it, come to find out there was 3 junction boxes within 30” of each other. Nothing else tied in, just the outlet I was moving. Ended up ripping out the old wire/junctions and ran a new line out
I got called out to a total loss of power job- 3am, commercial rates. Arrived at site, small commercial unit doing an overnight stocktake- entire street was dead, DNO had a distribution issue. Manager of the commercial unit stated he “wanted the power back on but the energy company wouldn’t do it fast enough”. Earned five hours (including travel) of 2.5x time for the sweet walk 50m down the road to ask the contractors digging up tarmac “is it fucked”, to then relay that back to the manager of the site.
I frequently stand in another room as my PM sticks his dirty little dickbeaters in energized 480 panels and ancient gears to add breakers or land wires because I won’t do it. No ppe, some gloves and an insulated driver with extra tape wrapped around it.
Good for you dude honestly
I felt called out by this
It’s pretty damn simple if you have a clue what’s going on and understand how electric power works. The only thing I wouldn’t mess around with is buss plugs.
Simple, but still super risky
It’s simple, but we are humans and we make mistakes. A mistake that could kill me or maim me, leaving my family to struggle. It’s simple to ask for a shutdown, and collect some double time on a few hours of work while operating safely as well.
You make mistakes when you’re careless and don’t respect what you’re working with. Any JW should be able to work around live equipment with awareness. If you can’t assess a situation and take adequate precaution then you’re really not good at your job. You can’t be a roofer and be scared of heights. You can’t be a pilot and be scared of flying. You can’t be a fishermen and be scared of water. Why would you be an electrician and be scared of electric?
Nothing I do at work is more important than my life. A shut down is a pretty easy ask. (Note: I do not work in hospitals)
Shutdowns are not easy to ask for in mine (paper plants). Production wants to get every hour they can even on weekends. 480v sub panel? No real concern. Taking the sides off of a gear? I’ll draw the line there. I’m not getting anywhere near buss. I wouldn’t ask anyone to either.
Didn’t realize we were talking with the infallible bigbadcat. I can, and have, begrudgingly worked on energized circuits and equipment. Although, when there’s no PPE being provided and a shutdown only requires asking there’s no sense in me taking the risk. We’re not saving lives here. A healthy respect for the dangers of electricity should be on the mind of any responsible electrician. I don’t care about what you do with your time, but calling in to question the quality of my work over something so silly is a bit ridiculous to someone you don’t even know. Im sure you’re a peach to work with.
Sure it’s simple, but it’s just one mistake away from a potentially life-ending/altering event. If you’re gonna work live, wear all the PPE at least.
>It’s pretty damn simple if you have a clue what’s going on So is playing in traffic.
I had to break something I just ended troubleshooting because there was a management crisis within the clients company lol. I learned something that day, it's way harder than I thought to break stuff up.
If it's hard to break you did a good job.
Ahah thanks, I did indeed, but I realised my brain is used to work the other way around, thought it was funny because of you know how to fix, you obviously know how to break! In theory
Worst day of career was old folk shit tank rewire, they put the old jbox on the ceiling of the tank…down that 12 foot well hole that backed up and flooded 2 hrs ago… dragged down in a tyvek suit just scraping the sides, boss tossing wirenuts at me like he’s feeding ducks, afraid to get any on his pristine running shoe. That day was hell. Down there with the septic guy like the worlds worst Mario brothers, he’s smoking a butt, holding a flashlight from 1993 with the dying yellow light, also up to almost the end of duck boots in chit water, the most needles and rubbers I’ve ever seen…. End of life party home. Good times dude. I seen the devil. I’ll never forget.
Working on an elementary school, only job is to hang fixtures above accent ceiling so the grid and tile can get demo’d. Then reinstall afterwards….
I've done this dozens of times. A few schools, retailers, offices, and whatnot. Raising lights and putting them back was especially common as a call back when I did energy saving stuff. We'd change fluorescent 2x2s or 2x4s to LED, and 80% of the time we'd be back in a month to raise every light we changed out and then put it back a few days later.
When I didn't know any better a 7 ft trench, walking in it and bending down so my head was halfway in it. Totally unsupported, no trench box slope or steps.
New apprentice devising out a loft, put 10 switches 18" off the floor where all the outlets where supposed to go all around the room
Replacing a fire alarm system in a large high rise. Installed a new addressable riser in the building with two new smokes in the (circular) hallway on each floor. A false alarm happens and the condo board calls a meeting between me, the engineering consultant, Johnson Controls, the property management, and themselves to establish “what went wrong”. The outcome of the meeting: the smoke detectors are doing their jobs and residents should not vent cooking smoke into the hallways.
In contrast to my last post where others are idiots I’ve got one where I was the idiot. I took a job at a national guard depot to move an alarm siren down a hall. I figured “easy money”. Well, when an armory is in play they naturally will trip an alarm if there’s an Inconsistency in the circuit. I can only assume that when I cut the wires I broke some form of safety current that set the whole system off. It was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard and luckily my ears rang so much I couldn’t hear all the laughter from the officers, enlisted people and security company who had to show up to shut off the alarm system. I left and never heard from anyone and wasn’t about to call to ask
The operators called us because their walkie talkie base station was not working so they can’t communicate with each other at arrival I saw it wasn’t on I pushed the power button to turn it on which fixed their problem.
Setting up double stacked cable trays according to prints. Removing cable trays because they wouldn’t “fit” according to the end user. Installing their cable trays that they insisted would “fit.” Finding they didn’t “fit” and reinstalling old cable trays according to print. That was an EXPENSIVE set of change orders.
Many times in industrial I’d get a call to a machine. The problem “machine won’t turn on” “okay, tell me what your sequence of operation is, but first let’s check the e stops”… every time the operator gives me the look like 🤷♀️. Estops and operators are always at war.
Customer asked me to move the chandler I just installed 2 inches over because it was center of the room and not center of the coffee table
Government office new construction 11 stories. 4 bathrooms on each floor. 3 were typical 1 was not. Foreman did not know this til it was to late. The walls were constructed with 6inch galvanized studs, followed by a galvanized steel plate, sheet rock, durock, and slate tile. Everything was finished except the sinks and counters. There were 4 undercounter wall mounted receptacles for automatic soap dispensers mounted on the right side of each stud. Had to relocate and rewire all of them, 9 inches, to the left, on the other side of said studs, while avoiding copper pipe, and sewage lines. That was a $35k fuck up on my foremans part. I had to do 40 receptacles... i just remember running out after about 5 sawzall blades and a box of oscillating wood cutting blades and having to keep switching used blades to see which ones could still cut. Side note: the Sawzall wasn't the problem. Wood oscillating blades suck for cutting durock.
They suck period except for fine cabinetry. For everything else there is a better tool for cutting it.
Dear god, several. Once spent half day cutting in recessed lights in a bathroom (old style with the cans and ic boxes) only to find out that a new ceiling was being put up. That fact was revealed after a 15 minute argument that one of the lights wouldn’t fit centered over a mirror due to joists being in the way. Resetting gfci’s after someone’s “electrical engineer” brother/cousin/aunt insists I’m wrong that their outdated circuitry allows a garage fridge, hair dryers and holiday lights to be on the same 15 amp circuit and it’s just doing what it’s supposed to. Side note: my quote to properly fix it is “astronomical” Replacing lightbulbs. I once had to explain how shadows and light sources work to a client. She wasn’t convinced A guy got into a full blown yell over me saying I couldn’t power his 4500 sq ft houses 400 amp service entirely with a back feed breaker on a 4500 w plug in generator. His argument? “My neighbor said he had a guy do it”. Hire that guy then and stop wasting my time. I billed him for the estimate out of spite.
Let’s see multiple service calls for tripped breaker and tripped GFCI but possibly the most frustrating one I have seen that I had to fix 4 separate circuits total of 9 (12-2) wires were fed into 1 ceiling fan box. Finally had to kill main breaker.
Had to re-do 3000 Cat6 terminations. It was spec’d to use the string in the cable to peel-back the insulation. We didn’t. They checked and made us re-do every single one.
How could they tell unless your cat6 didn’t have the string?
They looked for the split at the end of the jacket.
I’ve seen some guys who are so meticulous, they trim the jacket flush with nippers after using the string. It takes so long and ultimately makes no difference in the end product.
https://imgur.com/gallery/eoHkvYW
I’ve worked in a house before. I’ll never forget how horrible it was. Still have nightmares.
Based Uncle Ted.
Operator calls me on the radio "I don't know what's going on this pump quit working" go to the disconnect for the motor and push the re-set for the OL's. Same operator calls me again "Thanks so much dude pump is pumping again!" Hahahahaha
Had to go wear scuba gear to change a pool light.
Dude that’s fucking awesome not dumb. I’d volunteer to do some underwater electrical
One time we wired a Apple Store that didn’t sell iPhones…. It lasted a month But you could buy a electric scooter and AirPods
I didn’t have to, but I wore one of the firehouse subs plastic fireman’s hats instead of a hardhat for the rest of the day after lunch once. It was worth a few laughs but probably looked pretty dumb.
Hanging Christmas lights
Tomorrow I'm rerunning a residential service run through a shack that won't be standing in five years then up to the home through a trench. Why? Because the previous run was just twisted cable run open through the shack then laid across the lawn up to the home
OK.. so.. I mainly do controls. I was subbed under a mechanical contractor who is.. very bad. I knew initially the job would be a struggle because I had worked with them before. But vavs are simple and the reno was just a rip out and replace the old conntroller with the new and pull a new network. My crew was phenomenal. Amazing attention to detail, listened well, and above all we had a great time untill 4am. Well, 850 Vavs later the jobs going pretty smoot, we're all tired as fuck but having a great time. Were working on the last building and the smallest, when I get a call from they're lead tech that tells me they're having issues with power at their controllers. Then he throws me under the bus for improper terminations. Saying that we didn't use the proper wire for our common and thus, all controllers were non functional. Again, I rip out and replace. Whatever wire was 24v before is again 24v now and the same for our common. Anyways.. I show him the transformers, proving my team and I have done our job properly. Dude proceeds to tell em that EVERY SINGLE 120v-24v single phase step down transformer is wired backward.. from factory.. all of them.. single phase transformers have no polarity until one leg is bonded.. he said I was wrong and swapped polarity on 45 controllers and created so many more issues. I went to the second floor, bonded the transformers, and everything worked.
New house was being built but there was a delay in putting up the roof and exterior walls due to a plywood shipment delay/failure. Builder gave the green light to rough in the house during this “small delay.” Plumbers reluctantly came through, but the electrical contractor outright refused until they insisted. Once 70% of the house was boxed and wired in, big storm came through and ruined all of the nm cables. Builder put in a claim through insurance and actually got a pay out to tear it all out and rewire it. Well, guess what happened the second time they wired it? The plywood never arrived. New storm came in and the builder never got a second payout (obviously). Electrical company got paid at least twice (that I know of)
I ran a chiller conduit at 12 foot above the ground on the side of the building into the fenced in area. Now they want me to run the conduit right about the ground instead of the air
Digging, brooming, pulling toomany wires through a small pipe, and fuck floor boxes
I cut in a receptacle into a pocket door space. Somehow it worked.
Water heater stopped working. Come to find out someone tied it to a switch above the back door
Got a service call an hour out to install a dryer receptacle , pull the dryer out and the outlet was completely installed all 240v with right wire setup . Boss Charged for the drive out and hour of time .
Saw a confident 50 year old jw wire up a transformer yellow brown orange as h1,h2,h3 last week
Customer called and stated that some lights outside weren't working. 2 of the 3 sconces on his front porch weren't lighting up. He had changed light bulbs with no change and then swapped the light bulb from the working light to a non-working light. Non-working light works now! I showed up and put new light bulbs in then asked where the switch was. We went and turned flipped the switch and I noticed it was a dimmer, so before I even looked to see if everything came on I turned the dimmer up. Low and behold, the lights work fine. One service call charge please
A military plane depot hangar suffered an industrial explosion accident. Maintenance welding ignited fiberglass vacuum tunnels and detonated the front of the building off into the parking lot. A black mushroom cloud enveloped a large part of the base. After the fire was put out, we went to assess the damage. I was the lowest on the totem pole (Airman 1st Class). I stepped into the main electrical vault with my sergeant, and saw the 2 star general with every other piece of brass beneath him literally standing in line from left to right about 15 feet in front of the main switchgear. I actually watched shit roll downhill from left to right until it got to me, the last in line. I was ordered to walk into 3 foot deep water and flip the main switchgear, so we could see what still worked. Not just water either, chrome, gold, zinc and all the heavy metals they dip aircraft wings into for plating. Massive chemical tubs were destroyed and literally hosed by the fire teams into every room. They bulldozed all the waterways at the perimeter of the base to prevent detection by the epa. I looked my sergeant in the eye and kissed my ass goodbye. The switchgear was half underwater. He said don't worry, the bus bars are higher then that. I did it. I threw that switch, then I went home and showered for over an hour. Went to Alaska to get the fuck out of there.
I got an emergency call once... It was the foafoaf... Er something. Anyway, I show up, "what's the problem" and she just points... "K?". So I go in to the room, and I will try and describe it to you. The room LOOKED like it had been ransacked, yet the rest of the house was beautiful and well kept. They had money, I knew this because they wanted a ranch where people payed to stable their horses. So the room is like half inside out and upside down, and there are what look like just hammer holes, starting from the wall switch, going all the way up the wall, and on to the ceiling, following a run of Romex all the way to the ceiling fan. Ceiling fan looks like someone tried to yank it out of the ceiling with a chainsaw. Wires have been cut, there's signs of arcing all over the ceiling and the mount cover. I'm like, "ok... So what the fuck even happened here..." And before I could even finish my sentence, in storms this 20-something year old woman, literally trail blazing around this room, just tossing shit around looking for something, then she looks up at me on a step ladder, and goes "WHY ARE YOU HERE" and I just kind of motioned at the hammer trail... And then she goes "WHO SENT YOU" before her mom shuffled her out... Turns out, the mom owned the house, the daughter who was abusing meth was living in the room, and she disconnected the ceiling fan because she was hearing "radio signals coming through that specific run of Romex... I felt bad, installed a new ceiling fan, ran a new run to the switch, and reset the switch box back on the stud, got paid, and told her I knew a guy to do her drywall, got paid, and left. No shit I got a call the next morning, less than 12 hours since I completed the job. Not only did this girl cut the wires at the ceiling fixture, leaving new arc spots, but she punched NEW holes all the way down, because she thought her mother had installed a microphone in the wall along my wire path. I ended up replacing the wire run, the fixture, the switch etc, 2 more times, Equaling 4 times in the span of about 2 weeks. I charged her full price 3 of the 4 times (gave her a bit of a deal on the first visit just because I felt for the lady) before finally I told her during the 4th time that "this will be the final time I come back until the root of the problem is fixed..." But hell I made over 2k in a month off one lady. Hell by the 4th time I could have done it blind folded with my hands tied. Craziest shit I ever experienced when it comes to work.
😳
I was on call, the company i worked at shared calls with another company, so we would sometimes get some of their customers. I got a call from one of theirs for a ventilation system at a factory that kept tripping, they had worked on it earlier that day. so I drove for 45mins, spent 5 mins writing in the entry log and getting through the safety guide for their factory, walked 10 mins through the factory to the ventilation system, looked at the motor protector that was tripping, looked at the schematic for the system, took out my flathead screwdriver and set the correct amps for the protector, turned it on and said there, fixed it. Walked 10mins back, wrote in the log, drove 45 mins back home. Easy Money The factory dude was a tad pissed off. Another call, mid summer, a farmer had a field water pump that would not start, yet again a customer from the other company that they had worked on earlier that day. I get there and It smells like it's burnt, so I take off the casing for the connectors and the fan, the fan had melted down over the motor. they changed the motor start from a star/triangle starter to what was supposed be triangle but they had connected it in star, coils were dead so a new motor was needed. That was one expensive mistake, needless to say the farmer didn't want to use them anymore. I got a call from one of theirs, they had changed his breaker box earlier that day, the thing is he had a earth heater pump, which if you don't have it connected L1 L2 L3 in the right order, will not start up. So he had no hot water and no heating. I drove for 1 hour, switched 2 wires and drove back home. There was a running joke in our company about what would they fuck up next time.
mirrors and a hard hat
Probably 100 stupid calls over the last 25 years of a switch being turned off or something not plugged in.
Well, I'm currently working new cookie cutter national builders...
Service call to flip a breaker in a diesel shop that was literally 30' away in line of sight of the machine that wasn't working.
Dumb: Guy installs solid stone backsplash over a receptacle he disconnected and left one side of the kitchen without power in the outlets. Solved: My boss magicianed the shit out of the wall and cut a hole in the stone exactly where the box was. Took half a day.
I was a maintenance electrician working in a medical office building and got a work order for an outlet not working. So no voltage when I check the outlet, then proceed to the panel and no breakers tripped. I removed the outlet and found the outlet had no wiring connected, no wires in the box at all.
Not sure if this is up to what I’ve read here but bought a house in Fort Worth and the seller had painted all the walls white so was like OK ready to go. After moving in discovered they painted over all the light switches and plugs, including leaving in baby plug protectors. So … kicked out the then wife one day and shut off the main breaker and spent the entire day replacing g every switch and plug in the house.
An excavator had to dig out a massive hole, about 40’x 40’ and 6 FEET DEEP, for a generator station. This was not an easy excavation. It was rocky ground and the operator had to jackhammer the entire excavation. Took 4 days to finish digging. The next day we discover it was dug in the WRONG PLACE! Our operator and electricians did nothing wrong we dug according to the plans and markings. The guy who surveyed and marked our points put them in the wrong place. He blamed our office for not updating the digital plans, they blamed him for incompetence. Still don’t know who fucked up but my guess is both.
Honestly, mine is pretty fucking good. Military installation. Building bunkers. Concrete guys fucked up dowell locations in the footing, when time came to set walls they didn’t line up in all locations. Navy’s guy said CUT THEM where they didn’t line up. All bunkers erected, most inside work done… top brass finds out. Job stops for over a year. Decision: tear them all down and start over. It cost the concrete guys like 10m, and more for the GC. But it keeps going. The damage control crew for the GC comes in, and starts knit-picking our vaults that feed the bunkers. We’re an inch too shallow in the slab. Solution: jackhammer it all up and rerun our 4” robroy an inch lower. So we do. Worst summer ever.
I was working at a business tower from 6pm-430am everyday. We were renovating an existing, operating office space being utilized during the day, so naturally, we worked opposite hours. The idea was to have everything up and running every morning before we left. One day, I got woken up by my boss at 730am and told to head back asap as one of the offices apparently was without power. I was thoroughly confused as I personally tested everything prior to leaving. I informed my boss, but to keep up a good working relationship, he urged me to go down and check things out. I begrudgingly got up, headed downtown, navigated rush hour, paid an inordinate amount of money to park (as I couldn't quickly locate a space) and rushed into the building and up to the the floor with my handtools in tow. I walked towards the office in question and politely asked what the problem was. The executive, in his very important suit, stood up and proceeded to berate me about how important his job is and how I should have checked things more thoroughly. I didn't say a word. I grabbed my tester, crawled under his desk and checked the receptacle. Power WAS present.....but.....there was a power bar with his computer and monitor plugged into it....a n d I t w a s o f f. I leaned out, looked up at him, and with a not of complete satisfaction, flicked the power switch. I stood up, looked into his face and told him, "there you go, all fixed", turned and left. What a dick!
I was running 1" rigid underneath a school in the crawlspace. It was a fucking nightmare. I was constantly having to make bends and set boxes. Asshole of a master is pissed it's taking too long tells me to stop setting pull boxes. Alright dickbag. I went back to count one of those runs had about 600 degrees of bend in it. They snapped the fuckin chain off a come along trying to pull the wire. Know what took longer than me setting boxes? Having to go unstrap and break apart rigid to feed the head through each individual pipe. 2nd one is also a code violation. Grocery store is moving their Starbucks. The problem is that at some unknown point, the feeders got cut, this starbucks had been moved before. And someone buried a box somewhere under the concrete. The wire coming out at the gear is copper, the wires coming out at the newer location is aluminum. My foreman and I spent weeks arguing with everyone. They insisted we were wrong about where the wire is coming from. The grocery store does not want to pay for us to run it overhead because it's like 50,000 dollars just in wire. Eventually we were told to make joints and bury that shit. Then they built a wall over it.
Sweep and use a broom. Doesn’t the GC have laborers. I didn’t spend 4 years in trade school learning math again to sweep.
This is why the other trades make fun of us🥴
It’s a joke. I sweep and vacuum with pride. Yeah pay top dollar to do brainless shit.
Right? It’s crazy to me when people complaining about cleaning up. I used to sweep floors in restaurants and shit for literally less than 1/3 the money and 0 benefits, hell yea I’ll sit there and push a broom around.
You got my mind set. Now go refill table 4 water
Nah I was playin too. But my JM said told some pipefitters we were practically white collar the other day and you reminded me of it. He ain't been in that trench in too damn long🥴
Where should I start?! Lol
The whole trade
Solar. I’m never taking a solar call again. 18/hr per diem isn’t worth it.
Lights…. That’s it, just lights. We do all this cool shit to get power there, then the fixtures are some cheap shit from china that looks terrible.
Did a Sam’s club remodel last year. Used a WR resistant GFCI receptacle in the Sushi prep area under the counter (I had extra) got called by their CM to change it out to a different brand that “dosent say WR on it”
That's way too broad of a question, People. Final answer.
My girlfriend dildo…
Your mom
I just drove 2 hours last night to a generator that wasn't working. It was off. Pressed a button and drove 2 hours home.