Was drilling up from the dark crawl space in my own home the other night and made the mistake of drilling into a water pipe....and I'm not even a rookie! I was in horrible shock for a few hours and had the thoughts "What if this were a customer's house! What kind of look would I have seen on their face?" or "What if that had been a gas pipe!"....It makes me shiver just thinking about it....

Best part was, I did it at 8:30 Friday evening but still managed to get a plumber from my small town to fix it for $75. Now I have drywall to patch and repaint....

And all because I wanted internet next to my toilet.

So has anyone had a worse experience than mine??

Tristan

Internet on the toilet... now that's what I call connected.

Mark

We have had several bad days, one of my worse (which was due to a lazy and much worthless helper I fired) was cutting in a volume control on a stucco'd patio, I chipped out the stucco, and pulled out one of my old sheetrock saws (the builders in my area use that nasty tar/cardboard for siding underneath masonry), anyhow, cutting and cutting away, there was a nasty spark, and a smoldering fire... AAAAAARRRGHHHHHH!

The idiot that I "worked" with, had drill out the vc wires, right on the corner of a switch box (where as if I had caught it at prewire it would have been moved), I almost set the house on fire, then had to move the vc and pay for an electrician to repair the romex, and stucco guys to repair the wall... it sucked horrible @33

On the flipside, my more professional partner how has a few more years in this than I do, set a projector (infocus) without checking the manual, we have done TONs of these projectors in the past, but this new model apparently have a new throw distance HAHAHHAHAHA... max zoom out and we still had over a foot of silver screen uncovered lol...

G

Drilled up a wall from the basement to a cathederal ceiling to wire speakers....drilled out through the roof (yes I marked to avoid this and still scewed up) and another time through part of my partner's hand on one particularly bad day.

I knew a guy that drilled through a metal roof once, it was a dark brown roof, a colored verison of the gray/silver seamless you see all the time.

He took a brown window magnet and siliconed it in the hole hehe

But I give him this much props, the roof never leaked

I had a similar problem, partly because there was a joist between the hot and cold pipes. I hit a 1/2" cold-water pipe with an auger.

I quickly shut off the water, ran to the store and bought a 1/2" compression coupling (5/8" O.D. "all-tube" type), and had the water back on, all inside an hour.

I now keep two of each size: 1/2" (5/8" O.D.) and 3/4" (7/8" O.D.) in my truck. That keeps it from happening again. (I think!)

I've told this one before, but I'll repeat for new readers. One of the trades we were working with put a nail through his foot and into the floor with a nail gun. His buddies sawzall'd out the floor and took him to the hospital where the ER nurse said to him, "for God's sake, why didn't you quit hammering?"

Thon,

That's a good one. I actually laughed out loud all by myself.
My wife is an ER doc, and I can hear her saying that.

Mark

Myself & 2 other installers were doing a rather large retro job. It required a ton of work in the attic. House was a stick frame roof so the trusses didn't always line up on each side. The second or third day into the install I was in the basement. Next guy on the main floor and 3rd in the attic. Next thing I know I'm upstairs in the hallway and we are looking at his legs dangling through the ceiling. Rather amusing now but sucked at the time.

Also once drilled through a customers roof without knowing about it. Customer kept telling me he knew I wasn't up in the attic yet and to keep drilling. Long story short the customer went up into the attic said everything was fine. Ran speaker line for the surface mount speaker. Later that night we had a huge rainstorm. Guy had a built in water fall right there in his living room.

Robbie S

I was finishing up a small home theater in a wood paneled den, drop down screen with proj on ceiling. My partner insisted on having one of our temp. helpers stop by to help. He didn't have his strippers so I lent him my utility scissors to finish up some connections....

As I was standing next to him, he accidently dropped them, exactly center punching a new can of black spray paint lying on it's side on the drop cloth. About 2 sec. of time went by before my brain realized what had happened, we threw it into a subwoofer box and dragged it outside still spraying. But not before he and I were coated from head to toe, and also the room was speckled black.

The carpet was ruined, however I had just put the screen up moments before so it was fine. The customer was not too mad in that he assumed the can had exploded on its own, it sure did explode, but it had some help. I now keep spray paint cans outside.

gary

I KNEW IT!!!!

marky_mark is a HOBBYIST!!!!!

I've been searching for the evidence to prove it, and I finally did!

HE HE HE!!!

We were installing a security system about 15 years ago , my partner was installing the ketpad, he whips out the 6' diversibit and starts drilling down the wall into the basement. "do you see it?" "NO" I reply

"Do you see it now?"

"Nope"

after the 3rd attempt I come back upstairs to see what is going on.

The drill went through the back of the refrigerator and pierced a gallon of milk.

My guys had two amazing events with a D'Versabit.

On a retrofit, one of the guys drilled down from the speaker location with a 6' bit, that had a 4' extension on it.

The wall had fireblocks in it, the bit apparently hit a knot in a fireblock, came out wall on the other side and went right through the hardwood floors in the main hallway. Installer tied wire off to bit, went under house and pulled wire to equipment closet, never knowing what he had done.

Actually the homeowner saw it and laughed...Cost was $500.00 for the repairs...I didn't laugh...

Second case was an alarm retrofit.

Two installers on the job. One in the attic, which was very tight, and the other down in room with the trusty D'Versabit.

Installer in the attic is spread out across the rafters, since it's so tight, while the other is drilling up into the attic with the bit.

Drill goes into the crotch of the guys pants, not hitting anything important, thank goodness. Guy operating the drill, feeling the drill get hung up on something, keeps hitting the trigger repeatedly. Each time this is followed by a low thump, then the drill stops.

The guy in the attic is screaming his head off, but the guy below can't hear him....

THAT was a hoot....

This last one is really funny.

Don't think I want to use your keyboard or mouse!