[Link: reddit.com]

This is but a minor comment on the great works of our long-moved-on Seattle buddy, but still noteworthy, even if only for the laughter.

I'll admit it, did the same thing to a propane line. Less mess, but a little scarier:)

Either he completely missed the stud, making him 100% the idiot, or the plumber failed to put up a nail plate, in which case they are both equally idiotic. Funny from where I am, regardless. :)

One of my guys hit a water line once lol, but it was some ghetto ass non pro run most probably from the previous owner, lucky it was my other guy or the home owner that found the valve quickly.

And for my part in complete moronizm lol, as a profession C--band installer, playing with my own dish at home with a hand from my brother, I swapped my old dish out for another one, lucky it was a old dish I refurbished myself. But anyway, I usually always make sure to move the ladder before I go inside, we where having some issues we both were fed up, we both went in, and I went to go to a known satellite for check my arc alignment. And the dish stopped moving, I was like (hmm that was quick). Then I look at my bro and I I asked him (did you move the ladder?) And to make a long story short I smashed into the ladder with the dish and busted out a mesh panel! Dish works fine, lucky the Linear actuator stopped and didn't keep going and fold it in a half, and I'm just glad it was my dish and not a customers, first time I ever did that, and I hope it's the last.

There's a word for the folding it in half now, thanks to several installers' experience with 70" TVs and stiff full motion mounts:

Taco.

For instance,
It's a good thing the motor didn't keep going and taco the entire dish.

So far so good on the taco with a tv, one of my subs told me after a job I sent him to I think last year or the year before. (man this tv was so thin, I was scared I was going to snap it in half) I'm just glad he didn't...

love my walabot.  don't really have to worry much about this happening anymore.

Does that work when you're scanning fiberglass?

Or for finding radiant heat plumbing in concrete floors?

I tried to love it but could not. And this was one they sent me for free for evaluation and, hopefully, a positive review. I could not. If I had spent money on it I would have had, shall we say, stronger feelings about it.

There are enough open walls in this business that you can put a walabot up against the wall and compare its reading with what you actually see behind the wall. The best I ever got was: looks like there's a pipe going left to right here... I roll the walabot up a bit and the pipe rotates as much as 45 degrees.

I used to work at a natural gas utility, and heard that this actually happened. During a strike the normal workers were picketing, so the construction crew was made up of foremen and supervisors. They were installing a gas line for a new house in the old part of town where both gas lines and water mains were cast iron. When they dug down they came across both pipes and after years underground they looked identical. Normally the water pipe will have condensation on it. So they attached the "No-Blow-Tee" to the driest pipe and tapped it. The fitting allows them to drill into a live pipe without leaking any gas. Hooked it all up and turned on the gas.

The homeowner came screaming out the house, as water was squirting out the cookstove, furnace and water heater. They had tapped the water main not the gas main. Since this was all done by management, the union workers never let them hear the end of it, as the company had to replace all the gas equipment, and pay to repair the damages from the water.

Plumbing management should have run a hundred gallons or so through the pipes. if there was a hot water pipe there, it would have been obvious. If there was a cold water pipe there, it would have become cooler than the other (gas) pipe.

Some do a smoke test, to prevent water going everywhere.

A friend sold and installed C-band and when he arrived for a service call about no signal, he saw that the customer's pole had a section of pipe that my friend hadn't added. Without guy wires. Which allowed the wind to bend the pipe.

A neighbor had bought a dish and this guy just had to have the taller mount, so he hired someone to add 10' of pipe. My friend informed him that, with the satellites orbiting at over 22K miles, another 10' doesn't freaking matter and that the added pipe needs to be supported.

Damn right!

Where I live it's convenient for my dish to be in the back yard. In the garden. On the ground. Under a beautiful tall plant with orange blooms that looks like it might be related to honeysuckle.

In the four years the dish has been there, I've had to trim that plant twice. Keeping the aim true isn't difficult -- the arm that supports the LNB points up at the satellites, so that gives me the azimuth. I clip bits of plant until the satellite signal clears up. This has taken about fifteen minutes each time.

I know when it's time to trim by occasional signal interruption on HD channels.


The "another 10' doesn't freaking matter" reminds me of two things:

*A house on Mulholland Drive not far from the Hollywood Bowl that had a major remodel about five years ago. It'd s nit below the road and you can see the clean look of the roofline.

And then a satellite installer mounted a dish to the highest, most visible point on the roof. Completely uglifies the house.


*a Commscope Cable ad from the early days of cable:

"The signal has gone half a million miles* to get to your customer -- don't mess it up in the last thirty feet!"


*Or whatever. Corrections will be edited in.