[Please note this is an old thread from July. The article referenced in this post has already appeared, but I'm always up for hearing good installer stories. If you'd like to drop me a line about one -- or even write for Custom Retailer -- click my profile to send an email.
Thanks!
Ron]

Hi, I'm new to this forum, looks great!

I'm writing an article about custom installations from the trade professional's point of view. I'm interested in hearing about nightmare experiences from the field -- unexpected problems, customers from hades, etc. -- and how the installer/designer/retailer got through them. I have a feeling there are many such stories in this forum :) If your tale makes it into the magazine, you and/or your company will get a mention.

Looking forward to an interesting thread....thanks in advance!
Ron CR


This message was edited by Ron CR on 10/28/02 19:19.38.

Okay, maybe not the most high-tech problem, but when I was fishing wires I did an exploratory behind my stove to see if I could go up to the second story from there. I hit the ABS-DWV pipe in the wall with a 3/4" flat wood boring bit. That pipe was the bomb-sight for the commode in the master bath upstairs. Luckily I was alone in the house, so no one was stockin' the lake at the time. From my pipe-layin' days (No, not in the "Tenderloin district".) I conjured up a quick patch: I went to Home Depot and bought an appropriately sized ABS slip coupler, sawed it in half lengthwise, and then used a Dremel with a nice sized burr to shave off the inner ridge that serves to stop the ABS from going past the middle when you glue it up. Then I used primer to get things hot, sopped the pipe and the coupling halves with regular (ABS) glue, placed them around the pipe, and cinched them in place with two hose clamps. (Top 'n bottom.) I rotated the worm gears on the hose clamps to a spot between the wallboards and left them in there.

After that I installed a little 6 x 6" stainless steel service door I'd been hordin' from some swap meet, just for the PeeWee Herman effect. ("I meant to do that!") Besides, I wanted to be able to go back and check the patch. I could get pretty anal about "poo-water" seepin' in my kitchen.

I'm sure better cliffhangers will come forth, but the road from idiocy to redemption took just under 30 minutes.

This message was edited by Sheik_Yerbouhti on 07/16/02 01:35.20.

How about the installer (not mine thank god)puting up a dircet tv dsh wih drywall screws (3 per hole) that splits the customers facia and drops to the customers VERY EXPENSIVE glass patio table and shaters it with shards flying everywhere including the pool.

I won't name the company but I can tell you their in
Southern California under another name .

Or how about going to a customers house to give an estimate for putting a plasma on a hinged swivel mount in the master bedroom (it was mounted on a wall mount and at the angle it was mounted there was only 1 place to sit and be able to see it without glare and it wasn't the bed)
We got the job , as we removed the plasma from the mount on the wall I saw a telltail sign of a 4 inch hole saw . These dummies drilled through the drywall and left the plug in the wall (what? haven't they heard of retro rings ?) Anyhow when I removed the "plug" of drywall (screwed in with 3" drywall screws ?) I noticed a gaging stink . blaaa. After closer examination , they had pulled a Sheik but it apeared they had been rocking the holesaw all over the place .(dull hole saw ?) There was a half dozen
1/4 " oblong holes all over the 2 1/2" pvc stand pipe plus 3 drywall screw holes . Their patch for the pvc was electrical tape that didn't hold . To get the wires to the plasma (composite only) they snaked them down from the attic and smashed them on down the side of the vent pipe . Sad

We put in a small service door and repaired the pvc (what should have taken an hour took the rest of the day with a depot run.





This message was edited by kabster on 07/16/02 10:59.02.

And the work order read: "Customer complaining that picture quality on plasma looks like crap. However they are quite impressed with the realism, because it also smells like crap."

I don't have time at the moment to compose a story, but I will when I return from work today.

I have quite a few. ;-)

JJP

One springs to mind from many years ago. I was working out by Lake Minnetonka (near the Twin Cities), a fairly nice area of town. Working for old time money; fact is, the driveway, made of hand laid brick, cost more then the entire crew made in a year. We arrived to retrofit a simple surround sound system in an area that had once been a garage in the basement area.

The job was going great. Customers had requested rectangular speakers in the ceiling, and the Boston 360's were easy to install, sounded good, profitable, the entire thing. We got the first speaker installed with no problem, and I started cutting the second speaker in. My drywall saw kept bumping into something behind, but since it was a hand saw, I wasn't in danger of cutting the plumbing vent like previous writers have done.

Since I was married to the speaker location, I perservered. When I finished cutting out the hole, I found to my horror that there was a cement slab about 2 inches from the hole that I had cut. Somebody had put 2 x 2 firring over the slab, and then rocked over it. My stud sensor didn't show the mass behind, and the first speaker was in a different section apparently.

The speaker clearly wouldn't fit, no matter how hard I pressed on it. I went through 3 pairs determining that....(joke.)

I ended up getting a hammer drill and sculpting a hole for the woofer basket. This took several hours. The next obstruction was the crossover. A quick survey showed four screws holding the board to the back of the speaker, so we removed the crossover and mounted it 25 feet away, fishing a 4 conductor speaker wire over to it for the connections to the woofer and the tweeter. Since the tweeter was small, it didn't require it's own cavity.

The sound quality was not a huge issue, as this was in the pro logic days....

The conclusion of the story was while we were cleaning up. The homeowner was thrilled at our engenuity; on the way out, he slipped me a $50 bill for "putting up with his wife". The next trip back to get my ladder found the wife sliding up to me and telling me to take that old nakamichi cassette deck and luxman amp, since I had had to "put up with her husband".

Credit for the solution must go to Calvin Hamada, who was lead tech on the job.

Fred, et al, in the future, if you have to sculpt concrete, use a rotary hammer, not a hammer drill. What's the difference? Glad you asked.

My mechanic recently moved into a new building, and had to re-install his lift. He used about six hours and two 3/4" carbide bits in his DeWalt hammer-drill drilling two of the 6"-deep holes for the anchors. (Each post needed 6 holes)

When I showed up and saw his frustration, I broke out my Bosch SDS-Max rotary hammer. It took me less than 5 minutes to drill the remaining holes, no exagerating. In the hammer-only mode, I can drive a ground rod in less than one minute, whereas it takes up to a half-hour with a sledge hammer.

There's nothing like having the right tool for the job, even if you have to rent it.

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com

Work Smarter Not harder :-)

Ive got 2 words for you CARPET GUYS!
Installers heed my words these guys are evil.
Ill make a long story short and sweet. I was working on a 7 million dollar custom home in the San Francisco bay area, 2 media rooms and a theater. The first media room was finished and i was burning it in when all of a sudden it started raining inside my media room,thus destroying all kinds of equipment. Lets just say i had to redo the whole room! The carpet morons nailed tack strips into the warm floor in the room directly above the media room.

How about the time I was installing a system in the master bedroom and me and the stepmother AND her daughter - oh, nevermind, you probably won't be able to put this one in your article.

This message was edited by QQQ on 07/16/02 18:28.11.

LOL QQQ.

Are we asleep again?

1

This message was edited by QQQ on 08/22/02 16:21.21.

Now THAT's what Minnesota has to offer!!

Well 2 words can sum up my nightmare(CARPET GUYS)!
It began on a warm spring day in the beautifull town of Atherton in the San Francisco area. The project, A 7 million dollar custom home with 2 media rooms and a dedicated movie theater. The problem, the carpet guys!
The home is a 3 story palace with warm floor installed on every floor, did i mention the carpet guys were unaware of this? Needless to say the first media room was finished,done well you get it. It was about $200,000 worth of equipment. Well lets just say it was raining in Atherton, In my media room that is!
yep! carpet tack strips right into warm floors!

Where have I heard that story before?