Crazy stuff you've seen on building sites

flash1080 · 13-11-2011 11:31AM

humberklog wrote: »

I once came across a job where the architectural drawings matched up pretty well with the consultant engineers drawings. It was a very wierd feeling at first, I thought I was in another country (any other country).

Architects really are useless.

3ndahalfof6 · 13-11-2011 11:36AM

up for anything wrote: »

You must be quite young only to remember the six odd years that that happened.

I remember the thirty years before where construction workers pulled in a living wage if they were lucky, where they dispersed to all corners of the earth to find work because there was none here, where if they took a job on price and finished it by working 15 hours a day, the 'employer' felt within his rights to hold back some of the price because obviously the job couldn't have been worth that much because it got done in three days instead of six. I remember weeks when their greedy employers didn't pay wet time/snow time/frost time so there were no wages or cut wages. I remember lots of times when the subbie would be a distant memory while the lads waited anxiously on site on a Friday afternoon into evening waiting for him to turn up with their money. I remember banking cheques that cost me money because they bounced and no reimbursement.

During the Celtic Tiger I remember wage slips where my husband paid nearly equal tax to what he took home. Yes, great wages but spread across the weeks where there were no wages the money wasn't so great. There were lots of those weeks even during the CT.

I remember the local Union rep (BATU) laughing at me when I handed him €600 subscription for the year because I asked him what my husband would gain from being a member. Apparently a big FAT NOTHING but he was expected to down tools when they needed him to make a point and not get paid for it.

Begrudgery is still such a large part of the Irish make up. People are still fixated on the apparent woes done to them by the ordinary working person but don't get enraged, beyond mouthing off on here, by the real gougers. People moaned about the prices charged by construction workers but most were well able to meet those prices.

:mad:

Its the fighting Irish, here take my hand and show me what you want me to do, tell me what to say and I will say it,

the Irish are such a weak race, they sit on there fookin hands while they get pissed on, only to do the pissers bidding.

JustAddWater · 13-11-2011 11:38AM

This thread is great crack

senorwipesalot · 13-11-2011 11:40AM

s20101938 wrote: »

1 saw scaffolding collapse
2 saw tower crane fall over
3 saw huge dump truck overturn
4 saw precast slab break while being lifted by a crane and fall narrowly missing chippies.
5 saw guy fall 3 storeys off scaffolding and walk away.

Please share your stories...

6mm threaded bar fuses.

humberklog · 13-11-2011 11:41AM

mattjack wrote: »

No way....you did not... ever ...I,m going for a lie down after that..

Yep, re-bar schedules, ME, duct opes...hey the consultant engineers even bothered to lift the existing manholes to get an accurate reading for the foul and storm tie-ins, before the job started!. Their professionalism was a little spooky. They were Irish too, which made me a little weak at the knees at first...and then a growing sense of pride. Soon dashed by the next billyballsup of a job. But I still remember that one fondly:).

3ndahalfof6 · 13-11-2011 11:42AM

I seen a guy get hit by the front bucket of a JCB and knocked into a 10 foot hole,

it did not end well, the driver of the JCB was still drunk from the night before.

shampoosuicide · 13-11-2011 11:44AM

3ndahalfof6 wrote: »

Its the fighting Irish, here take my hand and show me what you want me to do, tell me what to say and I will say it,

the Irish are such a weak race, they sit on there fookin hands while they get pissed on, only to do the pissers bidding.

stop derailing the thread and get back to the mental health and safety violations.

senorwipesalot · 13-11-2011 11:45AM

Consulting Engineers who couldnt tell one end of a hammer from another ,on huge money,lording it over tradesmen.

3ndahalfof6 · 13-11-2011 11:46AM

shampoosuicide wrote: »

stop derailing the thread and get back to the mental health and safety violations.

ya wada wa

WindSock · 13-11-2011 11:52AM

s20101938 wrote: »

1 saw scaffolding collapse
2 saw tower crane fall over
3 saw huge dump truck overturn
4 saw precast slab break while being lifted by a crane and fall narrowly missing chippies.
5 saw guy fall 3 storeys off scaffolding and walk away.

Please share your stories...

Snap for no.2.

I also saw a very crude drawing done in the plaster of one of the hotel bedrooms!

humberklog · 13-11-2011 11:54AM

I was a bit suspicious of an engineers abilities so told him to check some datums as I was getting a miss reading on a slab. He set the dumpy up over a nail (which had a level property) and then took out his tape and measured from the nail up to the bottom of the tripod. It still hurts my head trying to figure out exactly what he was attempting to do. I didn't give him time to explain - Down The Road!

fryup · 13-11-2011 11:56AM

:pac:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGfFYB-AghI

Caveman1 · 13-11-2011 11:59AM

No Health & Safety then

3ndahalfof6 · 13-11-2011 12:02PM

it wont let me watch the above vid, it says, we can not show this vid in your country poor boy.

holystungun9 · 13-11-2011 12:07PM

I once saw a sh1te coming up out of the porta-loo looking like an eifel tower made of poo. During the boom, I did consider starting a website called sitesh1te.ie
I still have nightmares.

anto2 · 13-11-2011 12:15PM

MrStuffins wrote: »

I once saw a woman working on a building site!

a woman like!

You must have never been to Asia then .About 30 % of the workers on a Thai building site are women .Indonesia the same .
Not the kind of women you would want to ride but still beautiful compared to most Irish women .:D

bnt · 13-11-2011 12:44PM

They're really clamping down on health & safety on building sites these days - too many blokes were falling off scaffolds or getting squished by reversing lorries. The 2005/6 Construction Regulations have made project managers take H&S much more seriously, but it does add a lot to the cost of building something now. Screwing around on site will get you the boot pretty quickly if it's spotted.

But it's still acceptable to send the apprentice out to buy a left-handed hammer, a brick bender, or a tub of elbow grease ...

galwayrush · 13-11-2011 12:48PM

Saw about a dozen 240 V extension leads joined by insulating tape, strapped to the scaffolding on the Eyre Sq shopping centre when it was being built.

housetypeb · 13-11-2011 12:52PM

I saw a drunk bricklayer on a German site,on a dare, climb a tower crane and walk out to the end of it, and then do a handstand.

gifted · 13-11-2011 12:53PM

galwayrush wrote: »

Saw about a dozen 240 V extension leads joined by insulating tape, strapped to the scaffolding on the Eyre Sq shopping centre when it was being built.

I worked on that job as well, was a 2nd year apprentice plumber and was up on the roof of that shopping centre putting on the top of the boiler flues with no safety harness, the good oul days..not! Didn't earn €500 a week either

kelty · 13-11-2011 01:07PM

Plasterers putting washing up liquid i.e. fairy liquid into plaster to make it smoother and easier to work with but also making it alot weaker.

So now theres houses around the country only a few years old with plaster falling off the walls and ceilings.

LETHAL LADY · 13-11-2011 01:09PM

Hubby tells me the pushing over of occupied portaloos is a regular occurance.

3ndahalfof6 · 13-11-2011 01:13PM

LETHAL LADY wrote: »

Hubby tells me the pushing over of occupied portaloos is a regular occurance.

I just keep thinking of the American forces every time I read this post.

stovelid · 13-11-2011 01:14PM

Vacancies.

Capt'n Midnight · 13-11-2011 01:19PM

kelty wrote: »

Plasterers putting washing up liquid i.e. fairy liquid into plaster to make it smoother and easier to work with but also making it alot weaker.

That's funny except they they did the same with concrete too :mad:

phasers · 13-11-2011 01:20PM

How come you all hang out on building sites?

I've never seen anything crazy in one because I'm not a builder.

Absurdum · 13-11-2011 01:25PM

fryup wrote: »

:pac:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGfFYB-AghI

lolz english people are stupid morons :P

housetypeb · 13-11-2011 01:32PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

That's funny except they they did the same with concrete too :mad:

They add washing up liquid to the mortar for the brickies too.,it's cheaper than plasticiser.

Sundy · 13-11-2011 01:52PM

Saw a lad down in a 3 metre trench laying pipes while the wall above was being held up by a digger.

An old trick was for when someone went to the portaloo before lunch was to park the digger against the door and leave it there for a while.

bbam · 13-11-2011 01:57PM

I know of an estate and when foundations were inspected with steel in, the steel would then be taken out and placed in the next foundation for inspection..
About 75% of the houses have no steel in their foundations...

I reckon if we ever get any sort of earthquake here people will be buired in their beds in alot of the recent estates

Radon membrane cut into strips and placed along outside bolck walls to give the impression the house was done... cuts cost down to about 20%

Some of the most expensive estate houses in the history of the state are also the worst build houses..

Crazy stuff you've seen on building sites

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