Your biggest DIY cock-up.

gbee · 10-10-2012 11:07AM

Not sure if this applies, doing a garden shed as a project, no rush, doing a bit now and again.

Took a couple of weeks to clear a plot, taking it nice and easy, well maybe not easy enough, reported my slight chest discomfort to my doctor and had a triple bypass.

Broken hearted by shed is still a pile of lumber.

humbert · 10-10-2012 11:08AM

jugger0 wrote: »

Was mixing cement, never heard before that cement causes burns, cue the worst pain i have suffered in quite some time, couldn't wipe my ass for 2 days.

Does cement still have lime in it? I handle often but I don't mix it with my hands!

Eve_Dublin · 10-10-2012 11:09AM

Mmmmmmm cock up.

the keen edge · 10-10-2012 11:15AM

Pottler wrote: »

I chucked a block down onto a pile of timbers - a lump of 4*2 shot back up and I stuck my arm up to deflect it - arm broke with a very satisfying crack - much to the hilarity of the rest of the mugs present. Off to the A&E, where I'm on first name terms:D Plaster in the eye- steel in the eye, steel chunks in the hand, severed arteries, smashed fingers, cracked neck vertebrae, electrocution(not fatal Whoopsadasiedoodles).jasus, it's a miracle I'm still here..

Jesus, its also a miracle that anybody trusts you enough to give you a job:pac:

What a list of injuries: You didn't happen to insult a gypsy a some stage did you?; Or do you work mainly in Afghanistan?

ejmaztec · 10-10-2012 11:16AM

The first shelves that I ever put up fell off the wall two hours later, smashing a dinner service that someone bought us as a wedding present. We couidn't afford to replace it because it was so feckin expensive and the people who bought it must have wondered why we never ever invited them round for dinner.:(

Rabidlamb · 10-10-2012 11:20AM

I laid a laminate floor on a lovely spongey carpet underlay.
It was great for about 2 days until it started to click, then crack, then fall apart.
I had to lift the entire floor where some planks were beyond repair due to tongue & groove damage.
I blame the missus for suggesting it to save €15 on the foam underlay.

starbelgrade · 10-10-2012 11:41AM

When I was putting up the tool shed I accidentally nailed the door shut.

Now, I have nowhere to put my hammer.

Pumpkinseeds · 10-10-2012 01:07PM

When my brother was about 17 he decided to take up the carpet in his bedroom. He wanted to sand the floorboards and just have the exposed wood instead. So off he went and while he was sanding he hammered down a nail that was sticking out a bit. That night I was out with a friend, she got drunk and stayed at our house as her dad is/was a Garda sgt and she didn't want to get in trouble if she went home drunk.

She slept on the sofa and woke up in a panic the following morning to find that all the wallpaper had come away from the livingroom walls, the ceiling was soaked, water dripping through it and the furniture and carpet were destroyed. Apparently the nail had gone through a water pipe and had been leaking from his room above the livingroom. My parents went absolutely mental about it. Needless to say there was no more mention of floorboards after that

Capt'n Midnight · 10-10-2012 01:17PM

humbert wrote: »

Does cement still have lime in it? I handle often but I don't mix it with my hands!

lime mortar has lime

cement is made from limestone, but the heat and other ingredients in the furnace means that's it more complex than just quicklime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cement_chemist_notation

franorzxrh2 · 10-10-2012 01:22PM

Giselle wrote: »

I was defrosting a freezer and decided to speed things up with a chisel.

It didn't end well.

haha dne the same with a sharp knife!!!

GreeBo · 10-10-2012 02:55PM

eth0 wrote: »

Installed a dimmer and forgot the earth, kept getting little shocks off this till I figured it out.

I think that means that more than the earth was incorrectly wired...:eek:

Everlong1 · 10-10-2012 03:03PM

Giselle wrote: »

I was defrosting a freezer and decided to speed things up with a chisel.

It didn't end well.

I do this all the time! Never had any mishaps though.

franorzxrh2 · 10-10-2012 03:07PM

Everlong1 wrote: »

I do this all the time! Never had any mishaps though.

b careful!!if you hit the gas pipes bye bye freezer

enricoh · 10-10-2012 03:17PM

sawing through a wavin pipe in a muddy hole (no pun intended!) n sawed through the electrical cable of the water pump. getting electrocuted for what seemed like ages - wouldnt be laughing about it now if it was 220v instead of 110!
a friend decided to save a few quid doing the oil change in his car with the aid of the internet. car is rather noisy changing gear after it - he had drained the gear oil outta the gear box n topped up the engine! total cost 600 to replace gear box

franorzxrh2 · 10-10-2012 03:24PM

enricoh wrote: »

sawing through a wavin pipe in a muddy hole (no pun intended!) n sawed through the electrical cable of the water pump. getting electrocuted for what seemed like ages - wouldnt be laughing about it now if it was 220v instead of 110!
a friend decided to save a few quid doing the oil change in his car with the aid of the internet. car is rather noisy changing gear after it - he had drained the gear oil outta the gear box n topped up the engine! total cost 600 to replace gear box

have heard this one again and again and again!!!so many people do this!!!

ctrl-alt-delete · 10-10-2012 03:35PM

One that always seems to get me,

Screw off the trap from underneath the sink, carefully done with tongue sticking out, careful now not to spill a drop of water from it or else I'll have to remove all the bottles and tubs of stuff to wipe it up,

While caught up in the joy of not dropping any water my brain convinces me the best place to empty the water out of it is in that conveniently located sink above me,

Ahhh curse of fcuk on it!

kylith · 10-10-2012 03:47PM

OH drilled some holes an inch to the right of where they should have been.

Oh, how I laughed.

I once electrocuted myself whilst changing a bulb... "Is this a bayonet or screw fitting? I'll just stick my finger in and have a feel...AAAAAHHHHHH!"

GreeBo · 10-10-2012 04:15PM

ctrl-alt-delete wrote: »

One that always seems to get me,

Screw off the trap from underneath the sink, carefully done with tongue sticking out, careful now not to spill a drop of water from it or else I'll have to remove all the bottles and tubs of stuff to wipe it up,

While caught up in the joy of not dropping any water my brain convinces me the best place to empty the water out of it is in that conveniently located sink above me,

Ahhh curse of fcuk on it!

every poxy time!

dodzy · 10-10-2012 04:56PM

Giselle wrote: »

I was defrosting a freezer and decided to speed things up with a chisel.

It didn't end well.

ctrl-alt-delete wrote: »

One that always seems to get me,

Screw off the trap from underneath the sink, carefully done with tongue sticking out, careful now not to spill a drop of water from it or else I'll have to remove all the bottles and tubs of stuff to wipe it up,

While caught up in the joy of not dropping any water my brain convinces me the best place to empty the water out of it is in that conveniently located sink above me,

Ahhh curse of fcuk on it!

Here I am in work. Hit this thread for a quick look. Jesus, I thank you both deeply, for truly brightening my afternoon.

I can actually see ctrl-alt-del, carefully handling the trap with the same level of care you would apply to a newborn baby, gently lifting it ( full ) towards the lip of the sink, and that very brief moment of sheer pride in the knowledge that no moving cluttered cleaning fluid bottles and other sh1te was necessary in advance of this operation. Then, whoosh.... immediately followed by "bollox"

1ZRed · 10-10-2012 05:20PM

randylonghorn wrote: »

I think you'll find that wasn't the result of DIY ...

... though a cock-up I'll grant you! :pac:

CVNT

Nah, they're positive about it.. well Dad is anyway :pac:

eth0 · 10-10-2012 06:10PM

GreeBo wrote: »

I think that means that more than the earth was incorrectly wired...:eek:

It wasn't wired at all. Anyway it's been grand for years now since I put in the earth wire

randylonghorn · 10-10-2012 06:22PM

GreeBo wrote: »

Yeah thats basically safety rule #1 for mixing cement...dont use your ass.:pac:

Actually, I suspect that's safety rule #2 ... >_>

Gloomtastic! · 10-10-2012 06:37PM

I hate DIY with a passion.....

We were turning my study into a nursery, not a problem, a bit of paint and some stencils on the walls.

However the door saddle was always squeaking so I decided to nail it down. Simples....

However the jet of water that hit my face and then the ceiling underneath filling with water meant I'd f@cked up major!

Called out a plumber on a Safurday afternoon who spent the next five hours repairing the damage, floor boards up everywhere, water dripping downstairs. No heating, house was freezing and wife swearing at me at every opportunity. Paid the plumber about €500, Not a good day.

Next day was hammering the floorboards back down when I did the same thing again. Plumber just laughed when I called him again.

Fixing Good · 10-10-2012 10:22PM

Upstairs shower was blocked so I decided to get some drain blocker in the shop. I never read labels so I piled it down the plug hole. The ensuite filled with acidic smoke but went away so I thought it was normal.
The next morning I had a shower only to be stopped by screams from downstairs; the waste pipe had melted away and the water was freely flowing into both the kitchen and sitting room ceilings and down the walls!!
Cue plumber having to cut parts of the ceiling away and a plasterer to finish it off!!!

Another day my handbrake was bait loose so I decided to fix it myself with some guidance from YouTube. So I stuck a screwdriver in tightening what I thought I was supposed to tighten. When I tested it, it seemed the same so I left it at that.
Driving to work the next morning the handbrake locked up going through town, I stop and it then seems fine to drive on. It happened 3 times so I diverted to garage. If anyone was looking it looked like I was pulling handbrakes randomly going through town!!!

Kashkai · 10-10-2012 10:55PM

Normally I'm a DIY king but this one time I was putting up a curtain pole and about to drill into the wall for the brackets when I check to see if the alarm wires are in the wall where I'm about to drill. So I look down and sure enough, the sensor and it's wires are under my intended drilling point. So I move about four inches to the right of where I was going to drill. I'm now well out of the way I think to myself and so off I go with the drill only for the alarm to go mental as I drill through the wires. Feckin builder had put them in under the plaster at a 45 degree angle which took them right under where I'd drilled into the wall:mad:

If I hadn't been so "careful" and just drilled in straight above the sensor, I'd have missed them:rolleyes:

Vizzy · 10-10-2012 11:06PM

Pottler wrote: »

I chucked a block down onto a pile of timbers - a lump of 4*2 shot back up and I stuck my arm up to deflect it - arm broke with a very satisfying crack - much to the hilarity of the rest of the mugs present. Off to the A&E, where I'm on first name terms:D Plaster in the eye- steel in the eye, steel chunks in the hand, severed arteries, smashed fingers, cracked neck vertebrae, electrocution(not fatal Whoopsadasiedoodles).jasus, it's a miracle I'm still here..

You didn't have anything to do with Priory Hall by any chance ?

Pottler · 10-10-2012 11:36PM

Vizzy wrote: »

You didn't have anything to do with Priory Hall by any chance ?

Hah! We're actually the opposite, we fix the crap others have saddled people with, probably why we're still flat out busy and getting ever busier:) The block throwing was while knocking a wall where we had to hand-ball blocks out of an extension years ago and the others are accumulated over 25 years of working day in and day out - so laws of averages and all that.
Funny one we did recently was where a two storey business premises had a blocked(totally) jax(several actually) on the second floor, so the manager decided to knock a small hole in the downpipe(inside the shop, boxed in with an access hatch) down on the first floor so he could rod the pipe to clear it(:D:D &

)
He got to the "1.take hammer and hit big pipe to make hole stage.. whatever the next intended step was no-one will ever know because he released a deluge of sh1te, bog roll and water like a mini tsunami that proceeded to flood the ground floor most impressivly.
We got called out, and I made an executive decision(:D;))to delegate the clear-up to my skilled operatives(jasus it was rank in fairness) while I checked out the coffee-shop next door in case there was any colateral damage..:D Fortunatly the coffe-shop was fine, but their danish was a tad stale. We put in a nice new pipe, jetted all the drains and sorted the broken sewer - biggest cost was the clear up...I think I can still smell it.. Manager did do a very good "sheepish" face though.

Vizzy · 10-10-2012 11:50PM

Pottler wrote: »

Hah! We're actually the opposite, we fix the crap others have saddled people with, probably why we're still flat out busy and getting ever busier:) The block throwing was while knocking a wall where we had to hand-ball blocks out of an extension years ago and the others are accumulated over 25 years of working day in and day out - so laws of averages and all that.
Funny one we did recently was where a two storey business premises had a blocked(totally) jax(several actually) on the second floor, so the manager decided to knock a small hole in the downpipe(inside the shop, boxed in with an access hatch) down on the first floor so he could rod the pipe to clear it(:D:D & )
He got to the "1.take hammer and hit big pipe to make hole stage.. whatever the next intended step was no-one will ever know because he released a deluge of sh1te, bog roll and water like a mini tsunami that proceeded to flood the ground floor most impressivly.
We got called out, and I made an executive decision(:D;))to delegate the clear-up to my skilled operatives(jasus it was rank in fairness) while I checked out the coffee-shop next door in case there was any colateral damage..:D Fortunatly the coffe-shop was fine, but their danish was a tad stale. We put in a nice new pipe, jetted all the drains and sorted the broken sewer - biggest cost was the clear up...I think I can still smell it.. Manager did do a very good "sheepish" face though.

I'm genuinely delighted that you are keeping busy and hope you remain so.
THe Priory Lawn thing was only a quip:)

Pottler · 10-10-2012 11:52PM

Vizzy wrote: »

I'm genuinely delighted that you are keeping busy and hope you remain so.
THe Priory Lawn thing was only a quip:)

All good:D Don't do domestic work anyway, it's all commercial we do. I like getting paid and stuff:D

GreeBo · 11-10-2012 12:20AM

eth0 wrote: »

It wasn't wired at all. Anyway it's been grand for years now since I put in the earth wire

not to go too off topic, but the earth is there to prevent shocks when something has gone wrong, not an everyday occurrence. I'd suggest you have a bare write that's grounding on the body of the switch..

Your biggest DIY cock-up.

Comments