Due to a slight tape measure miscalculation - today I drilled down through a Post Office ceiling and not into the store room at the back of the Post Office:-(
I did apologise to the woman in the queue that was stood under the drills exit point - she was covered in dust and bits of plaster.
I have thought about writing a book called 'Holes I have mis-drilled'.
Bill
It's even more fun when you compound the error by filling the hole with expanding foam, forgetting that the foam going in is coming out next door.
Owain
In message , ARW writes
Embarrassing :-)
I once put a 14mm SDS bit through an antique oak desk. I was drilling an equally well calculated hole through a wall and thought that it didn't feel quite right. The owner of the desk was remarkably calm about it.
I hoped you blamed it all on an apprentice?
Probably not as entertaining as my cousin refurbishing his first town house in Bath. There was a lump of bath stone sticking out of the kitchen wall and in the way. So he started pulling and wiggling it and sure enough it started to slide out. He was however getting a bit alarmed at the size of the thing when it finally came free, revealing his neighbour sat at his kitchen table, smoking his pipe, watching a bit of his kitchen wall slowly retreating! In a thick west country accent, he said: "Morning David, knows what you're doing do you?". Quick as a flash, Dave replies, "yup, don't worry I will be round to re-plaster your side later!"
I once fitted a payphone on a pub wall, I put it right below a wall light for symmetry. There were five screw holes, one in each corner and the fifth top centre, I wish I hadn't used the latter.
Best thing was the electricians on site thought it was something they had done when the lights went out. Didn't suspect me.
And after the criticism you have publicly given to your various apprentices here - what did they say to you Adam?
I could have a very good guess on that one. :-)
Cash
Which naturally brings to mind...
Tim
..or even:
In message , Graham. writes
I was fitting something on the utility room wall for my parents, might have been a cupboard.
Marked it out etc. plugged a drill into the socket on the wall below and then drilled a hole right where the cable supplying it went....
Actually, I only just nicked the cable (sheath and insulation on one of the cores), but was still another job to do to sort it
A friend of mine recently discovered that the party wall between his cottage and his neighbour was only one brick thick when he drilled through.
Richard
A colleague did something similar, but it also involved the waste outlet from his washing machine!
When I was younger before asbestos killed you I was cutting a hole through an asbestos cement wall with a circular saw for an air conditioner and I cut through all the power circuits going to the rear of the house finishing with the circuit the saw was connected to.
Next door house was having an aerial or dish or something installed. I wasn't paying much attention, but at one point a length of cable was pushed out through a hole at the top of the gable wall. Some 20 mins later more was pushed out - it dangled down to the ground. A bit later still, more had been pushed out as it formed quite a coil on the ground. When I looked out again, it had all gone!
Turned out, the installer had mounted the aerial (or whatever) on the opposite end gable wall, but somehow got lost in the loft and drilled out the wrong end of the house. Kept pushing more wire through the hole as he couldn't see where it was coming out!
Did something similar when mounting a distribution board in a computer room. Put it high up by the door, deliberately straddling the vertical line from the light switch. I'd forgotten that when it came to drilling the centre mounting hole, but I sensed something strange when drilling through the plaster (which I always do with hammer mode off), which was the drill bit springing off the plastic capping, and I stopped before I'd gone through the capping.
I have done that as well.
At least the PO the store room and the new apartment where I was working were all owned by the same person.
Only an apprentice can manage to core dill for a bathroom extractor fan into nextdoors house.
I wanted and extra hole through a wall once that already had a phone wire passing through it. To be totally safe, I drilled the new one 2" to the side of the existing. I was disappointed to find when I looked at the other side of the wall, the drill had actually come out of the exiting hole, severing the wire in the process! Turns out the original hole was drilled at an angle.
It is amazing how soon and perfectly indelible the rictus of oh dear hits t he instrument of grinnage with an electric current. Working beside a lad wh o found the wiring, I was rather surprised to see him disappearing quickly behind me -yet I can vividly remember the look on his face, all these deca des later.
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