Ok, where was my brain..???

[chris French]

Been visiting my parents for a week, as usual did a few jobs around the place for them.

One was to fit an old kitchen cupboard on the wall in the new utility room.

Hold cupboard up on the wall deciding where they want it, I comment it needs to be high enough to give access to the sockets and FCU's below.

Decide on placing, mark out and drill the first hole for the fixing screws, drill goes off line a bit.. Peer into hole, notice something shiny - realise it's the exposed live conductor of the ring main feeding the above mentioned sockets etc.........

The question is - where was my brain at the time? It's not like I'm new to this game, or that I didn't know they were there, or do not know to check that sort of thing.............

[mike ring]

So where was mine when I drilled into the wall just above a wall light outlet to mount a fitting..... or the manufacturer who put the hole in the fitting, it's as much excuse as I can find

mike r

[BigWallop]

"Complacency" I think it's called and it can creep in when least expected. Very common complaint in the DIY trade. The only remedy seems to be learning from it and not doing it again. Although this can be easier said than done. :-))

[Al Reynolds]

My Dad and I were drilling the holes to fix a sink pedestal to the floor. Having completed the first hole, it occured to us that we had no idea which way the copper pipes travelled under the floor.

Could have been messy!

Al

[PoP]

I'm sure we've all done a similar thing. I did that over 20 years ago. First I knew about it was when the drill bit sparked on the live cable.

It taught me good, better than any teacher could have done. And to this day I immediately look for cable runs before getting the drill out. Heck, I even go to the trouble of using a cable detector :)

PoP

[John Woodhall]

I did it once as well, funnily enough it was I who ran the very same cable that I drilled through, so I knew very well it was there. ooooooooooopppppppppppppssssssssss.

[Witchy]

When preparing to repair the knackered floorboards in the bathroom the other week so we^W I could sand it (meh) I took up the board I'd screwed back down after running new plumbing pipes a few years ago.

Remove one screw and as if by magic a water feature appeared at mains pressure - I'd *just* managed to get the sharp pointy tip of the screw to penetrate the plastic piping......why did I put the screw there in the first place? %deity% knows......

Obviously the same set of circumstances that's seen me put a nail and a screw through various parts of the phone cabling in this place :)

-- cheers,

witchy/binarydinosaurs

[Lobster]

God - I did exactly the same a few years back. Except with me, it happened on a bank holiday Monday, just before I was set to leave my parents place and embark on a 200-mile car journey home with all the family (hence I was probably rushing the job, ha ha). Never done it before or since. Beam me up, Scotty...

[duncan]

so it was you then........

or someone having brain problems.

I was rewiring our bungalow and had removed all the switches and began pulling through the new cable into the loft.

pulled and pulled at the old kitchen light cable but it wouldn't budge, went back down to kitchen only to find that about 6 inches above the switch was a little hole - peered into the hole to find a wall plug hmmmmm i thought its that Chris again :-))

this one had me cursing for a few mins pulling like mad at the cable in the loft, trying not to slip and put my foot through the ceiling.

[BigWallop]

The first time I done that was through a 6mm csa, cable feeding a cooker unit. I drilled through a door standard with 16mm spade bit and not realising there was cable behind it, BANG !!! FLASH !!!! WALLOP !!! Me frightened out of my wits and the cooker out of commission until we removed the facings and finding out if it was possible to run another cable without ruining the rest of the house. Ahhh (sigh) those were the days. :-))

[PoP]

Using a spade bit to chop thru a cable, now that's gotta be class! ;)

Could I enquire what shape the spade bit was in by the time you finished with it?

PoP

[BigWallop]

LOL

It never drilled anymore holes and was retired to the big spade bit store in the sky.

[John Woodhall]

Mate of mine actually drilled through the leccy co`s main incoming cable which was buried in the wall, a bright flash and big bang ensued. LOL :-)

[BigWallop]

Ouch !!!! Now that's gotta' hurt. :-))

That's where plastic casings on the tools really comes in handy, eh ?

[Owain]

"BigWallop" wrote | The first time I done that was through a 6mm csa, cable feeding | a cooker unit. I drilled through a door standard with 16mm | spade bit and not realising there was cable behind it, BANG | !!! FLASH !!!! WALLOP !!!

Big wallop?

| Me frightened out of my wits and the cooker out of commission | until we removed the facings and finding out if it was possible | to run another cable without ruining the rest of the house. | Ahhh (sigh) those were the days. :-))

I was listening to some music whilst replacing the condensers in an old AC/DC valve radio (dropper resistor, no transformer) and wondered why the music crackled every time I soldered something.

Then I realised that the music to which I was listening wasn't from the hi-fi but the mains-powered radio on which I was currently working.

I don't think I'll ever try television repair.

Owain

[Peter Twydell]

Moved into new house in Holland, trying to find out which fuse controlled a particular lighting point (no fittings supplied), so put neon screwdriver on bare wire. Only discovered when I managed to get the feeling back in my arm that I'd used the 24V car tester instead of the mains type.

A Belgian colleague put his multimeter across 2 phases of the computer room supply to measure the voltage, but left it on the mA setting. It took him a couple of hours to stop shaking. I don't think the meter was much use afterwards!

[BigWallop]

Owwwwyyyaaa !!!

[PoP]

When I was a teenager I bought things from jumble sales and then proceeded to repair them. Had no queasy thoughts about working with live mains, hell that was for wimps.

I still have memories of working on a record player, and falling asleep during the repair. When I woke up I remembered I was going to chop through the mains cable, so did so.

Remember the days with round pin sockets protected by 30A fuse wire in the fuse box? Tested it out that day. Big spark as the sidecutters chomped into the wire - and a nifty hole with melted edges where the jaws of the sidecutters used to be.

Never did that again. Though I did manage to put a stanley knife through a live cable a few weeks ago (fortunately the stanley knife was a plastic cased affair).

PoP

[Zymurgy]

Hmm, I might invest in one of these, but i've heard variable reports on their usefulness/effectiveness.

I was notching the wall in the kitchen with my trusty angle grinder and discovered a wire running *diagonally* on the wall left by a previous bodger.

Luckily I peered into the slot and saw grey insulation, rather than red/black/copper ;-)

Cheers,

Paul.

[Owain]

"BigWallop" wrote | > I was listening to some music whilst replacing the condensers in | > an old AC/DC valve radio (dropper resistor, no transformer) and | > wondered why the music crackled every time I soldered something. | > Then I realised that the music to which I was listening wasn't | > from the hi-fi but the mains-powered radio on which I was currently | > working. | Nasty !!! :-)) But very easily done.

I didn't feel anything and the radio was unharmed too. They don't make them like they used to.

Owain