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Drilling through a wall.....


borris

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There must be a proper fix for this. Worth reminding members of the fix to drilled pipes Tips & Tricks

Jef

58311[/snapback]

Jef, with the panic that had set in & the rapid heart beat as I thought of what to do, anyone else in the same scenario will find no shortage of brown filler :yes:

Chris

Chris Teague (Sales & Operations Manager) Sightguard Intruder Division

Covering the Isle of Wight: - Design, Installation, Maintenance & Takeover of Intruder Alarms, Fire Alarms & Equipment, CCTV, Access Control, Nursecall. Keyholding Service, Guarding & Cash in Transit. SSAIB & NICEIC Registered Tel 01983 884000 / 884440

Any comments / opinions posted could be the voices in my head speaking, but they are my opinion only and do not represent those of my employer or Company

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Drilled into a 10mm mains cable once blew a big hole in the wall.

But not as good as the time i was replacing the water main to my house from lead to polly pipe with a mini digger and hit the incoming mains = very large bang and sparks all over the front garden 3 houses without power all day on a sat. The bucket on the digger was stuck on the cable and every time i moved it more sparks and small explosions. Managed to talk my way into getting it fixed for free.

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  • 2 months later...
Guest MSI New York

I drilled into a water pipe, once.

No big deal, right? We've all done that, yeah?

No. This particular water pipe was located in a doctor's office. And it was after-hours (the only time I could work without getting plaster dust in peoples' chest cavities), so there was no one in the office to show me where the shut-off was for the water.

It took me nearly 20 minutes to find the shutoff, by which time there is $6,000 worth of diagnostic equipment sitting in six inches or so of water.

The entire job was $4500.

But that's not my best story.

The best story I've ever heard involved my father, drilling a hole in from one closet to another closet.

He drilled with a 16 inch bit- didn't come out the other side.

He drilled with a 32 inch bit- didn't come out the other side.

He eventually drilled with a 54 inch flexi bit before he came out the side.

(Attention citizens of countries that use the metric system, i.e. every single country on the planet outside the United States: a medium sized bit, a long bit, and a really, really long bit.)

This is the begining of the summer, say May or June.

Comes November and he gets a call from the customer: "I have a wire in my coat".

Turns out he had drilled into a closet in between the two, a cold-storage closet. He had drilled into the customer's shoes, into her fur coat, and pulled the wire back on the end of the bit, so there was a hole in the lady's fur coat with a wire running through it.

"Look on the bright side" said my dad, "No one will ever steal your coat".

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  • 3 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...

a mate of mine was asked to put an alarm in his bosses house. they all knew he took home loads of tins of paint from work and kept them in the loft. when wirin alarm, the apprentice looped every cable thru th handles of the paint.

not a word was ever said.

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  • 3 weeks later...

a guy i knew was working in the Boots Chemist shop at Southend, it had a central wood panelled staircase top to bottom, so he decided to drill through at the top with a 20mm spade bit and drop a cable down the cavity. unfortunately he hit a 4" lead water pipe, and in his panic he smashed through the oak panelling with a hammer and stoved in the water pipe in an attempt to stem the flow.

but this being a lead pipe was the feed too the header tanks in trhe loft and on mains pressure, so water was still gushing out the hole. so he runs down to the basement which is now submerged and stock is bobbing arround in the water, so at the ground floor he again smashes through the panelling and stoves in the lead pipe - but the wronge one, it was next doors feed which used to be part of the same building.

several panels later he finds the inlet stop cook and turns off the water breaking off the handle in the process.

the claim must have been massive :yes:

If you think education is difficult, try being stupid!!!!

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  • 4 months later...

Okies Two quick ones;

Fitting a video panel and cut into the wall by the front door to flush the panel, had a nice chat with the owner. Through the hole i had made of course and called a m8 to rebrick the wall.

Fitting a wall safe ( yer was my locksmith days) asked owner was the house ever built up, ie thickness of brick courses. Was told 6 brick width, surveyor was there last week, chip, chip hello neighbours.

Make it a third,

Bloke i knew once flucked up with a cable route , as mentioned b4 he used toothpaste to fill it. Customer rang the boss, laughing her ass off. Said its so funny i`ll let it go if ya come back and fill the hole properly. (just thought about that, no comments pls)

cheers

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There must be a proper fix for this. Worth reminding members of the fix to drilled pipes Tips & Tricks

Jef

this is a simple trick, works on leaded roofs really well. get some self amalagmating tape shaped in a cone to form a plug, warm with gas gun and push it ito hole.

regs

alan

If you think education is difficult, try being stupid!!!!

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working in a set of refurbed offices in a warehouse had to run cables from window to window, flat roof so no loft and was in the old days of 1/2" galve tube (before trunking was even a twinkle).

i gave the job of running the cables to my trainee, i told him to make holes through the partitions big enough for an elbow to fit into the wall.

checks on him an hour later, big smile on his dust strewn face greets me, he gleefully shoves his arm through a hole in wall - you gessed it - past his elbow, and demonstrates same on 5 further walls asking is that big enough? :rolleyes:

site forman not too impressed :no:

regs

alan

If you think education is difficult, try being stupid!!!!

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  • 1 year later...
How many jobs have i been to and found the code on the wall next to the keypad???

Many years ago, I was asked to fit a...erm...well...ADE Logic key panel for an old couple.

Obviously they come with three keys, and I suggested they have one key each, and hide the third in the house for use if they ever lose one of their normal keys.

Well, a year later I returned...and found their hiding place.

In the control box key hole!

"We won't lose it if we leave it in there" :rolleyes:

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  • 1 year later...

Thread revivals are us...

I've drilled through...

A large 40mm boiling hot water pipe. It flooded three floors and dropped pretty much the entire false ceiling on the two lower floors. Nobody knew where to turn it off. The offices that I flooded looked like saunas! Brand new building too - just kitted out ready for everyone to start work in it the following week! Oops!

I drilled through a breeze block wall into a cupboard and straight into a really big SWA 3ph mains cable! Hehe! My 1/2 metre drill bit disintegrated and my drill died too. You should have heard that bang! Took out the power in two offices and a server room!

An apprentice of mine did a similar trick to what someone did on here and drilled up into a flat roof and straight out into the daylight instead of the loft! After feeding up a 6 core and many visits up into the loft and lots of head scratching - the customer eventually told him that there was a white wire hanging over the gutter and almost down on to the floor with the amount he'd shoved up there! Hehe!

Will add more when I have a bit more thinking time. Hehe! I do have more!

Kate C

x

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Thread revivals are us...

I've drilled through...

A large 40mm boiling hot water pipe. It flooded three floors and dropped pretty much the entire false ceiling on the two lower floors. Nobody knew where to turn it off. The offices that I flooded looked like saunas! Brand new building too - just kitted out ready for everyone to start work in it the following week! Oops!

I drilled through a breeze block wall into a cupboard and straight into a really big SWA 3ph mains cable! Hehe! My 1/2 metre drill bit disintegrated and my drill died too. You should have heard that bang! Took out the power in two offices and a server room!

An apprentice of mine did a similar trick to what someone did on here and drilled up into a flat roof and straight out into the daylight instead of the loft! After feeding up a 6 core and many visits up into the loft and lots of head scratching - the customer eventually told him that there was a white wire hanging over the gutter and almost down on to the floor with the amount he'd shoved up there! Hehe!

Will add more when I have a bit more thinking time. Hehe! I do have more!

Kate C

x

Bloke I know had that happen once in a school, concrete roof about 4" thick. filled the hole with black silicone, then caulk on the inside, then put the camera ( cheapo mini dome ) over the hole, with the cable in trunking. Then kicked the kids arris once it was all hidden.

That was ten or 12 years ago , I look after the site now, and I cant help but look up at it every time I go there, but theres still no sign that its leaking.

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  • 1 year later...

These an old securicor engineer still on our firm and he has so many good stories.He said once him and another engineer were installing an alarm in a house and the other chap drilled through a boot cupboard out into a kitchen type room for a door contact.The guy taped the cable onto the end of the drill bit and pulled it through the otherside of the wall.Clipped it to the frame and did what he had to do fitted contact etc.

The following week the customer phoned up and explained how she had a cable through one one of her jackets,the install engineer was sent back to site and despite drilling through her cupboard,coat and pulling the cable through the coat he still had the cheek to say "at least nobody will steal your coat" haha.

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  • 1 year later...

working in a set of refurbed offices in a warehouse had to run cables from window to window, flat roof so no loft and was in the old days of 1/2" galve tube (before trunking was even a twinkle).

i gave the job of running the cables to my trainee, i told him to make holes through the partitions big enough for an elbow to fit into the wall.

checks on him an hour later, big smile on his dust strewn face greets me, he gleefully shoves his arm through a hole in wall - you gessed it - past his elbow, and demonstrates same on 5 further walls asking is that big enough? :rolleyes:

site forman not too impressed :no:

regs

alan

this has actually had me crying with laughter for a good 5 minutes at the thought of this! Ha ha ha ha ha!

Thankyou for sharing that!

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I used to work for sky and I went through someone's gas main pipe. Had to wait for gas engineer to attend address and I had to pay for the gas engineer it was a costly lesson one that all the time now I check, check, and check again before drilling.

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well the company paid and it was taken out of my wage it is the way they work.

If the customer said you burst a brick they would pay for it to be replaced, customer says you wrecked her garden plants they paid, customer says you walked mud over there carpet you paid for a new carpet.

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I am not sure if they can do that legally, if they have trained you to drill holes and use a pipe detector, and state in their handbook that you must always use the pipe detector then I suppose they could.But if you said you had used the pipe detector before drilling, they would still need to check your pipe detector regularly.

We supply pipe detectors and they are checked as part of the monthly vehicle check, all engineers are trained in their use and told they must use them. I would lay money they dont get used as often as they should. We still dont charge the engineers if they hit a pipe, but we can prove to our insurers that we have done all we could to prevent it (if we were to need to make a claim)

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They dont work anyway

The opinions I express are mine and are usually correct!

(Except when I'm wrong)(which I'm not)

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