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Bozos And Horror Stories
- Thread starter intjonmiller
- Start date
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2014
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- 6,752
Speaking of "Jacklegs" Here's one about an "electrician": I the contractor, was building a restaurant back in the early 90's, we were pushing the hours to meet a deadline. One evening a couple of "electricians" were hooking up a 10 hp 3 phase fan for the exhaust hood, I was downstairs when one of the "electricians" headed up to the roof to make the final connections. As he seemed somewhat green, I asked him if he was sure he knew what he was doing, "yeah man no problem, I've done 3 phase before"... After about 45 minutes of him coming back on the walkie talkie "I'm almost done" I went up to the roof to see what was going on. As I emerged from the stair bulkhead, I could just make out his silhouette, about 30 ft away, barely back lit by the penlight he was working by. I then I head him tell his partner "ok let's try it" a split second later he was engulfed in a blinding ball of blue plasma, with a report almost as loud as an M-80. At first I thought he was dead, the beam from my 4 D cell Maglite revealed a still body, eyebrows & lashes gone, his face and arms the hue of a bad sunburn, but then he began to moan a bit... As he was going into the ambulance he muttered "I forgot were the neutral gets connected"... There was nothing but small stubs of charred wire in the box, everything else was vaporized so there was no telling what he thought was the "neutral". Investigating further, I found they had not brought the proper breaker, instead they wired it directly to the 200 amp sub panel breaker! The other "electrician" said "we thought it would be ok for the test", The "incident" also blew one of the 400 amp fuses on the building mains. All in all, the guy was lucky, though he was temporarily blinded, he got out of the hospital the next day and returned to work a couple of weeks later.
Had a coworker get a chip in his eye and attempted to use compressed air to blow it out lol. Let's just say it didn't turn out well.
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2015
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- 145
did he ever find his eyeball?
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2015
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- 894
Oh no! Ow! I think the OSHA regulations about safety air nozzles are a little extreme, but to point ANY air nozzle right at your eye?? Wow.
I once thought I had scratched my eye while restoring a motorcycle. I went to my ophthalmologist and he examined my eye under a microscope, and suddenly became rather excited.
Him: "Wow! I've never seen anything like that before! It's like a perfect glass sphere."
Me: "Oh, that would be glass blasting media. ... Like sandblasting, but we don't actually use sand. I guess I got one of them in my eye."
Him, after carefully removing it with a cotton swab: "Can I keep it? I have a collection of things I've removed from patients' eyes."
That hurt a lot. But it most likely got there by rubbing my eye. Can you imagine actually blasting your eye?? I'm tearing up just thinking about it.
I've had the same thing happen with aluminum oxide. Didn't do a good enough job cleaning it out of my hair.Oh no! Ow! I think the OSHA regulations about safety air nozzles are a little extreme, but to point ANY air nozzle right at your eye?? Wow.
I once thought I had scratched my eye while restoring a motorcycle. I went to my ophthalmologist and he examined my eye under a microscope, and suddenly became rather excited.
Him: "Wow! I've never seen anything like that before! It's like a perfect glass sphere."
Me: "Oh, that would be glass blasting media. ... Like sandblasting, but we don't actually use sand. I guess I got one of them in my eye."
Him, after carefully removing it with a cotton swab: "Can I keep it? I have a collection of things I've removed from patients' eyes."
That hurt a lot. But it most likely got there by rubbing my eye. Can you imagine actually blasting your eye?? I'm tearing up just thinking about it.
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2014
- Messages
- 410
Another electrician story:
Long hours are a recipe for disaster. At a refinery that I worked for before retiring, we had a scheduled plant wide shutdown for 2 weeks. Along with all of us, who were required to work 12 hour days, there were 200 assorted electricians, millwrights, mechanics, boilermakers, operators, and laborers. All journeymen! These guys & gals were required to work 16 hour days.
A new 40 foot conveyor was installed, powered by a 20hp, 3 phase motor. I was assigned to start this conveyor to ensure that the installation was complete. When I pressed the manual start button, the breaker tripped. I then locked out the circuit and immediately went to the motor to check the terminal box. After removing the cover, I saw that the ground wire and the 3 power wires were connected, but the power wires were not taped up!
Long hours are a recipe for disaster. At a refinery that I worked for before retiring, we had a scheduled plant wide shutdown for 2 weeks. Along with all of us, who were required to work 12 hour days, there were 200 assorted electricians, millwrights, mechanics, boilermakers, operators, and laborers. All journeymen! These guys & gals were required to work 16 hour days.
A new 40 foot conveyor was installed, powered by a 20hp, 3 phase motor. I was assigned to start this conveyor to ensure that the installation was complete. When I pressed the manual start button, the breaker tripped. I then locked out the circuit and immediately went to the motor to check the terminal box. After removing the cover, I saw that the ground wire and the 3 power wires were connected, but the power wires were not taped up!
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2015
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- 894
I started this thread with a story about a shop where I installed a walk-in (and then HURRY out!) powder coating oven. After I installed the oven structure (3' from the wall on two sides, to allow for access for maintenance, and to accommodate any fire code requirements and then some) the exhaust fan and motor mount, the furnace blower and mounts, and the spray wall (open air version of a spray booth because the owner was cheap) with its 24" coaxial fan and 7 HP 3 phase motor, etc., I had to hire a mechanical contractor or plumber to finish the gas train and install a triple-wall 8" exhaust duct, and an electrician to wire it all up. (The manufacturer wouldn't send the technician to do the startup procedure without signed statements from those professionals with readings for gas pressure and current capacity, and their state license numbers.)
The other half of our building was occupied by mechanical contractors, so that was easy. But we had the hardest time getting an electrician to even show up. We finally got one and he estimated a day and a half for all the conduit and wiring (the control panel, with multiple VFDs and so forth, was very complicated). Great! Do it!
I go about some other tasks I had taken on in the shop, letting him know I'm around if he has any questions.
So I go check on him a few hours later and find that he has run the conduit to the spray wall, from the brick wall, AT CHEST HEIGHT. It didn't occur to him that at some point someone might need to walk through this path so wide a powered wheelchair could fit. I pointed out the problem and he was like, "Well why didn't you tell me?!" And I was like, "Because I didn't think I had to spell out something so obvious!" He tried to argue that it wasn't an issue and we could just go around the other way. Eventually I realized he was arguing because he had already snaked the wires and he would be short of he had to drop to ground level or raise it to the top of the structure and then drop down. I gave him permission to install a junction on the wall so it wouldn't all be wasted. He seemed very grateful (he would have had to eat the cost of a lot of wire otherwise) and the rest of the project went very well as he asked me any time he had any questions.
The other half of our building was occupied by mechanical contractors, so that was easy. But we had the hardest time getting an electrician to even show up. We finally got one and he estimated a day and a half for all the conduit and wiring (the control panel, with multiple VFDs and so forth, was very complicated). Great! Do it!
I go about some other tasks I had taken on in the shop, letting him know I'm around if he has any questions.
So I go check on him a few hours later and find that he has run the conduit to the spray wall, from the brick wall, AT CHEST HEIGHT. It didn't occur to him that at some point someone might need to walk through this path so wide a powered wheelchair could fit. I pointed out the problem and he was like, "Well why didn't you tell me?!" And I was like, "Because I didn't think I had to spell out something so obvious!" He tried to argue that it wasn't an issue and we could just go around the other way. Eventually I realized he was arguing because he had already snaked the wires and he would be short of he had to drop to ground level or raise it to the top of the structure and then drop down. I gave him permission to install a junction on the wall so it wouldn't all be wasted. He seemed very grateful (he would have had to eat the cost of a lot of wire otherwise) and the rest of the project went very well as he asked me any time he had any questions.
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- Jan 2, 2014
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- 8,852
holy crap......hopefully at a new job, where he had less responsibility and could do less harm; "Would you like fries with that?"
-brino
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2014
- Messages
- 11,144
About 20 years ago when I was a field tech for a large manufacturer of woodworking equipment, a local tech and I did an install of a machine. The local tech did the wiring of the incoming power. The incoming power connected to rail mounted terminal blocks in the control panel. Apparently one of the standard terminal blocks was damaged so he grabbed a green/yellow (ground) terminal block to replace the damaged terminal. One of the problems with doing this is that the ground blocks have an INTERNAL ground connection that connects to the rail. So now we have one leg of 480 Volt 3 phase connected directly to ground.
I didn't really check what he was doing because I thought he was competent. My mistake!
When we were ready and standing to the side of the feeder panel, I flipped on the 60 amp breaker at the feeder panel. The entire plant went dark. The 200 amp breaker in the feeder panel also tripped.
The good news is that the plant main power distribution panel was equipped with a GFCI that was fast enough and had sufficient interrupting capacity that nothing blew up. I suspect that the main plant power supply was in the range of 2000 amps, we got lucky that time.
I didn't really check what he was doing because I thought he was competent. My mistake!
When we were ready and standing to the side of the feeder panel, I flipped on the 60 amp breaker at the feeder panel. The entire plant went dark. The 200 amp breaker in the feeder panel also tripped.
The good news is that the plant main power distribution panel was equipped with a GFCI that was fast enough and had sufficient interrupting capacity that nothing blew up. I suspect that the main plant power supply was in the range of 2000 amps, we got lucky that time.