# Bonehead Awards



## Philma Crevices (Jan 28, 2012)

I was thinking something we could use around here is a thread listing our greatest career screwups. Sort of an accomplishments list, to the negative. I'll go first, not recent, but boneheaded nonetheless:

I do alot of pickup work, my own jobs, and quite a bit for the other taping foremen with my company. One job I was going back to fix trade damage on, some plumbing got changed around and I had a small 1'x1' patch to fill. 

So I grab meh trusty screwgun(rarely ever gets used) and some scrap studs/drywall. I finish with the backing, and I start cutting the board. Went to fit it in, and I noticed driplets slowly accumulating on the ground. I'm like, aww ****, plumber still needs to work on this. I back my screws out for the studs, now the water was misting out. Guess what the nub hanger did. Screw right into the hot water pipe


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## rhardman (Jul 7, 2009)

My brother and I were doing a dining room ceiling (repairing some water damage). It turned out great. We cleaned everything up and left the hardwood floor immaculate.

An hour later I get a call..."Rick, get over here as fast as you can! The bathtub upstairs flooded and it's leaking through the ceiling and onto the hardwood..."

We got back in the truck and raced over as fast as we could. Apparently my brother had used the bathroom upstairs, didn't turn the water off in the sink completely and the tub had a plugged drain. The water filled the tub, went through the bathroom floor, through my ceiling, onto and through the hardwood floor, through the basement ceiling and got water all over the furniture and carpet in the basement. It was a beautiful home.

We took towels and blankets and dried everything up as much as we possibly could. She was already planning on having the floor refinished so apparently she had called the hardwood guy too. He walked up to me and asked what happened. I said, "Let's keep this between us, I'll pay whatever it takes...I don't want to cause Tammy any headaches." She was one of those great clients you really enjoy working for. 

He took some electronic thing out of his pocket and measured the gap that had formed between two of the pieces of wood. He walked over to me..."I think everything will be okay."

I touched up the ceiling and never heard another word about it.


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## Stopper (Nov 5, 2011)

I did a bathroom once, and the ceiling was very high, think about 3 meters or something, anyway it was in an old villa and the owner had made a wash basin out of an old wooden cupboard by cutting a hole in the top and inserting basin etc, looked quite "rustic" but the buggar hadn't glued the drain pipes or fixed the unit in place... So when I was fixing coving to the ceiling and place my foot on it ( I know a bit naughty of me) to steady myself. thethe dam thing rocked out away from the wall and sent me tumbling. later on a washed my hands and flooded his bathroom, luckily he was there to mop it up...
...Next day I forgot about the dodgy piping and flooded the bathroom again and he mopped it up a second time.
...and the day after that I was sanding down behind the toilet, and must have bumped the pipe that takes all the poo away :blink:, later on a decide to take a piss, flushed the toilet and as I'm zipping up, as ya do, I noticed the floor was all wet!! (the pipe in the back of the loo was only in a couple of millimeters) lol, luckily the owner was out ...


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## Jason (Feb 27, 2011)

One of the biggest ceiling companies in town insists on hotmud taping but has banned banjos, so I just sent them an email telling them that they are wrong, all the reasons why they are wrong, and the outcomes resulting from their being wrong.

I'll be back tomorrow with more daily boneheadedness.


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## Stopper (Nov 5, 2011)

*A Tale of Poo*

I was doing a job for my friends mum, she had a massive house at the time lovely thick white carpet through the downstairs hallway etc , its tiled now though, anyway, when I was working there I had this terrible blocked bowl , quite uncomfortable, had been troubling me for days, anyway I took a massive and I mean massive dump in the toilet, and when I flushed it and buggar me if the whole bowl filled ALMOST to overflowing, scared the sh..life outa me...it didnt drain away properly, so I thought What am I going to do?!!, so I filled an empty compound bucket and fired that down...still wouldn't drain so I had to leave it, it eventually drained.
When she got Home I told her she had a problem with her toilet.
Next day I hit it again with another massive dump, same drama different ****...
....And later that night the UPSTAIRS bathroom was used, and when flushed caused a GEYSER!!! downstairs...she told me afterwards that there was a river of poo all the way out into her hall way...nasty stuff.

Turned out her Septic tank had blocked up.

I have an even more embarrassing one to tell involving the stiffing of what appeared to me at first to be some painters putty carelessly dropped on the floor in a room of a dementia hospital...I will leave the rest up to your imaginations.


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## Kiwiman (Jun 14, 2008)

Mine was today, filled the banjo to run a few angles, the lid flew open and the mud fell out and at the same time the tape holder unclipped itself and the tape fell on the floor..............Missed my foot tho :thumbsup:


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## Jason (Feb 27, 2011)

Kiwiman said:


> Mine was today, filled the banjo to run a few angles, the lid flew open and the mud fell out and at the same time the tape holder unclipped itself and the tape fell on the floor..............Missed my foot tho :thumbsup:


Somebody ought to ban those things.


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## carpentaper (Feb 28, 2009)

Kiwiman said:


> Mine was today, filled the banjo to run a few angles, the lid flew open and the mud fell out and at the same time the tape holder unclipped itself and the tape fell on the floor..............Missed my foot tho :thumbsup:


i remember the captain did the same thing


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## gotmud (Mar 21, 2011)

A customer asked me to look at his ceiling in his basement that appeared to be saggin a bit. After looking at it, I concluded it was not screwed off properly.
I began adding a few screws and it was pulling it up nicely. 
I came to a area where my 11/4" screws didn't grab the joist, Hmm there has to be a joist there, right?? I better just use a longer screw, Ahh haa! It grabbed something

Wait a minute ... what is that hissing sound? :icon_confused:

It grabbed something allright! The d**n gas line!! 
Well I ended up cutting open the ceiling to find poor framing and a unprotected yellow flex gas line. The homeowner did not blame me luckily and paid me extra for the ceiling repairs that were needed after some new framing and plumbing.

The moral of the story :
Bigger is not always better lol


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## Kiwiman (Jun 14, 2008)

carpentaper said:


> i remember the captain did the same thing


Yup....that was the first thing I thought of when it happened :yes:
What happens is when the lid flies open it hits the tape holder which makes it unclip, and the lid only comes open because dumb dumb (might have been me) didn't latch it, it's as funny as hell afterwards but it makes you swear when you do it.


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## Philma Crevices (Jan 28, 2012)

gotmud said:


> A customer asked me to look at his ceiling in his basement that appeared to be saggin a bit. After looking at it, I concluded it was not screwed off properly.
> I began adding a few screws and it was pulling it up nicely.
> I came to a area where my 11/4" screws didn't grab the joist, Hmm there has to be a joist there, right?? I better just use a longer screw, Ahh haa! It grabbed something
> 
> ...


Happy endings are great  That would scare the crap outa me.

Here's one that happened today, not mine but on my job.
I'm in this lab doing a new wall, people in white coats n beakers n machines whirling tubes n schtuff. I'm on my scaffold right next to a Sparky on his ladder doing some wiring above grid. The sucker cuts through a live wire right next to my head, half the room goes dark and computers shut down... not sure if there's any fallout form the machines stopping... but luckily they got it back up pretty damned fast :thumbsup: 

Now if I could only run some live wire to my bead so the sparky's would stop running into it HMMM....


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## Philma Crevices (Jan 28, 2012)

Stopper said:


> I was doing a job for my friends mum, she had a massive house at the time lovely thick white carpet through the downstairs hallway etc , its tiled now though, anyway, when I was working there I had this terrible blocked bowl , quite uncomfortable, had been troubling me for days, anyway I took a massive and I mean massive dump in the toilet, and when I flushed it and buggar me if the whole bowl filled ALMOST to overflowing, scared the sh..life outa me...it didnt drain away properly, so I thought What am I going to do?!!, so I filled an empty compound bucket and fired that down...still wouldn't drain so I had to leave it, it eventually drained.
> When she got Home I told her she had a problem with her toilet.
> Next day I hit it again with another massive dump, same drama different ****...
> ....And later that night the UPSTAIRS bathroom was used, and when flushed caused a GEYSER!!! downstairs...she told me afterwards that there was a river of poo all the way out into her hall way...nasty stuff.
> ...


 I present you with this!









Wear it Well


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## saskataper (Mar 6, 2011)

A couple of years ago my dad was building a house with his buddy for my sister, the first day after it was finished buddy showed up in the morning to find the ceilings falling down. The plumber had been in the day before and apparently didn't check for leaks before taking off, a fitting in the upstairs bathroom had leaked all night enough that they had to pretty much gut the whole place and start over


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## moore (Dec 2, 2010)

saskataper said:


> A couple of years ago my dad was building a house with his buddy for my sister, the first day after it was finished buddy showed up in the morning to find the ceilings falling down. The plumber had been in the day before and apparently didn't check for leaks before taking off, a fitting in the upstairs bathroom had leaked all night enough that they had to pretty much gut the whole place and start over


glue.


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## 2buckcanuck (Jul 9, 2010)

Philma Crevices said:


> I was thinking something we could use around here is a thread listing our greatest career screwups. Sort of an accomplishments list, to the negative. I'll go first, not recent, but boneheaded nonetheless:
> 
> I do alot of pickup work, my own jobs, and quite a bit for the other taping foremen with my company. One job I was going back to fix trade damage on, some plumbing got changed around and I had a small 1'x1' patch to fill.
> 
> So I grab meh trusty screwgun(rarely ever gets used) and some scrap studs/drywall. I finish with the backing, and I start cutting the board. Went to fit it in, and I noticed driplets slowly accumulating on the ground. I'm like, aww ****, plumber still needs to work on this. I back my screws out for the studs, now the water was misting out. Guess what the nub hanger did. Screw right into the hot water pipe


I told the story on here already, did the same as you but worse

After the plumber repaired the pipe I just pierced, We were %$#@*&^%^ at each other as he was walking out the door, and I turned and fired a screw right back in the same spot he just repaired:blink:

Guess there's a reason I only tape now:whistling2:

So do I get a prize or something:thumbup:


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## Philma Crevices (Jan 28, 2012)

2buckcanuck said:


> I told the story on here already, did the same as you but worse
> 
> After the plumber repaired the pipe I just pierced, We were %$#@*&^%^ at each other as he was walking out the door, and I turned and fired a screw right back in the same spot he just repaired
> 
> ...


I think you most definately do deserve one for that!








Because we can all be a monkies ass some times...

But I think you especially deserve a bit more that that...










Cause that is just baaaaaahhhhhhhhd :thumbsup:


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## carpentaper (Feb 28, 2009)

i screwed into a water line that i had just marked out on the sheet. i got a little bit electrocuted by my drill when i tryed to put the the screw back in to stop the water from spraying out. 
i always try to be very careful about marking any wires and pipes out on the sheet. it might be worth carrying around a red pencil in the toolbelt for marking those sorts of things.


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## getplastered (Jan 3, 2012)

Just last week I was doing a decorative border in a master bedroom on new construction. I marked out my corners and started putting tape on the ceiling...started rolling on the mud, did my pattern and knocked it all down...about a 200 sf bedroom. All done, pull off the tape and start admiring my work.

Then, right over the door I notice that the width of the border at one end of the room is smaller than that at the other...

When I put my tape up, I started on one side of my mark, at the other end I put my tape on the other side of the mark...so I was out an inch and a half...nice. Took me a half hour to fix...but still looks good! :thumbsup:


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