# Forum More Stuff Oops!  Stuff ups

## jimfish

Had an oh crap moment today after double checking floor trusses for square before laying the yellow tongue.It turns out that when taking the diagonal measurement on the ground floor set out either my maths was out or a measuring error took place and it turns out the ground floor is 50 mm out of square throwing the upper story 75mm out. Spent the afternoon swearing a lot while removing all the floor trusses. Tomorrow cut all dynabolts, refix in the right spot and re plumb and straighten walls before reinstalling floor trusses. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to take on a job where the price is marginal as you can tend to rush things and that's when errors occur.
Anyway onwards and upwards and hopefully after tomorrow we'll be back to where we were this morning only square😡

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## phild01

Might be one reason why we all slow down the older we get :Biggrin: 
Sorry to hear your plight though, Jim.

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## Bros

You will have to start using the fingers on your other hand.

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## jimfish

> You will have to start using the fingers on your other hand.

  Had the boots off using my toes today

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## jimfish

> Might be one reason why we all slow down the older we get
> Sorry to hear your plight though, Jim.

  @@@@ happens Phil.

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## phild01

> @@@@ happens Phil.

  yep, had a fair share too.

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## Bros

Remember the old statement if you have never made a mistake you haven't done anything.

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## OBBob

That sucks. I just had roof plumbers here doing steel roof. They cut a flashing angle the wrong way around and had to scrap it. Even the trades that do it everyday slip up here and there. Of course, they just got on and fixed it as you are. Hope it doesn't take you too long.

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## jimfish

Everyone makes mistakes, it's how you deal with it that's important !

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## OBBob

... and not making the same one again (too many times).  :Smilie:

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## David.Elliott

Boy, that's quite a biggie and will be a right pain in the @#$% to fix. I wish I could say I've never made a booboo of that size, but I'd be lying...But as Bros said if you do nothing, you make no mistakes...

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## jimfish

> Boy, that's quite a biggie and will be a right pain in the @#$% to fix. I wish I could say I've never made a booboo of that size, but I'd be lying...But as Bros said if you do nothing, you make no mistakes...

  Yep , nearly got all the bottom floor plates moved, now just to re plumb and straighten and re install floor trusses

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## PlatypusGardens

> Sometimes it just doesn't pay to take on a job where the price is marginal as you can tend to rush things and that's when errors occur.
> 

  it's hard to know what to do sometimes.  
Do you take "that" job or not?
We mostly need the money and turning down jobs is not often an option 
We all stuff up and some jobs go up the spout for other reasons beyond our control.  
I did a paving job a few years back, allowed my usual "unforseen extra" dollars as there were excavations involved.
(There's always stormwater where you think it's not, bloody plumbers, just run it in a straight line!   :Rolleyes:  )   
it was a small unit/townhouse cortyard which had been turfed and they wanted it all paved, which made more sense. 
Got digger in, ripped the turf and topsoil out, only to find the whole yard had been built up with about 600mm of deco.
And it was the crappy kind, with lots of muddy clay stuff in it.
And it was wet.
Impossible to compact.
Like walking on a waterbed  :Shock:  
So it all had to come out and be replaced with roadbase, compacted in layers.  
When the job was finally done I think I had made about $8/hour with all the extra machinery work and materials    :Rofl5:

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## goldie1

Years ago I was replacing a ceiling in a  kitchen after a pipe burst in the upstairs bathroom. The owner was  
a sculptor and he had just finished a sandstone piece of a phoenix rising from the ashes for a client. 
The damn thing was standing near the back door and I knocked it over carrying in a sheet of plasterboard 
and broke the head off. The  profit margin on that job was pretty slim after I paid for it. 
I stuck the head back on with liquid nails and kept it ever since hoping he would become famous 
and I could make a profit on it eventually but he seems to have disappeared in to obscurity

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## OBBob

Ha ha, great story.

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## jimfish

Finally progress

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## OBBob

Gee, I wonder how you got distracted and made a mistake.   :Biggrin:

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## goldie1

You may as well enjoy the view Jim it sounds like you have already paid for part of it :Smilie:

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## jimfish

Got to make the most of it when the weathers like this, it has been wet cold and very miserable for most of this build.

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## David.Elliott

One of my best stuff ups was... 
Reno/addition job in Melville. Putting cornice around the ceiling in the new kitchen. At some point the grano was out about 50mm, so I had a step in the wall just next to a corner. I had successfully covered this with tiles at 45 degrees between the overheads and the benchtop. The point of all of that was that at the wall/ceiling intersection the water pipe was just under the white set. I'm holding the cornice up, wife just pinning 25mm nails under it to hold while it sets and yep, hits the pipe.  
Recent to this I had made friends with a newly arrived frenchman, and while I'm standing there with water coming at me, there's a knock at the front door. "Come in" the wife and I said in unison.  
Gerard walks in, looks at me with water streaming over my head with a finger on the hole and laughs and says "Je ne suis pas un plombier"  (I'm not a plumber!)

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## phild01

I had fun today, misjudged it by a mm I reckon :Frown:

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## PlatypusGardens

> I had fun today, misjudged it by a mm I reckon

  
ooooo CHOMP   :Rofl5:

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## PlatypusGardens

Was doing a paling fence and went to trim the top off with my circ saw.
Chopped the cord.
Dang. 
Rang a mate who lived near where the job was and asked if I could borrow his.
No worries, went and got it and managed to cut the cord on that one as well!!!   :Sigh:  
Taped mine up, finished the job, went home and changed the cord on both.    :Rolleyes:

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## toooldforthis

I've got a drill with a shorter cord now too.
just forgot - too much use of the cordless I reckon.

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## phild01

> Was doing a paling fence and went to trim the top off with my circ saw.
> Chopped the cord.
> Dang. 
> Rang a mate who lived near where the job was and asked if I could borrow his.
> No worries, went and got it and managed to cut the cord on that one as well!!!   
> Taped mine up, finished the job, went home and changed the cord on both.

  Did that long ago with a brand new saw, stupid cord :Doh:

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## Marc

I use half a meter of this on the cord on my grinders. Does not stop a circular saw but will save the cord from a brush from the grinder.

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## webtubbs

> Was doing a paling fence and went to trim the top off with my circ saw.
> Chopped the cord.
> Dang. 
> Rang a mate who lived near where the job was and asked if I could borrow his.
> No worries, went and got it and managed to cut the cord on that one as well!!!   
> Taped mine up, finished the job, went home and changed the cord on both.

  Haha! I was borrowing my father-in-laws circ saw and managed to chop the cord off. A while later he borrowed my newly purchased circ saw and chopped it off also! Finally got around to fixing them, so now we've both got a short cord circ saw   :Biggrin:

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## PlatypusGardens

I put a long cord on mine  :Wink:

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## lazydays

I find most mistakes are made when the price margin is very tight and you tend to rush or try to work to a tight timetable. Sometimes late in the afternoon a small mistake will be "it's good enough" and then on reflection the next day you spend a little longer to finish the job and do something you will be proud of and just suffer the consequences of even making less money than anticipated. 
Last month I had a an old style glass pool fence made from 1150mm glass that was supposed to have a 50mm gap underneath to bring it up to 1200mm. They just wanted it compliant to enable the sale to go through. Lifted all the panels 50mm but had to notch out the post caps to let the glass sit proud. I used a Dremel and the last cap of the day was a bit tight so I tapped it with a small timber stick and the whole piece of glass shattered.
That was a month ago and since then the glass company has lost the order, stuffed the size up and today they said it's gone....somebody else must of taken it, so back to square one.

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## David.Elliott

"small timber stick and the whole piece of glass shattered." 
Sounds like you have the same size small timber stick as me... :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):      
In all seriousness though, I'd be concerned about the safety of a pool surrounded by glass like that!

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## OBBob

Put you beer down on the post cap and the glass shatters.

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## lazydays

It completely shocked me on how easy it can happen. Maybe it's some sort of sound wave thingy or shock wave.
 I've thrown a panel of 1200mm X 1500mm X 12mm into a skip and belting it as hard as I could with a sledge hammer and couldn't break it. Other times I've been carrying a panel and just bumped the corner and it's shattered and gone off like a bomb.
Tough call when it explodes into the pool and you have to tell the customer to empty the pool.

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## OBBob

> It completely shocked me on how easy it can happen. Maybe it's some sort of sound wave thingy or shock wave.
>  I've thrown a panel of 1200mm X 1500mm X 12mm into a skip and belting it as hard as I could with a sledge hammer and couldn't break it. Other times I've been carrying a panel and just bumped the corner and it's shattered and gone off like a bomb.
> Tough call when it explodes into the pool and you have to tell the customer to empty the pool.

  Reminds me of the Smarter Every Day episode on car window strength ... very interesting if you have five minutes.

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## lazydays

Interesting video...thanks..

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## lazydays

Finding this thread has jinxed me. 
First hole I drilled today went straight through a pool pipe and it's under about 75mm of re-enforced concrete.

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## PlatypusGardens

Could be worse
You could have been bragging about how your website would be able to handle millions of people logging on, and threatening them with fines if they didn't, only to end up with a website nobody could use. 
(it's still down BTW)

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## jimfish

. Finally done, frame inspected today. It's going to be a nice house but I'm not particularly enjoying this build.

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## OBBob

> . Finally done, frame inspected today. It's going to be a nice house but I'm not particularly enjoying this build.

  That sunshine appears to have dissipated.

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## jimfish

Yep pretty miserable today

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## OBBob

> Yep pretty miserable today

  I quite like the beach like that... but a roof would make it a little more comfortable.   :Biggrin:

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## lazydays

> Finding this thread has jinxed me. 
> First hole I drilled today went straight through a pool pipe and it's under about 75mm of re-enforced concrete.

  All good. I'm a happy little camper this week. Such a nice client that I was working for that I did all the repair work no charge and when I got paid found an extra couple of hundred bucks added.

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## OBBob

> All good. I'm a happy little camper this week. Such a nice client that I was working for that I did all the repair work no charge and when I got paid found an extra couple of hundred bucks added.

  Faith in humanity restored.   :Biggrin:

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