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Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 5:08 pm
by henpecked
Any funny anecdotes from the world of construction? Now their pulling their hem lines in, I think its time to have a good giggle at site agent faff-ups...
I was on this site and the kitchen was like a football field (ish). The client had specified limestone white (offish, you know what I mean). Anyway, the stuff came. The tiler did his damnedest to do a good job. When it was finished, I had a tears well-up in the corner of my eye it was that good
:;): .
The painters appeared and the site agent made sure NO-ONE went on the floor till the building paper was covering every square inch of it. Off went the painters. Went they were done, up came the paper...HORROR! black blobs and splodges everywhere :O
It turned out that the painters turps had melted the tar on the back of the paper and soaked into the floor. 
The tiler lifted the damaged ones and a re-order was put in for replacements( V expensive) but the floor never looked the same again.
Dont think it bothered the painter tho.
HP
Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 6:21 pm
by lutonlagerlout
dunno if i mentioned this one before my mate got 3 quoptes for tiling a kitchen floor
quotes 1 and 2 were english lads both around £350 mark
quote 4 was a polish fella £200
anyway floor got tiled,looked great untill the plumber came to commission the boiler.
he couldnt do it as the gas pressure would not hold??
out came the kitchen ,up came the tiles ,and the ply the polish lad had screwed down,and lo and behold where the plumber had written gas in red letters along the line of the gas main,the polish fella had assumed it said joist and put 9 screws through it..
it was a very costly cheap job
LLL ???
Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 6:44 pm
by henpecked
Was on a job (here's another one) for Persimmon. The plumber came to the site office asking why the toilets soil stack was in the middle of the bathroom floor ???
The little queue formed, site agent , assistant, plumber and brickie, off they went to look at the set of four terrace homes.
As the brickie had 'Done loads of 'em' He'd neglected to look at the plans for this set of four and the middle two were facing the opposite way, not all facing the same way as he'd build them!
I couldnt believe they'd not noticed till the plumber had got to first fixing!
Out came the still saw and out came the walls
LOL
HP
Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 7:00 pm
by Dave_L
What a classic!!!
Great thread, ideal for a Friday.
Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 9:13 pm
by GB_Groundworks
i was on a site, big new kitchen extension and master suite. we were doing the landscaping anyway inside having a crack with the lads as the plumber was commissioning the boiler, pressure tested it .... filled it up and turned it on. 5 minutes later the brand new 2k chandelier in the dining room fell down with the ceiling onto the french polished dining table that the interior desingers had just dressed and laid out with all plates etc.
turns out sparkies assistant had drilled through the 32mm copper pipe with auger bit and fed a cable straight through the pipe, not sure how the pressure test didn't show it but owner was crying and everything.
Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:01 pm
by lutonlagerlout
LOL hen similar thing happened on a job in enfield,twas the monday after all day drinking became legal,and me and my mate had to set out and build 4 front doors and 4 electric boxes all 3 storeys up on block and beam floors,
with the worst hangovers ever
it wasn't till the flats were all plastered that they noticed there was a whole flat missing on floor 3
believe me,the buck got passed very fast that day 
LLL
Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:23 pm
by henpecked
A whole flat, that takes some beating LLL. But I do have a story about that one too 
In Sutton Coldfield there was 'designer apartments' being built. Expensive flats if you will.
Anyways, they wanted to screw..oops I mean achieve the upper most profit from this venture, so they built 6 apartments either side and two loft apartments, one bed jobs. Well, the one beds were built. The buyer bought and everyone was happy. Until...the bedroom was skimmed. You couldn't move around a double bed without leaning over because of the roof slope(traditional roof). The site agent came up with an idea, smash down the wall and reduce the hall way space to increase the bedroom space... good you would think. Until the buyer came back and kicked up a stink, Ive never heard a school teacher come out with so many expletives. The skimmed, finished painted new wall had to come down and be replaced to its original position.
I tell you ,the agent didn't live that one down
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 12:34 am
by Tommy
A young mate of mine is a labourer for a landscaper, do a job on one site, bloke laid so many m/2 of cobbles, and started on turfing and setting out the planting, leaving the young lad to point the said cobbles.
Come two days later, pointing finished, turfed, and planted nicely.... pointing is crumbling to bits.
Turns out the lad had only put in enough cement to colour it, and figured it would be sufficient.
He mentioned another job they were on, replacing fence posts and panels.
Got all the slotted concrete posts in place, next day collected the panels from the supplier, got them all in place, then got the young lad to stain them.... does about 12 panels, out comes the woman... 'its the wrong colour' 'its all wrong' etc etc.
ended up scrapping the panels, and replacing with new panels, treated to the correct colour, rather than just re-staining them.
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 1:11 am
by lutonlagerlout
henpecked wrote:A whole flat, that takes some beating LLL. But I do have a story about that one too
In Sutton Coldfield there was 'designer apartments' being built. Expensive flats if you will.
Anyways, they wanted to screw..oops I mean achieve the upper most profit from this venture, so they built 6 apartments either side and two loft apartments, one bed jobs. Well, the one beds were built. The buyer bought and everyone was happy. Until...the bedroom was skimmed. You couldn't move around a double bed without leaning over because of the roof slope(traditional roof). The site agent came up with an idea, smash down the wall and reduce the hall way space to increase the bedroom space... good you would think. Until the buyer came back and kicked up a stink, Ive never heard a school teacher come out with so many expletives. The skimmed, finished painted new wall had to come down and be replaced to its original position.
I tell you ,the agent didn't live that one down
well it was just the front door i inadvertently missed and blocked straight across
the flat was there all right just with no door and 3 storeys up
:;):
LLL
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 2:05 am
by Asbury
I was in my van with wor lass waiting outside a customers house after having phoned and got no answer, so we both just sat and talked, the talking got a bit smutty in fact very blue (I was very horny that day) but I forgot that I put my phone on automatic redial, and after 10mins I looked at my phone and it was connected to the customers phone, :p :p :p so we chucked the phone at each other a couple of times before I had the courage to talk, and YES the nosey wife was listening to our every word.
So I knocked on the door, and her face said it all, she bloody heard us, and when I stepped in the house, I tripped up on the pvc door frame step and fell flat on the floor.
Wor lass laughed for a week afterwards.
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 8:22 am
by Dave_L
Now there's a case for disabling the auto redial feature if there ever was one!!!!
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 9:04 am
by seanandruby
when i first started seeing my now wife :;): I booked into a b@b and asked the old girl if i could have a spare key as my partner would be along later but i would'nt be in. She said i will drop one in your room." Later when my partner turned up the obvious started taking place, ( use your imagination ) halfway through we heard the key in the door and quick as you like my missus took off like a shot into the bathroom with the blanket around her. She left me lying there with what can only be described as a flag pole sticking up, any man would of been proud off. Twas the landlady with the spare key. I was caught, not able to move with that look of terror we get in those circumstances :laugh: She said " just dropping off the spare key." I just pretended to be snoring. could hear the missus in the bathroom trying to stifle her laugh, did'nt work tho :laugh:
Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 4:25 pm
by Asbury
You mean it was one of those little union jack flags. :;):
Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 4:26 pm
by Asbury
Dave_L wrote:Now there's a case for disabling the auto redial feature if there ever was one!!!!
Within 1 minute. :laugh:
Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 8:27 pm
by Tommy
We came in at brew time today, to see a brand spanking new Cat Vibratory roller in the yard. We enquired with the powers that be, and they decided to use it to roll the cricket squares that we are working on, rather than pay for the new crank shaft for the proper, albeit ancient cricket roller.