chrisrosenb
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- Sep 1, 2007
- Messages
- 1,265
I had to swap out a range hood
You never know what you will find.
- Thread starter chrisrosenb
- Start date
Sparktrician
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- Dec 4, 2009
- Messages
- 4,607
That kind of thing horrifies me [scared] when I find it. Makes me want to call the fire marshal before I do any further work.
[sad]
[sad]
Guy Ashley
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- Feb 19, 2010
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- 662
Dear God!!! That sort of stuff really gets me ticked!!! 
Do these jerks not know they are risking peoples lives, or maybe they just dont care.
Dont know how it works with you guys but in the UK anything do do with residential electrics has to be carried out by a Part P qualified sparky, who puts his signature to a safety certicate issued to the householder.
Same with Gas appliances, a Gas Safe registered and qualified plumber. You try and short curcuit that legislation then be prepared to go to jail and pay a £30,000 fine!
I am sure a lot of contractors here still try and do "little things" but if they read the small print in their liability insurance there is a disclaimer.
Do these jerks not know they are risking peoples lives, or maybe they just dont care.
Dont know how it works with you guys but in the UK anything do do with residential electrics has to be carried out by a Part P qualified sparky, who puts his signature to a safety certicate issued to the householder.
Same with Gas appliances, a Gas Safe registered and qualified plumber. You try and short curcuit that legislation then be prepared to go to jail and pay a £30,000 fine!
I am sure a lot of contractors here still try and do "little things" but if they read the small print in their liability insurance there is a disclaimer.
EWTHeckman
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- Aug 18, 2011
- Messages
- 294
It absolutely is scary. It's amazing that there aren't more fires.
My current project is renovating a basement room. When the previous owner had finished the room, they had nailed 1x3's to the wall. Then to get sufficient depth for the outlet boxes, they cut holes in the block. These boxes were metal. The result was that the boxes were severely rusted, one to the point where half of it no longer existed!
But that wasn't the scariest part. At one point in the wiring closet, they had run the feed wire for the room behind a piece of wood, then drove nails into the wood to keep the wire in place. But instead of going in next to the wire (the obvious intent), two of the nails had gone into the wire itself! [scared] Fortunately, they went dead center through the cable, missing the hot and neutral wires completely.
On the other hand, this house had an in-wall air conditioner that was installed in 1957, and still worked when we replaced it in 2007!
My current project is renovating a basement room. When the previous owner had finished the room, they had nailed 1x3's to the wall. Then to get sufficient depth for the outlet boxes, they cut holes in the block. These boxes were metal. The result was that the boxes were severely rusted, one to the point where half of it no longer existed!
But that wasn't the scariest part. At one point in the wiring closet, they had run the feed wire for the room behind a piece of wood, then drove nails into the wood to keep the wire in place. But instead of going in next to the wire (the obvious intent), two of the nails had gone into the wire itself! [scared] Fortunately, they went dead center through the cable, missing the hot and neutral wires completely.
On the other hand, this house had an in-wall air conditioner that was installed in 1957, and still worked when we replaced it in 2007!
I do renovations on some of the older double brick foundation homes in Toronto.
I find stuff like this - at the point of load - bottom of the stairs. Maybe that was 2 inches left after the HVAC guys recessed a duct into the joist!
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Good times.
Matthew
I find stuff like this - at the point of load - bottom of the stairs. Maybe that was 2 inches left after the HVAC guys recessed a duct into the joist!
[attachimg=#]
[attachimg=#]
Good times.
Matthew
Ken Nagrod
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- Jul 15, 2010
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- 3,431
Matthew deBeaupre said:
Stupid HVAC guys! They could have recessed the duct another 1 15/16 inches.
Electricians and carpenters are not the only ones to ch--- Er ah ah hem, make mistooks. In the thirty some od years i was a mason contractor, I ran into many such short cuts. One fireplace/chimney I lost out on, and another i had not bid on, but i was in the Voluteer Fire Department when called to fire at both houses. The masons who built (both had left town long before the discoveries) had sort of forgotten to put flue liners into the chimneys. Many old houses (from before 20th century)were constructed with linerless chimneys, but with great care to the brick work. These two chimneys not only had no liners, but there were joints in the brick/block work with no mortar. I ended up rebuilding one of those chimneys, but would not do any rebuilding until the entire chimney had been torn down and holes drilled into the footings to be sure there had been no skimping in that part. I started bidding on another huge 3 foreplace chimney. There were some suspicious things with the house foundation i did not like so i started measuring the foundation walls. i found the walls were doubled up because the mason had put the first pours in the wrong place. I would not do the estimate until exploration drilling would be performed to be sure the chimney footing was in the right place. The floor slab had already been poured, so drilling was the only way to determine The builder would not do the exploration and i walked away. I understand there were problems with floor cracking a year or so after the house had been sold. I stayed out of that one, but I m sure there had to be problems higher up. By that time, i had moved to a neighboring town and was out of the gossip loops. There are so many ways for the uninhibited to cut corners, even with inspectors supposedly doing their jobs. The dishonest can find ways.
Tinker
Tinker
