DIY disasters confession room

After a few DIY successes my manliness rating was on the up, but in the space of a few days it’s hit a all time low.

1. decorating the dining room (luckily no carpet/flooring down). Stood on a step to paint the ceiling, I step down to put more paint in the roller tray and hear a load thud/crack. Turns out I’d trodden on the tin of paint, which I’d only rested the lid back on to. Sprayed paint everywhere. Not only that, but they’re not really tins any more, they’re plastic tubs. After wiping up the mess I realised more paint was coming from somewhere….. yes I’d manage to crack the tub and paint was dripping everywhere. 🙄

2. Yesterday I was just tidying up some bushes in the front garden with the hedge cutter when I noticed a cable…. only I noticed it too late and had cut right through it. Yes that’ll be the cable running round the outside of the house (but not tacked to the wall for some reason) that takes the internet connection from the Virgin Media box and round to the office where the router is.

Still at least these incidents has taken a few things off my things to do list set by the OH.

Painted A LOT of decking last weekend.
Took about 20 hours, including the prep.

Without properly looking at the weather forecast.

Cue 48 hours of rain.

I’m doing it again now. Just popped in for a break. 😐

we moved into a new house and the kitchen fireplace was boarded up.

“let’s take the board off and see what’s underneath!”

So I take the board off but the original range has gone and there’s just the 4ft by 2ft plate in the chimney breast that the pipe used to go into.

I tap the old plate with the hammer.

120 year old metal plate gives way depositing what must have been 6 inches of soot that was resting on top of it onto me and throughout the kitchen and half the hallway.

It was like something out of a Laurel and Hardy film.

I used a circular saw to cut a piece out of some upstairs floor boards. It was the only way I could do it given the config of the boards and internal walls etc.
The plumber had installed copper radiator pipes through the joists (all good) however he had put them in grooves at the top as oppose to drilling through them which meant they pressed on the underside of the boards! Even though my saw was set to go though the minimum board thickness it still cut through a pipe… How we laughed!

Cut through the domestic power ring with a pair of clippers.

Cue one massive bang and our two 2 yr olds saying ‘daddy broken it’.

At least I proved to my wife (who was stood right next to me) that a modern RCD is very safe.

Same here… our sparky had left me a loop off the ring main sticking out to cut later and add a socket. This was upstairs but what he forgot to tell me or didn’t know was that it was the downstairs ring. I turned off the upstairs ring and cut with my prize Park cable cutters… BANG flash and the blade of my cutters is spark-eroded beyond repair. Expensive mistake.

mate of mine (honestly) told me of his DIY expertise at the weekend. The dishwasher drain was leaking so he took it off and down to B&Q he went. It was only when he was at the counter he remembered that the washing machine was on and drained through the same system. Returned home to find he now had to replace the utility room floor, the carpet in the hall, sitting room and lino in the kitchen..

We’ve all done the remove u-bend under sink to clean out and drain the sink “Where shall I put all the water that’s in the bowl I caught it with? Down the sink you go! Ah, I hadn’t put the u-bend back.” thing.

Haven’t we?

Haven’t we?

*sniggers* nope *sniggers*

Was painting the floor of my workshop with nice bright blue floor paint. I lost balance whilst pouring some into a tray and now my dad has a somewhat blue ride on mower. 😳

Haven’t we?

only once…

I used to be a kitchen fitter and did a job with a cooker in an island unit, complete with extractor fan suspended from the middle of the ceiling.
The sparky had left a flying lead hanging out of the ceiling, ready to power up the extractor. I turned off the kitchen ring and climbed onto the island to trim back the cable.
BANG! – it turns out he’d taken a spur off the back of a socket in one of the bedrooms above.
I also have a set of spark-eroded cutters.

Haven’t we?

only once…

Only the once here too 😳

Fitted new oil boiler and radiators to old plastic pipes- having flushed threm out clean with relevent chemicals

Next week i was renewimg the pipework as the pipes were fine for old vented system at low psi.

New system is pressured combi – the cycle pressure blew the joints apart exposin the face previous fitter hadnt used inserts in any joints. Redone it with copper solder pipe work 🙂

Haven’t we?

Nope, although I did once see a housemate of mine start to do just that and went into one of those slow motion “NOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooo…” moments which made her jump so much she threw the contents of the tub down her front instead. Still, it saved the floor.

Guy I used to work with had the great idea (after a couple of beers) that to cut the carpet for an L shaped room he would lift the old carpet and place on top of new carpet and cut round. Problem was he put them carpetside to carpetside and cut an opposite hand one.To make things worse he was a steel fabricator and was used to using templates.

My dad chopped a finger off using a circular saw – the blade hit a knot jolting my dad’s hand off the handle and a finger went into the whole for the dust bag (which he wasn’t using).

The hangboard i’ve attached above a doorway (into lathe and plaster) is a disaster waiting to happen, but it is holding up ok at present.

Moving bathroom around put new soil pipe against wall, turned to get drill, had to let go of soil pipe, 4m of 4 inch soil pipe smashed into my head requiring several stitches.

First plumbing attempt was installing central heating, beautiful job all finished ready for filling. Forgot to use flux (didn’t know I had to) pissed water throughout the house. Had to redo every joint.

Putting a shower in for a girlfreinds freind got all the bits, pull cord 10mm cable etc, he only has a power shower off hot and cold. Replanned got the right bits. All installed with compression fittings, turned water on but hadn’t screwed up the cold compression fitting, blew the fitting off water jetting into my face while she is on the phone to my GF water starts pissing down the wall of her listed cotteage!!!!!!!!!! 😀 Good outcome in the end though with no damage.

Installing a big ceiling rose on which the instructions say to use coving adhesive, but as I’m putting it up I think to myself there is no way this is going to hold so I’ll go get my drill and pop a couple of self-tapers in to be sure. But it seems to be holding so I’ll nip down the ladder and grab my *CRASH*

Broken ceiling rose and coving adhesive all over the floor and sofa… five minute job takes two hours.

Managed to clean up and did “functional” repair on refit of ceiling rose before wife and kids came home.

Even though my saw was set to go though the minimum board thickness it still cut through a pipe… How we laughed!

My Dad did exactly that when I was a kid. He claims the depth stop slipped.

Just installed 8 more paving slabs to give us a usable patio, only broke two 🙁

My mate was a fitter for British gas and when he was an apprentice, stuck his head through a gap in the floor boards to shout his mate who was getting something from the van. He couldn’t get his head back through the gap and the family’s labrador took a shine to it and basically shagged his head until the van mate came back and dragged it off.

😆

Another one – I ended up with a kitchen waste flood through the kitchen and into the dining room. Kitchen waste pipe drained down through to the adjacent bathroom waste, and then out under the wall and conservatory to where we knew the main drain was. Kitchen sink water had been backing up and there was a funny smell in the bathroom with a damp patch in the cement floor. Part of the cement floor was a cement “plug” which was being damaged from below by the backed up waste… pop goes the plug and all the waste backed up in the pipes comes up through the floor. Clean that up – get a rodding guy out who jets down the hole in the floor and re-floods the house before realising this is pointless… the fix was to hack a hole in the conservatory floor and find the blockage which was in an old victorian drain which had been cemented over when the conservatory was built. Fix holes in bathroom and conservatory floors (with proper access points of course 🙄 ).

Dad once drilled a 15mm hole (for plumbing) in floorboards in corner of room of house he was doing up, then same in ceiling of room below.

They didnt line up so he asked no.3 son (me) to climb up ally steps resting on wet concrete floor and poke big screwdriiver through hole to see where it came out above.

Cue big bang, heavily damaged screwdriver, wildly swearing son and blown ring main fuse.

He told me to calm down, I pointedly informed him that it was attempted involuntary manslaughter and never, ever, ever, ever helped him again.

I once had a job in London working for a construction site. My first project was leveling the two upper floors in Harrods (used to two separate buildings). During the day when the customers were in we had to use the medium sized kango hammers to keep the noise down. Once the shop closed I got to break out the big toys. I got little carried away with the daddy kango and managed to punch a fairly large hole clean through the 4th floor ceiling. I’d guess about two tonnes of rubble, along with myself and the hammer fell through and destroyed a rather impressive sports goods display.

I’d guess about two tonnes of rubble, along with myself and the hammer fell through and destroyed a rather impressive sports goods display.

is that a thread winner?

The Labrador one was good tho 🙂

Carefully measure proposed sink location in kitchen then send dimensions to worktop company to cut out the hole.

Worktop arrives, and discover that you should have measured more carefully, as the pipe feeds to the sink are coming down where the dishwasher should be fitted.

Solution – use jigsaw to cut relevant section off side of dishwasher casing.

The number of ridiculous plumbing and electrical bodges in my first flat are mind-boggling, looking back. I pity the poor buggers who inherited it off us.

Fortunately my dad was a lecturer in electical installations, so he knows

a) everything there is to know about domestic wiring
b) how houses, floors, ceilings etc are made intimately
c) how technical some things are and not to mess with these things unless you know what you are doing – so he never touched gas.

However, he was not always so wise and proficient. As a young man he was a mining electrician, and him and a mate (somehow, not sure how) managed to take out the power to the entire town when fixing something at the mine.

OH yeah, I know not to mess with well anything beyond my skillset, so pretty much everything upward of decorating, so got my GFs dad (pipefitter) to come and bung an extra couple of radiators in our house. Remove pipe boxing, hmm why are there 3 feed pipes, ah well start cutting sssssssssssssssssssss ah that’ll be gas in a copper pipe next to the water, awesome. Not a disaster but a tense few minutes.

You guys try proper technical DIY, I wouldn’t mind messing that up a little, but I wouldn’t try it in the first place!

Undid 4 mystery bolts in my son’s bedroom. Toilet cistern fell of the wall on the other side.

Not my finest hour.

Not a disaster but a tense few minutes.

Should have had a cigarette to calm your nerves.

I worked in a little hotel in Chamonix many summers ago. It had a pretty swanky Siemens telephone system and one morning a phone wasn’t working in one of the rooms. I took a look at it and no great problems, a wire has come loose. I’ll just strip of a little of the plastic sheathing, shove the wire back in and screw it tight. Don’t have anything to strip the wire so will use my teeth….. Bang! I know it wasn’t 240v but by god it hurt..

Manager found me wandering around the corridor dazed and confused…

Less than 24 hours later i also managed to pee on an electric fence whilst riding back from Argentiere.

I don’t like electricity.

This thread is a great reminder of why I don’t do DIY. I think I’ll let me wife read it to remind her why I don’t do DIY!

Undid 4 mystery bolts in my son’s bedroom. Toilet cistern fell of the wall on the other side.

I like that one 🙂

My dad used to run a small kitchen company. He sent out his fitter to instal a very expensive brass sink at a house. Fitter turns up, helpful neighbour let’s him in, fitter bit annoyed that cupboards are fill under sink but empties them and fits new sink. Dad goes round later to check job, no sink there. Footer had installed it in wrong house. They had to leave note for the people on holiday sayng sorry about the cock up, do you want this nice new sink?

Fitting a socket in the house of my mum’s friend, for a favour, my dad screwed the surface mounted socket box to the wall. Went into the hallway, saw screws sticking out of the wall. The interior walls were a single piece of plasterboard with no supports…

Broke my hand in two places using a large drill at arms length cutting a hole for a down lighter. It snagged on a larth and whipped round. Note to self don’t use big drills at arms length\use a clutch-less drill.
😥 😳

I did finish that hole and one other before a long sitting down in the bathroom with my hand in a bowl of cold water, where my wife found me looking a bit off colour like a cross between these two guys 🙁 before heading to hospital for x-rays and a cast

Cutting and hanging doors is a good one for cockups – you’ve got to take extra care not to cut the thing upside-down or hinged the wrong way. Have done about a dozen and haven’t cocked up yet… still got two to go though…

Harry_the_Spider – Member
Undid 4 mystery bolts in my son’s bedroom. Toilet cistern fell of the wall on the other side.

Not my finest hour.

Literally LoL

Just (last weekend) fitted a new cupboard / shelves / changing unit into my soon to be sons nursery. made from scratch, and very nice it was too.
As I came to leave the room, a creaking floorboard got my attention so drove a screw through, right next to the nail head to hold it down prior to carpeting.
Queue water pissing out of main cold feed to upstairs ensuite, pouring through the roof of the ceiling, straight through the new cooker hood and boiler I’ve just put in, all over the new oak worktops and the newly tiled floor. First job was to dismantle the newly built cupboard with what I had to hand to try to get to the pipework, in a panic I grabbed the only thing I had to hand, a large hammer and destroyed 2 days work in about 2mins….
How I laughed!