More confessions of a security installer...

[Service Engineer]

I did knock of the network at a factory once, in fact I knocked of the entire Factory. Site manager was well //.B.W.F.//, Workers were well impressed that one switch could cause so much hastle. Everything stopped for an hour except me

[sparky83]

My colleague once did someone a favour by climbing up someones roof during an install to remove a A1 dummy that he had put up several years ago and asked for us to take it down on an install. It had rusted up, so had to crowbar it off the wall .... only problem was it came off and rolled down the roof and landed on his brand new rover!

The same guy drilled a pipe a couple of years ago butted right up to a floorboard with a 20mm spade bit. The place was in the process of being done up and pots of paint were still down in the hall. But it ended up costing us £750 to rectify. The moral of the story - if you can get away with it use your own plumbers to avoid paying for someones refurb stuck on your price! They just thought insurance job stick it all on this bill and make the alarm company pay.

Also when I first started working in this job at 16, I managed to overload the supply to the phone system in a Doctors surgery by plugging the hoover into the same double socket. Caused chaos for a few minutes.

[arfur mo]

when working for one alarm co. management decided instead of using proper electricians, to use their service engineers to run new cables and fit the power sockets for the new service dept. i managed to avoid most of this well i'd seen some of the work but got ropped in to diss of the old sockets and connect the new ones to the fuse board.

it was a very hot heatwave thursday way into the late 80's and muggy the way only london can get before an easter bank holiday. i grabbed some steps and started on the old metal cased fuse board thinking ten mins i'd be done earn brownie points sorted.

i know i should have dissed the power but being younger and even more stupid than i am now i worked 'live'. carefully pulled the old wiring out and inserted the new. no probs all was fine. i decided to close the lid which had not been done for some time, i needed to push sum older wires arround. so with the back of my insulated pliers and sweat now pouring into my eyes, i carefully pressed on a cable. blinding flash, very loud bang - hot sparks felt and the smell of singed hair caused a reflex jump on to an adjacent desk - that some TW&T had moved. i ended up in a now smoldering pile on the floor and steps atop of me.

now Central Station was on the floor above, and i could hear all the power fail sirens going off (days of direct lines/private wires) i also now have a perfectly invers tunnel vision, complete with a pretty orange ball directly in front of me burnt into my optic nerves from the spark.

there then ensued a frantic hunt for a blown fuse as we needed to restore power to cs, so my manager, several others and i (but i don't know why i bothered as i could not see anything other than the orange ball) ripped open cupboards in the search for and eventually found the main 3 phase 'company' fuse from road was blown, you know the one in that pitch filled box as it comes out of the ground.

over the time as more and more power was loaded onto the existing mains supply the 50 amp fuse had kept blowing due to overloading. unknown to me it had been replaced with a bit of fence wire - hence the realy spectacular fireworks as the 500 amp phase fuse blew.

the company had now to call in the LEB who arrived after 4 hours and immediately condemmed the feed, so it had to be replaced all the way from the road into the building - over easter weekend at an horendous cost.

no mains power to CS = no aircon, no kettles, no chilled drinks, fridge or cooking, and no fans (even in the bog phew!) all this in a heat wave with no openning windows (Boy was i popular ). somehow they blagged a couple of extension leads and hooked up the alarm frames from the other side of the building, so at least they could maintain monitoring.

management seemed to blame me for for the cause of this cost but did not have a direct go. it was not really my fault that a perished cable had not been replaced and this bang could hace happened at any time. they should have used electricians but then they would have refused to work after one look. someone should never fitted the fence wire to the fuse so might have been a bit wary of a legal issue, and they knew i can take care of myself in that department:P .

i got all the so called bad. late or hard calls after that for ages - but if you are any good at what you do nothing is a real challenge - but i don't do that electrotrick work no more though! B) .

just a small appendum -:

i managed to get my own back after a few months. for some reason the ventaxia exaust pipe from CS toilet had to be repositioned due to some water tank or other needed on the roof. it got directed towards the main office buildings aircon intake. noticing this i offer to work in CS on some awkward mod's that nobody else wanted to do, on a pretext of making peace. i stored up a teethe clenching megger N0.2 and dropped its evil contents in the CS bog.

net result offices on 5 floors evacuated for 2 hours due to suspected fractured sewer and possible health wrisks - priceless!

revenge is either best served cold - or smoking

[hastings]

I'll tell you what though. When I've worked with apprentices. Come to think about it, when I've worked with anyone, I've always told them that I have 'The Force' lol.

In 10 years, 1 pipe and maybe 3 mains cables is pretty good going. Ok. All that in over 1000 installs then. Sounds better now lol.

Seriously though, arrogance will be ones undoing. But confidence will be ones saviour. Theres people here at Sentry Alarms in Hull who think I'm some sort of second coming. And all it boils down to is confidence. I take the tasks others pap their pants with.

I still pap my pants likes but I don't show it.

Whats the worst that can happen?

Thats how I look at things. If I worried too much about things, I'd never install anything. I'd be a waste of time and space.

Tony

13 yrs, 1 diagonal mains to a light switch and one diagonal plastic central heating pipe.

JEDI

ok, the last one flooded a corridor in a secure hospital tho.

[arfur mo]

installing pab system in smokers/spirits kiosk of Safeways @ Seven Sisters N7, just before one christmas. stores busy as hell three young girls serving, and me squashed under the counter, all of a sudden one girl lifts hers skirts, drops draws has a really good sort out and redresses - liturally right in front of my face, i decide to spare her blushes being the gallant sole i am. but being now somewhat distracted i drill hole and put tip straight through plastic socket - BANG! - no lights and no till.

i clamber out and come face to face with the girl, who had not known until then i was there, then the realisation dawned what i might have seen, and she would not ask in case it gave away the 'secret', and i could not say anything spontaniously that i had not seen anything, as how could you brouch it? so just gave her a freindly wink which actually made it worse for her.

i did not tell the irate store manager what had actually happened or her pals, just took the shellacking in a dazed good grace - well how could i complain .

that girls obvious but silent embarresment over the next few hours was absolutely Priceless!

regs

arfur_mo