Working Conditions

[chris1971]

What was the worst working conditions you have ever experienced as an electrician?

Mine was:

Going into a lift station and replacing some float switches. Got home and burned the clothes I was wearing that day.

 

[cpal]

replacinging TIT harness at 2 AM on in Jan on a -14 trubine.

 

[jjhoward]

Taking a main breaker panel out of a kitchen cabinet and re-locating it to an exterior wall.
The tenant renting out this house wasn't fond of throwing out the garbage.
There was almost 12" of GARBAGE on the floor in the kitchen and quite a bit on the counter tops. We just swept a path the best we could.

 

[iMuse97]

What was the worst working conditions you have ever experienced as an electrician?

Mine was:

Going into a lift station and replacing some float switches. Got home and burned the clothes I was wearing that day.

You weren't worried that the environmental air in your neighborhood would be permanently damaged?

For myself, I think I've worked everyday in beautiful, climate-controlled conditions... Oooo? What dreamworld was that? I would say that the day I was running rigid pipe alone, on the windward side (15-20 mph wind), and the temperature never rose above zero Farenheit. Or was it the time the asbestos abatement people were working upwind?

 

[ty]

just going to work at all is the worst working conditions, somedays

 

[SEO]

One that I'll never forget is when I was an apprentice I had to run conduit thru a crawl space under a grain mill. There was an opening on the side by the railroad tracks to enter the crawl space. When I opened the door all you could see were rats. Some of the rats were eating dead rats. I did go in and run the conduit. I'm sure that it wasn't a code complient installation.

 

[jmargolis79]

I was once ina rat infested crawl space above a loading dock at a major airport. It was winter so all the trucks were always running. The crawl space was black from exhaust and smelled like rat urine. Oh and it was cold. 100+ feet belly crawling to get to the j box i was looking for.

 

[dbuckley]

Several years ago I worked with a chap who in a previous life was instructed to climb a radio mast in a lightning storm to replace an antenna that got fritzed by a previous strike.

 

[PetrosA]

Wow, after reading some of these stories, I am never ever ever ever ever gonna complain again.

My own meager worst stories would be cockroach infested buildings and troubleshooting a Nelson water heater in sub-zero temperatures in high wind. I had tears from the pain in my hands on that one, but it sure doesn't compare to climbing a tower in a lightning storm...

 

[readydave8]

pig farm..................................

 

[masterinbama]

Chicken processing plant. You won't eat chicken for a long time afterwards.

 

[rodneee]

at a meeting in a small jobsite trailer with 15 + - chain smoking electricians listening to some safety speech.

 

[qcroanoke]

Chicken processing plant. You won't eat chicken for a long time afterwards.

I'll drink to that!
Took me a long time to get that out of my mind.....

 

[480sparky]

Well-established restaurant kitchens. Especially Chinese.

 

[Regularkevin]

40' underwater and 100' away from an ladder to get to the surface of the pontoon. I was part of a retrofit job on the Hood Canal Bridge. Had to use sniffers every time we went back in the hole.

 

[mivey]

Under a restaurant. Sewer lines had rotted/broken away so all the waste accumulated in the building crawl space (it was like a concrete-walled pit). They did not notice until it was deep enough to start entering the junction boxes mounted on the bottom of the floor and circuits started failing.

After it was pumped out to allow access, I spent several days crawling around in the residual mud/sewage muck that was seething with maggots. The boss peeked in before we got started and agreed to pay me double time.

He did all the heavy lifting from up top. :grin:

 

[Cold Fusion]

Under a restaurant. ...

yuck - shiver - gag That beats mine by a long ways.

Early 70s, raw sewer outfall manholes going to the ocean: Changing the chart paper and winding the clockwork on flow measuring weir recorders. Had to do that about once a week. Once a month, the high tides came up in the manholes - had to remove the recorders for a day then put them back.

There were occasionally some interesing things caught on the measureing floats.

cf

 

[K8MHZ]

My worst was in a steel mill in Gary, Indiana.

But I'll take cold, wet and dangerous over stench and rat infestation any day!

Yuck!!

 

[chris1971]

All very interesting stories. Keep them coming.......

 

[JLCELEC]

Installing a 20 amp receptacle in a elevator pit in the south bronx NYC