I cant see how you avoid that, you cant see the person that digs the road up to be an expert cable jointer or pipe fixer.
What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?
- Thread starter dave
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What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?
Bump caps are often sufficient for certain tasks, but I have actually had to explain this to H&S people before now.
I guess it's easier to have a simple rule - no hard hat, no job. But there are times (inspecting fibre cabling etc.) where a hard hat can actually increase risk from reduced visibility and likelihood of being dislodged when in confined spaces.
On the other hand, I have been hit by a falling spanner, which bounced off my hard hat and damaged a newly installed (very large) window instead of my head. (Turned out the spanner belonged to the company installing the windows, who were the same guys who damaged the underground duct my fibres were in, which was why I was there in the first place).
I guess it's easier to have a simple rule - no hard hat, no job. But there are times (inspecting fibre cabling etc.) where a hard hat can actually increase risk from reduced visibility and likelihood of being dislodged when in confined spaces.
On the other hand, I have been hit by a falling spanner, which bounced off my hard hat and damaged a newly installed (very large) window instead of my head. (Turned out the spanner belonged to the company installing the windows, who were the same guys who damaged the underground duct my fibres were in, which was why I was there in the first place).
It would be good if they all came from the same company and the left hand knew what the right hand was doing…everything these days is contracted out then subcontracted out again.
Wehn we had the electric put on the farm there were 28 vehicles, from four companies, mostly transits and land rovers, four supervisors and just shy of 50 workers, the only specialists were the two jointing the cables and fitting transformer, and the four guys qualified to work on live cables…the rest were cable layers and unofficial comedians from what I could tell
Confined spaces are a prime example where common sense isn’t that common.
You working on an electric board in a cupboard is completely different to someone working in a sewer, some of the risks are the same, the confined space, but the dangers and access egress (including rescue) are completely different
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
That'll be in the next 18 months to 2 years. New roads and Streetworks act specifies what goes in holes...... Actually a good idea as it avoids the inevitable and complete collapse that we used to see back in the 70's when they filled the hole with the suff that came out of it, or part of it. Now it has to be road materials. And, its more fun for them watching residents falling into the the excavations.
You’re right you’re not going to pay a specialist £Xxx per hour to dig a hole, but it was a post explaining the situation that PB was observing. Realistically better management/coordination of the various teams would make things a million times better.
Often we have finished road works with temp-traffic lights still in place for several days after the work has finished.
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
I spent 17 years telling one lot of people to do things right and the other lot to stop messing about wasting time....
I was amused to see some peope of the TV cutting scrub with na brush cutter on a mountain doing archaeology all wearing high vis. It must make it more difficult for them to be seen by passing trains, speeding boats and low flying trains,
The trouble is if you make flexible.rules both sets of idiots think they have a free pass to be stupid. Generally I found management far far worse than the workfoce, Workers are sometimes lazy and forgetful. Management are wilful and deliberately negligent. Good managers are extraoedinarily raee things and under rated by those who pay them. I remember the day when top management decided they mujst be given their accident frequncy data and this must be provided by nmid day or else dont come in in the morning.... I really enjoyed pointing out in an email to the entire email circulation list that if they read the reports they had been given for the last three years since I joined them that this was a central thread of the information they had been given and that I cordially invited them to expalin why they had not read it and questioned if they could read at all. Result.... No reaction whatsoever.
When I was a student we were shown some really gruesome accident in the work place films, on lad even went outside and threw up, things like jumping off a car ramp and finger caught in door handle ripping it out and another were a guy was wearing a expandable metal watch strap shorting it across a battery and it melting into his wrist.
Needless to say when at lunch straight afterwards I was waggling sausages around to successfully put people off their lunch for me to eat
.
I will say though I did always have a healthy self preservation instinct.
Also for the last 35 years of before retiring I worked on my own , it was only when someone else got involved that accidents were more likely.
Needless to say when at lunch straight afterwards I was waggling sausages around to successfully put people off their lunch for me to eat
.I will say though I did always have a healthy self preservation instinct.
Also for the last 35 years of before retiring I worked on my own , it was only when someone else got involved that accidents were more likely.
As someone who has spent a lot of time wandering in and out of operating theaters in my professional life (not just wandering around the hospital) I have seem more than my fair share of such accidents.When I was a student we were shown some really gruesome accident in the work place films, on lad even went outside and threw up, things like jumping off a car ramp and finger caught in door handle ripping it out and another were a guy was wearing a expandable metal watch strap shorting it across a battery and it melting into his wrist.
Needless to say when at lunch straight afterwards I was waggling sausages around to successfully put people off their lunch for me to eat
I will say though I did always have a healthy self preservation instinct.
Also for the last 35 years of before retiring I worked on my own , it was only when someone else got involved that accidents were more likely.
I still have a lot of friends in those areas so still get updates occasionally about particularly gruesome cases.
I remember a dismembered hand picture used to warn of the dangers of car batteries when I was younger, there is nothing quite like the real thing.
Had a nice chat with a couple of plastics consultants a few years back now while they reattached a farmer's arm who had nearly fully amputated it in reaching into the front of a running tractor engine, got it caught in the belts, was only held on with the skin.
Typical farmer though, drove the tractor home before calling an ambulance.
All I'm gonna say is...oof.
I'm sure you're wife has her share of stories to tell.
I once watched a very sweet little old lady who had just come out of major hip surgery, hold a zimmer frame above her head and screaming at the consultant "do I F**king look like I need to stay in hospital"
That made me smile, she went home later that afternoon.
I have many interesting stories to tell.
All very valid comments, but the hole is about 9" deep, partially filled, so just a step down, not a fall into. Looks like they've fitted a water meter, and are waiting for the top surfacing.
There's a plastic fence around it. It is on the footpath.
Earlier, I stood next to the fence, nothing to see really, no hi-vis, no hard hat, just a member of the public passing by. No work being done, no machinery, no risk other than that we all face standing outside, such as a bird pooping on us, or dropping its lunch, etc.
Railway workers wear hard hats. Don't think they'll stop a train. Above them, just the sky.
There's a plastic fence around it. It is on the footpath.
Earlier, I stood next to the fence, nothing to see really, no hi-vis, no hard hat, just a member of the public passing by. No work being done, no machinery, no risk other than that we all face standing outside, such as a bird pooping on us, or dropping its lunch, etc.
Railway workers wear hard hats. Don't think they'll stop a train. Above them, just the sky.
they probably should have done a deep excavation risk assessment then !
Maybe they should have considered closing the road entirely for safety and maybe blocked off some of the adjacent roads to limit the traffic impact of the rerouted traffic…
Maybe irrelevant, but some years ago I heard and located a water leak under my house just before the kitchen door, on pulling up floor boards I could see a old disused iron water pipe dripping, causing a large wet patch near the foundations, I followed it to the front door and then dug up my drive trying to locate it.There was a water pool which was running in to the other end of the old sawn off iron water pipe which must have been replaced years ago but left in the ground. On getting to the pavement I had to stop as outside my "jurisdiction". I rang the water company saying " This may sound silly but I have a water leak under my house and I think your responsible". At first they said if it's your side of the water meter we can fix it but it is your liability. I said it appears to be under the pavement but the Council will not let me dig the pavement.
In the end the fault had been caused by their contractors when preparing the road for water meters and fitting the meter bases had made a poor joint to my existing supply. If I hadn't found it once connected to a metered supply my bill would have constantly reflected this.
It all worked out well in the end I laid a new piece of the blue alkathene to a new stop cock in the kitchen and the water board connected it to their meter, then gave me a refund on estimated water lost .
The only cost to me was re concreting my drive!
Regarding issues with older properties , my first house in 1977, the terraced "two up and two down" I bought after just getting married, as we were going away for a couple of weeks in the Winter I thought it sensible to turn off the water mains outside my house on the pavement. On return I found out it had been turned on again owing to my actions shutting down the water supply for three other houses!
I wonder what the water bill would have been for a later occupier if a meter was fitted?
In the end the fault had been caused by their contractors when preparing the road for water meters and fitting the meter bases had made a poor joint to my existing supply. If I hadn't found it once connected to a metered supply my bill would have constantly reflected this.
It all worked out well in the end I laid a new piece of the blue alkathene to a new stop cock in the kitchen and the water board connected it to their meter, then gave me a refund on estimated water lost .
The only cost to me was re concreting my drive!
Regarding issues with older properties , my first house in 1977, the terraced "two up and two down" I bought after just getting married, as we were going away for a couple of weeks in the Winter I thought it sensible to turn off the water mains outside my house on the pavement. On return I found out it had been turned on again owing to my actions shutting down the water supply for three other houses!
I wonder what the water bill would have been for a later occupier if a meter was fitted?
There are still a lot of properties with a shared supply. Generally the water company resists fitting meters, as separating the two can be a lot of work. My father's old house in Bristol was one such, with the stopcock in the street out the front, one pipe under the house, all teh way to the back, where the kitchen had been added later, only then branched off to feed the two houses separately, under his concrete kitchen floor.Regarding issues with older properties , my first house in 1977, the terraced "two up and two down" I bought after just getting married, as we were going away for a couple of weeks in the Winter I thought it sensible to turn off the water mains outside my house on the pavement. On return I found out it had been turned on again owing to my actions shutting down the water supply for three other houses!
I wonder what the water bill would have been for a later occupier if a meter was fitted?
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
I think they like to leave the holes open so the sides and start to fall in . This makes the repair 2nd rate and the hole to appear again before too long. Its a bit like towing a caravan ans seeing how long you can get the queue,
They filled it in yesterday, apparently waiting for the surfacing crew. Quite a nice job, except the square surround around the water meter is not parallel to the footpath. As it is actually a round fitting on a round pipe, why is this so difficult to do?
Years ago, a work colleague arrived home to find a hole outside his house, blocking his drive. I can't remember which utility it was, but they were replacing a manhole. Large rectangular thing.
Next day, they'd finished, but the cover was not parallel with the footpath, despite the utilities underneath being so.
He complained, and pursued it up the chain. A week later, a senior engineer arrived, by appointment, to inspect. He agreed it was a poor effort, and two days later, the contractors arrived to straighten it.
Years ago, a work colleague arrived home to find a hole outside his house, blocking his drive. I can't remember which utility it was, but they were replacing a manhole. Large rectangular thing.
Next day, they'd finished, but the cover was not parallel with the footpath, despite the utilities underneath being so.
He complained, and pursued it up the chain. A week later, a senior engineer arrived, by appointment, to inspect. He agreed it was a poor effort, and two days later, the contractors arrived to straighten it.
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
So I should say !!
Busiest day ever.. up early this morning, had to load up wife’s car with boxes for storage in preparation for moving. Help her get the boy up and ready and into the car as well, while i did a normal 9-5, except she had to go to work for 5pm que having to set up button moon on an iPad in his room (he is totally enthralled with button moon and shows no interest in anything else) watched him on the monitor on my desk while finishing off the last 30 mins of work.
Then get him up and about, he needed feeding, to stretch his legs and to have a bath before bed, I needed to eat so quick trip to the chipshop for a bag of chips, then as soon as the bub was down and asleep i needed to get the rear brakes on the golf changed ready for its MOT on Wednesday. Never had new rear brakes in 94k miles, took about half an hour to find all the tools, annoyingly found VW used a weird Torx bit that was about T70 or so that no sane person would have in a home tool kit, thankfully a 13mm bolt to take the caliper off the slid pins and then there was enough room to get the old disc out and the new disc in without forcing it.
Both sides done in about an hour, checked and they seem ok much better than they were and the calipers where at the limit of their travel and the handbrake was beginning to creep up, now working brilliantly again and handbrake back to normal, also the brakes seem much sharper once again, probably again due to being at the limit of their travel.
Packed everything up being sure to put all the spanner’s back in their rolls so as not to lose any. I don’t like to go looking for a tool and finding its not there, always keep a spare supply of 10mm spanner’s and sockets.
All done and dusted, baby fast asleep still, let the dogs out for their evening ablutions, and now collapsed on the bed in an air conditioned room…. All finished by 9pm. Now i just need to do some of my course work for my online course.
Shiny new OEM VW parts fitted from TPS
Pads new versus 94k miles
Then get him up and about, he needed feeding, to stretch his legs and to have a bath before bed, I needed to eat so quick trip to the chipshop for a bag of chips, then as soon as the bub was down and asleep i needed to get the rear brakes on the golf changed ready for its MOT on Wednesday. Never had new rear brakes in 94k miles, took about half an hour to find all the tools, annoyingly found VW used a weird Torx bit that was about T70 or so that no sane person would have in a home tool kit, thankfully a 13mm bolt to take the caliper off the slid pins and then there was enough room to get the old disc out and the new disc in without forcing it.
Both sides done in about an hour, checked and they seem ok much better than they were and the calipers where at the limit of their travel and the handbrake was beginning to creep up, now working brilliantly again and handbrake back to normal, also the brakes seem much sharper once again, probably again due to being at the limit of their travel.
Packed everything up being sure to put all the spanner’s back in their rolls so as not to lose any. I don’t like to go looking for a tool and finding its not there, always keep a spare supply of 10mm spanner’s and sockets.
All done and dusted, baby fast asleep still, let the dogs out for their evening ablutions, and now collapsed on the bed in an air conditioned room…. All finished by 9pm. Now i just need to do some of my course work for my online course.
Shiny new OEM VW parts fitted from TPS
Pads new versus 94k miles
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Yeah way to go...I absolutely feel like my evening of Pizza and television was comparably productive.
