Construction Talk with the Guys Weird Jobs

 As Cam and Frank work to fix the tavern walls, I can’t resist asking about the oddest jobs they’ve taken on. Between their stories and a few of my own, this episode uncovers the weird, unexpected side of the work we do. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_08 0:02

Oh god, I'm so glad the day has finally come. I blocked off the date, no reservations. I got some contractors on their way. Gotta fix these two big ass holes that Michael and Jeremy put in the wall on opening day. It's only taken about two months to get this done, but I can't wait for these guys to get here. I got four and a half star Raidens. When I was reading the reviews, the worst I heard is they would make more holes while they were fixing holes, but at this point they're the only contractors in my area. So we'll have to see how they come in.

SPEAKER_06 0:42

Oh hello. I don't gotta finish my monster.

SPEAKER_08 0:51

Oh can't get the day started without a monster. I I get that. I mean obviously.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

Alright, we're going. I'm here to fix some holes.

SPEAKER_08 1:00

Uh yeah, no. Uh right behind right beside the uh front door on either side. The two massive natural lighting holes.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Uh okay.

SPEAKER_08 1:11

Alrighty, and if you don't mind showing me the second one, please. Yep, right here. Five feet to the other side of the door. Alright. I feel like it should be pretty standard. I did have uh one guy try to offer to repair it using beef jerky, but when I brought up the bears in the area, I thought that was gonna be a problem.

SPEAKER_04 1:31

Yeah, alright. Did they ever get back to you?

SPEAKER_08 1:34

Uh yeah, he keeps trying to give me beef jerky to patch the hole.

SPEAKER_04 1:40

Okay, alright.

SPEAKER_08 1:41

So now I'm I'm assuming you guys would have a different approach.

SPEAKER_04 1:46

Yeah, of course. Obviously, I'm gonna hear just give me a few minutes. I'm also kinda arching a few quotes, see what your uh see what works around your budget due to, you know, you got two pretty uh hefty size holes here. Um adding up the time and labor for it. Alright, the results are in. You ready?

SPEAKER_08 2:09

Uh yeah, no, hit me. Can't fix it, have a good day. No, no, no. What if what if I offer you guys some drinks? I just got a fresh barrel of Dr. Pepper ice cold in the back. Oh, alright.

SPEAKER_04 2:25

Now we're to ice ice cold, you say.

SPEAKER_08 2:28

Ice cold wood barrel.

SPEAKER_04 2:33

And run back to the vehicle and cabool and get started.

SPEAKER_08 2:36

Perfect. And while you guys are doing that, man, I used to do some construction before all the podcasting goes. Have you guys ever had some weird ass jobs you've seen? Because I know I've had my fair share.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

I've had a fair share. Yeah, I'm gonna say I've I've oh let me roll the dice on this one. I've had a fair share, no matter if it just was like a few things I've seen, things happening, or just like you know, it being misquoted, you're there to do one thing and it just turns out to be a full project and a half.

SPEAKER_08 3:13

Oh, I know. It's supposed to be like a simple job, hour tops turns into a three-day project.

SPEAKER_04 3:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_08 3:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

I think any of or just like it's only it's only going to be an hour and it cost you your back. And whatever patience you have for the rest of the week, because it always seems to be a Monday.

SPEAKER_08 3:37

Back when I used to do strictly insulation, I would have to pre-face if a job was only 800, 900 square feet, I'd have to preface all of my customers and let them know, hey, I want you to know, get this job done. It's not gonna take a long time. It's gonna take more time pulling out the hose to blow in the insulation and clean up the hose than it will for me to actually be in that attic. Because if I didn't pre-face it, you would have a reaction like, hey, I'm paying a thousand dollars here. Why were you up there for 15 minutes?

SPEAKER_04 4:20

And it's like that's that has always been an issue, but not necessarily as long as that has been properly communicated and understood.

SPEAKER_05 4:29

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 4:30

Because sometimes I've noticed that what we have to tell you, you know, you gotta spend the money, but you also gotta make it, you know, and you wouldn't really make money if you just went there and did it too quick and you know, got it done. And uh have to add in that time of labor because I've also seen it where oh yeah, just gonna go in real quick, couple hours max out of here, turn into a 10 hour, twelve hour about to want to blow this house up and never see it again.

SPEAKER_08 5:08

I th I think we've all been on a job like that. I know one of the weirdest jobs I did. Um all we were doing it was a blown-in fiberglass job. It required two blow-in trucks because it was a 5,500 square foot house long. And whoever was the architect or the designer on this job had some weird quirks about them because throughout this house there was natural skylights built in. So, what that equated to is up in the attic, you had knee walls from the uh uh top plate all the way up to the roof line and these giant hallways of what's actual attic space.

SPEAKER_04 6:05

Are you saying that instead of a normal skylight, you know, here and there, one or two throughout the house, they mean the hallway length the size of a skylight. Or m sorry, made the skylight hallway length.

SPEAKER_05 6:25

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 6:26

Yes. That sounds like a what you would see in a mall.

SPEAKER_08 6:31

No, exactly. That that's the and I can only picture the framing and then in the center of the house we had an open exposed yard with a tree grown through the house or like through the the center square. So again, that sounds like a museum in the attic space. We have knee walls for that entire section of house around it. We needed five hundred fifty feet of hose connected, five hundred to six hundred. We had to bring both rigs out to be able to do that. Me and the other blower were up there, we were tag teaming it, but it's like once you did one section, you'd have to like walk all the way back and then hop into another section. And it was maze-like the entire time. It took us a total of four hours of straight blowing. 270.

SPEAKER_04 7:36

Found like a nightmare house.

SPEAKER_08 7:38

250. 270 bags of fiberglass.

SPEAKER_04 7:43

Uh 270 bags of fiberglass. Was it?

SPEAKER_08 7:47

Yes. It was a bear house, and we were blowing. And the greatest thing about this is the reason we had to have so much hose is the house had two attic accesses. However, the attic access on one side of the house was in a child's room.

unknown 8:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 8:08

On the clear other side of the house in the garage was the pull down hatch. Now the fun thing about that is you can't open the garage door to access the pull-down hatch. Uh because it would block the hatch.

unknown 8:31

What?

SPEAKER_08 8:32

The second you got the even the first pin will the garage door up. So, like, say it's like we tried closing it with leaving enough for the hose, and it was still going just over the drop down of the hatch.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

That is the design, Dad. That is the worst design I have ever heard.

SPEAKER_04 8:52

Yeah, no, we had to be 100% somebody with money and custom.

unknown 8:56

Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_04 8:57

It would I don't see that being logical.

SPEAKER_08 9:00

And I want to say we were doing this house in June or July. And this was about five o'clock in the afternoon, is when I pulled up with my rig, because I finished all my other jobs. So I was pulling up on this job already trying to get started, and then we had to fit uh go through one hatch, all the hose, no hose pressure by the end of it, because our machines weren't large. Like Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:34

Even if being large and adding extra hose, that doesn't sound like that would work too well. It got something that worries me because I I had a I've had a few jobs that have been either that big or that stupid. I can only picture that being like a 10 o'clock day when you're all finished.

SPEAKER_08 9:56

Oh, I think I think we pulled out of that job around nine. It was like eight or nine hours.

SPEAKER_04 10:12

They were probably trying to, hey, just as one truck is all we need out there.

SPEAKER_08 10:16

No, exactly. And yeah, that was that was one of my weirdest jobs that I've seen. But I'm obviously you both have done plenty of blue-collar work. What about you guys? What do you have?

SPEAKER_04 10:29

I've done I've done some pretty large houses um that have eaten like 300 bags of cellulose. Um they sent us there the first day, like our truck was full, and we took the backup truck, flew through that. So the next day we had to come back, load up the same amount, and the second truck was like halfway full. Um, but the worst one when it comes to length was just, you know, midway through the week. Hey, we got an insulation job. It's only was it like I don't remember the square footage, but I know it was roughly around a thousand, maybe like twelve hundred square feet. We can get, and you know, on the on the thing it says a unit. So automatically, right there in the morning, all right, load up the bags, just some air sealing, just some insulation, right? I see a unit, I'm already predicting it's gonna be a complex. Not sure what type of complex, but it's gonna be an apartment complex, so parking's gonna be tight. So getting closer to the job, getting closer to the job, getting closer to the job. Noticing that as I'm getting closer, I'm not really seeing much of a complex. I'm seeing more of a downtown. It's a and then we get closer and we find out that it's a complex towards one of the downtowns. Yeah. I don't remember which one. But it was like each, there was multiple buildings in this complex, and all of them were a few stories up. And they're oh boy. So call the homeowner, hey, uh, we're outside. You know, could you give us a tour inside? Uh show us show us how to get to your apartment, because I don't know who scheduled this. Uh I think it might have been over-the-phonal job, and I think they had a sales guy that come out and say, hey, it was, you know, it was good. And the more that I was starting to do the work, the more it was like, I don't know, this is good. So he takes his hand, we take an elevator, we go up to the top floor. It was at least four or five stories tall. I was like, I think I called in the office right after he showed us the hash that was on the roof. I looked down and I could see the truck, and I'm like, why didn't nobody tell us this is a complex? Because I was questioning if we even had enough phones. And this was just like a few hours into the day already. I already lost final and just trying to figure out.

SPEAKER_08 13:10

It's never fun as like a blown-in installer if you have to question if you have enough hose. I know that from experience.

SPEAKER_04 13:19

Material hits here and there, but it's mostly questioning if I have an oppose. Because it's like, I know I got a lot, but I do not know if I can clear the roof. The air pressure's gonna be right to get to the attic and blow the house once I get all the way back there. So I go to the front and I'm just like, all right, well, there's really only one way to know if we got an oppose, then it's just send it. Uh so had to just just take it, you know what? Just send it. Let's just let's just get it over. We're already knee deep in it. I got the homeowner all ready to go. He he did the bat bull itself. So there's a bat bull. He said he's he stayed up like he did it later in the day after work because he didn't want to pay for the bat bull. Understandable. Gotta give it to the guy. So I would do it. We weren't gonna our normal way for like a tall building would be like, you know, throw a rope down, pull the hose up, and you know, do that. No, this is on the side of a building, and we didn't want the holes to get caught or anything like that. Because we were hanging off the edge of a pretty tall building. Didn't want to be like, uh, hey, office, we just a guy, uh yeah, uh Kyle just fell off the rope. No one need that.

SPEAKER_06 14:36

So we wrap up, like I think we undid all of our links, pull them together, and then carry them through the hallways, up the elevator to the roof.

SPEAKER_04 14:57

And the easiest way to do it was just unravel it, slide it down the roof, have somebody pull the hose to the truck. And I don't remember if we were blocking any cars anywhere, but hooked it up by the grace of God, and made it. We blew it, done, out of there. Out of there. That was that one was pretty sketchy because it's like it was it was it was not supposed to be that tall, and nobody said a thing. And I didn't want to. I'm pretty sure the sales guy was like, we don't want to tell you we can't, so we're just gonna try it and see, you know. Oh, I know either way, I think we would have called Red Your Hose, but that would have just been too long of a day.

SPEAKER_08 15:37

Nah, I had a uh sales guy try selling a job that was too high, and his solution, because there's no way we'd get a hose, it was like seven stories up in downtown Phoenix.

SPEAKER_04 15:51

Oh no.

SPEAKER_08 15:52

Alright. His solution was have our guys unbolt the blow machine, uh dolly it into the service elevator, take it seven floors up, and then we would be able to do the job. He he he tried for a while to actually guess he. I think he got to the point because he wanted to make that job sale. I think he got to the point that he actually tried going out to do it with another project manager to, you know, I guess only a few things right here. He got it stuck in the stuck in the doorway.

SPEAKER_04 16:36

They let him okay. All right, I got a lot of questions.

SPEAKER_08 16:39

They let him take it out on a Saturday, and he got it stuck in the doorway.

SPEAKER_04 16:44

One, I want to know what he was smoking. Because those hoppers are huge and heavy. You know what? The average person's like what? You know, five and some chains, maybe, you know, around six feet tall. Those hoppers are tall and heavy.

SPEAKER_08 17:03

No, yeah, I think it's really single too. So, like the big blue guy, not the little half bag hopper, like full-sized.

SPEAKER_04 17:11

Yeah. Elevator doors only open so wide. Number two would be did anybody else hear his idea and truly understood what he said. Because as the second project manager, I would have looked at him crazy for not only knowing the size, but getting out there and still following through with taking the hopper up there.

SPEAKER_08 17:37

Yeah, that was a fun conversation when I had to tell him no, I wasn't gonna force my guys, I wasn't gonna have my guys do that. There's gonna be way too much potential for injury, and no, he's not gonna uh it's not a job that can be done. And he's like, Okay, he goes to the owner.

SPEAKER_04 17:58

Another one. What elbow grease was he using to not only dolly an entire hopper in there that normally get it in the elevator and get it stuck?

SPEAKER_08 18:10

I think he because they tried to have me buy them uh furniture dollies, so I think that's what they used was like the furniture dollies weighted for like a thousand pounds each, you get four of them. But I really don't know. Oh no, I really don't know exactly what I know. We got the we got the blower back.

SPEAKER_04 18:34

How'd they get that done? And as the homeowner, how scammed do you feel? Why did that just go down?

SPEAKER_08 18:41

No, I don't I don't think it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_04 18:47

Whoever was desperate, like the homeowner needed it done, and just nobody could get it done. Like you need some sizable equipment to get that done.

SPEAKER_08 18:57

Well now, and I know this next one, uh Kim, you'll be familiar with because we did this job together, but I gotta bring it up. The architect's design and redoing a roof that enabled us to go into an attic space that was a roof on top of a roof.

SPEAKER_04 19:21

Oh that house.

SPEAKER_08 19:23

Mm-hmm. I I knew the second you heard roof on roof, you'd remember. And for anyone who's trying to picture this roof on a roof, okay? So they added more structural support before placing the new roof. The first roof was a flatter pitch. So instead of removing the old shingle in and the old roof itself, they just built the new roof directly on top of it with new supports, new trend uh trusses, and kept the entirety of the old roof in the old attic underneath.

SPEAKER_04 20:02

Yeah, so the best way I can describe that job on why they did that. I've seen it before where they've redone the roof. I believe the house was too old to undo the old roof and much easier and smarter to keep the old roof just to keep the house together, build a new one on top, and keep the structure. I feel like because that's that older roof was an old style way to do it. If they would have removed that, the house probably had a chance to come down on it. Uh the other project I did a while back before it, where they did the same thing, except they removed and exposed a portion of that old roof and built a new one on top.

SPEAKER_08 20:55

I could see that a little bit more. I do know, because I heard through the grapevine too, our job that day was we were expected to blow in insulation into the original attic. And again, this attic space was more or less flat. Um, so there was no access into it from the uh downstairs or any side thing. Our only way to get insulation in here was to drill holes and below that insulation. Uh, and we would drill them through the roof itself, like the old roof.

SPEAKER_04 21:36

Yeah, so not sure for anybody else. It's just the the right way to do it because that's how insulation works. For insulation to work, it needs to be in contact with what it needs to insulate. If not uh any gap in between, it would just be pointless and create air pocket. Wouldn't really do much.

SPEAKER_08 21:55

And with air pockets, too, you always run the risk that uh moisture could develop. And trap. That's a big thing.

SPEAKER_04 22:02

Yeah, not so much in Arizona because the material goes in fairly dry. Obviously, we use the mister just to keep it down, but it wouldn't be enough moisture there to not only green mold, but to keep it alive down. So I don't see it happening. Um but for that particular house, I'm pretty sure the cells got with knowledgeable head. We need to get the insulation on the part where we need to get insulation in between the roofs. So obviously doing so inside of a on top of another roof, painting it. Um just trying to make sure not only was it 100% insulated, it was an old style roof, so there's nothing but obstacles. Pretty sure their electrical got redone at one point. And the old style roof was it was the old rollout roof, and they put root rocks on top of it. Like not just normal rocks, but normal rocks, actually. And then probably torch fit. More like a old like a commercial style. You ever seen those old school movies?

SPEAKER_08 23:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 23:14

Where they uh run across the roof, like in New York or something like that, where they run across the roof.

SPEAKER_08 23:18

You see the pebbles kick up and everything.

SPEAKER_04 23:20

Yeah. I feel like that in a way was some sort of protection for those. I don't know if it was an incest or I don't know. Some old style.

SPEAKER_08 23:29

No.

SPEAKER_04 23:29

But trying to actually cut all of those holes and blow it with a bunch of with a with an upcharge roof at that. So it was angled. We were going down the vaulted roof. Those rocks were hurting. I don't even care if you had knee pads on it, it would have sucked if you had just considered it hurt back in it.

SPEAKER_08 23:45

Once you went down into the eave lines, because you could we weren't able to dense pack it from the center of the attic. We wouldn't have enough hose for the dense pack, so we had to do multiple holes. Somewhere down in the eave line, somewhere about halfway up, and then we'd have like another row at the very top.

SPEAKER_04 24:04

Yep, there's a few things that stopped us from killing it, too. So you are correct. Um there was already going to be obstacles in the way. So of course, uh blowing in insulation, it would just keep plugging. We'd need to drill a new hole in it. The other thing that sucked was it was uh a target that's really used. It's called hit or miss, where there's pieces of insulation in there, there's pieces of insulation missing. You drill it and you find out, hey, there's insulation, all there's no insulation, and there's really no way to tell until you get all of those those drills. And uh even though we had multiple guys on the job, it was just that consistently in her fight the hose. And oh boy, that one, oh that's that's one of those jobs that yeah, I can get reminded of, but that's one of those ones I'll forget about never. But it's just somewhere in the back of my mind wanting me, like, please don't ever let me change it.

SPEAKER_08 25:01

All I can say about that job because it was a long day. Thank goodness we did it in the winter time of Arizona. Imagine doing that job if it was July, August, and 102.

SPEAKER_04 25:16

I would have hit somebody. I doubt I'd actually hit somebody, but then me would have probably wanted to hit somebody. Now I couldn't blame anybody for not being mad. One, it probably would have gone to the sales guy. Like, why'd you wait this long to sell this?

SPEAKER_08 25:31

We couldn't have to be able to do that. But I don't know. Now I am curious, Frank, you're an electrician, are you not?

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Uh on the apprentice level, yeah. But I did I did some 10 months program, I got a certification in it, and uh I've dabbled in it in the past before even before that when I was doing handiwork.

SPEAKER_08 26:04

So you've had to have seen some crazy things while you've been out, you know, trying to taste the electricity.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Um I don't think that that's the term I use.

SPEAKER_06 26:17

It's uh the term getting wired.

SPEAKER_04 26:20

The best story I can Yeah. The best the best way I can say this is we've all got experience, we've all got some sort of training. Um we all know how a job should be done. Because you know, the class teaches you one thing, but we're talking about hey, you're getting paid to do this, you do this routinely, you feel comfortable doing it, and then there's some things that you just run into that aren't routine, aren't by the script. Something is wrong here, somebody did something, and I it's a puzzle to figure it out because that's the only way to get your job done.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Yeah, so um give me like give me like one minute. I'm gonna go look in the back real quick at something else, and then I can talk about it a little bit. Um, because I've seen some stuff in my labs when I was doing that at college. Uh oh man. Um, not so much out in the field, but from talking with professors and from seeing it firsthand, service work versus new construction, very different ballgame. Whole different ballgame. You're talking about a puzzle to fix versus something that the previous guy fucked up that you can actually fix because it's a skeleton. You can kind of just move a couple bones around, it'll work all in the end. When you have sheetrock on top of insulation on top of steel or wooden beams behind a wall you can't x-ray vision through, especially with electrical, you got a lot more problems. And it it could be anywhere between, you know, hey, don't stick your finger in there, or that's gonna hurt you. Let me go fix that real quick and put a plate on it, versus your house is gonna burn to the ground.

SPEAKER_04 27:56

Yeah, and I gotta try to get the work done and not burn it to the ground and blow it up and kill some myself or somebody else.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Oh, yeah. Oh, oh yeah. Especially when you're dealing with things like exposed wires or um sketchy wiring. I'll get into that in a second.

SPEAKER_04 28:15

Let me go see a few things and I've dumped a few things. I guess yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Let me go check this thing out real quick. I'll be right back.

SPEAKER_08 28:23

Alrighty. Well, while he's uh doing that. No, I mean, in general, electrical electrical work is all over the place in the attics. I have seen some shoddy electrical work. It's always bad when you see there was this one time.

SPEAKER_04 28:45

This is a while ago, where they sent us out to the job. This was like our second job. Hey, you got that one done pretty f uh pretty quick. We got a small bat pool, small insulation job. Was it or is I think it was a small air ceiling and small insulation job, right? We climb in this attic, and there's an old style wiring. It's not wire. Well, it's it's aluminum wiring. And instead of being covered by like, you know, an old Romex, this is the old one that um it's rare to see actually. They wrap the entire thing with like they basically braid it. It's it's braided to insulate it and protect it.

SPEAKER_06 29:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

This stuff after not being protected and finally aged will literally disintegrate. So if I disintegrate, you barely touch it, it will fall apart. Now a picture that wrapping around a hot wire, ready to go, still holding the appliances on. There was one time that this same job, you know, uh quick insulation job gonna go do that.

SPEAKER_06 30:04

As soon as we climb in the attic, all you see is a we go to look at it. Someone had took one of those old insul uh the um old uh Romex staples.

SPEAKER_04 30:22

They're pretty they're pretty thick. They're about like a quarter inch thick, just about. And uh they're really sharp too, and they hammer those down. This particular wire was hammered down really good. That staple was making the wires connect. Somehow power was still staying on and not tripping the breaker. Uh yeah, we had to splice that, and it was so hard to splice because it just kept disintegrating more.

SPEAKER_05 30:47

Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 30:47

So it's like we need to cut it where this wire stops basically falling apart, connect the new wire so easily this one needed to be spliced. Had to splice it. Um, it just kept falling apart, and we didn't want to we had to put a J-box on it and stuff like that, because obviously, yeah, let's not have this house burned down. Um, but that one, like, man, as soon as we got in the attic, we were just having electrical issues. Just as soon as we got in the attic, just like, come on, it's just supposed to be quick, get out of here.

SPEAKER_08 31:21

Those are always the worst.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Yeah, attics are definitely fun, by the way, guys. I'm back. Um I've heard actually a couple stories while I was in college. I got along really well with my professors, and I talked to them a lot because a lot of them did service uh for many years. Some of them did a little bit of new construction, but the ones that I worked with, I actually had one that was a nuclear engineer, I believe. He was in a power plant up in Canada, a nuclear facility. Uh, I got a funny story about that. I'm gonna save that in this for a little bit later in this segment. So a lot of people, I don't know what you guys were talking about because I was out in the back real quick, but a lot of people, for whatever reason, uh, will just run the wire anywhere in an attic. If you've ever noticed that.

SPEAKER_03 32:15

Yeah, all the time.

SPEAKER_08 32:18

It's actually anywhere. It's wherever it's gonna be a problem for HVAC or installation workers, that's where you're gonna run your wire. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 32:29

I'm just gonna run the wire directly over the hatch. I'm seeing them run the wire directly over the hatch. And it's like, you can't be a two-faction.

SPEAKER_08 32:37

You're trying to put a hatch up being like, why can't the customer open this hatch? Why we cut it in a new hat? Oh, the wires won't even let you put a shit up. Oh champs.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

I've seen some some sketchy stuff, like the handyman who put a took the outlet in the attic, the um, or the service switch. I don't know. They took the um recess switch, the uh not the recess, that's the wrong term. The um the switch that's by the it's not a receptacle, no. It's the switch that was by the um front of the attic where the hatch was in the garage. I for the light switch.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Um yes, they took it okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

This was one of the more interesting things that I've seen. They straight up took the light switch, straight up took it. It's nowhere in the attic. Um and they wired it into a um an outlet strip, a power cord, uh, and just plugged a bunch of shit into it. And then somehow that caused um the outside outlet in the Lanaida just not work. And they they tucked it somewhere random where I couldn't even find it in the attic. Um apparently, apparently it was like behind the box or something because I had I had one of my professors go help them out because I was like, yeah, I don't want to crawl through the attic um and not know where that wire is if it has power to it.

SPEAKER_06 34:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:13

I can see where it should have gone, right? It sounds like they needed a new receptacle. The smarter way to do it would be obviously run a new wire to the breaker, run that wire from the breaker to wherever you needed it. Now you got power.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Yeah, put it in, put it in a box, put it in a box, put a blank plate on it, and wire in whatever you needed to wire in inside the box so that way it's secure in the attic. Not have it just floating somewhere in the installation, just sitting somewhere in the fiberglass.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

Yep. Yeah, I would hope they at least wire nutted it, wire nutted it and maybe electricity.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

So here's the thing with the National Electrical Code, Cam, you're not allowed to have power strips in the attic as a power source. That's illegal.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

Exactly. No, that's that's the thing.

SPEAKER_04 35:05

Uh the handyman job maybe because I've seen homeowners make their own power strip for the convenience of themselves. I've literally seen a homeowner smart enough to make an actual GFCI, their own power ship, uh power strip out of receptacles and an extension cord. Like he out of uh out of like uh it wasn't just PVC. He used like no PVC butt the clean pipe, like plain actual pipe. I'm like, if it works, it works, you know? And he said it could even float. He made it to float too. And I'm like, what?

unknown 35:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 35:46

Like I feel like it would have just been cheaper to just buy an extension cord and a power strip. No, he made it himself and he understood.

SPEAKER_02 35:51

And he plugged it in and it worked and it was safe. And I'm like, I'm not mad at it.

SPEAKER_04 35:57

But he did that, you know, the right way, not just throwing it in outer space and calling it done.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

This is my favorite, my my favorite saying in electrical, and I think this applies to most trades, uh, especially things like welding.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Um anywhere that you can fuck it up, there's always two types of people. There's always two types of people.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

There's your apprentice and licensed electrician, where they know what they're doing. They have the codes in front of them, they can read it. Because every electrician should have an uglies with them. If you don't know what that is, you're doing something wrong as an electrician. It's a small little handbook instead of carrying around that big ass NEC with 800 pages in it. It gives you a lot easier of a breakdown of the codes legally without carrying around a 10-pound textbook with you.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Yeah. And those are not expensive.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Um, that's not a very expensive thing to have. Now, where people can go wrong between group one and group two, group two is handymen. Handymen are the I got this guys. They're the people that know enough to be dangerous. That is what we call them in electrical. You're you know enough to know what you're doing, but you don't know enough to know how to do it safely or legally.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Or you jerry rigging in a way where it's not legal, or where you don't know. You don't know it's not safe.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

We do. And when you have things like when you're dealing with things like voltage switching or LED voltage and stuff like that, changes in voltage, changes in amperage, like overloading a circuit, which usually isn't a big deal. But when people are dealing with fuses, a lot of newer people don't know how fuses work. Um, we don't use fuses, obviously, but um, if you have to learn them because they have to be grandfathered, you have to learn them and learn how to switch those into um traditional breaker switches instead of a fuse box and a panel change, usually. Um that's a whole different thing. But there's people that jerry-rigged fuses back in the day where if the fuse popped, he could set it to where it'll still work. Now the problem with it is just like fuse breakers versus um the um the um what do they call it? The um the modern day switches. I can't remember the technical term for it.

SPEAKER_06 38:31

EFCIs or uh circuit breakers?

SPEAKER_01 38:33

No, they're circuit breakers, sorry. Um when you're dealing with circuit breakers, it's the same thing as a fuse, it's an overcurrent device. The reason why it popped is because there's too much current on that on that circuit. There's too much load on on what that load capacity is. And actually, circuit breakers are specifically designed to blow at a butt I think a little over 85-80% of the load to ensure that you don't cause a pop in the breaker. You're you're not gonna, you know, you're not gonna go over that threshold. Um and people back in the day, similarly to now when people mess with electrical, there was the people that knew enough to be dangerous. Yes, the people that knew enough to be dangerous figured out you could bypass the the fuse, which is a bad idea. And you know what happened to those people? You ever heard of a house fire in the middle of the night with people that have 50s, 60s, 70s housing?

SPEAKER_04 39:37

Yeah, those are those people because they know enough to be a generational where it's phasing out for sure.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Thank god, but you still have you still have those houses all over the place in Arizona.

SPEAKER_04 39:50

They if the wiring was still not done somewhere, it still exists, it still exists.

SPEAKER_08 39:56

I want to still get a date for those.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

It's not it's more not enough to do it safely, because when you're dealing with things like like, okay, I'm not gonna downplay any of the trades. All the trades are equally important, they all serve their own purposes. When you don't use proper fall arrests or safety or non-slip shoes as a roofer, you're gonna fall off a fucking roof. And you're gonna learn because workman's comp ain't gonna cover you. When you don't work with an arc flash suit and electrical, and you get blown up because you're working in front of a an 80-amp system uh at 240, 480 volts or 600 volts, and you get a huge hole in your stomach, or you get a nice tasty 3,000 to 30,000 degree surprise in front of your face, and have your eyebrows singed in front of your face, workman's comp ain't gonna cover you there. When you're welding and you decide to be a dumbass and leave the hoses on, or leave an oxygen tank on, and then the oxygen tank explodes and kills people. There's there's rules for a reason in every trade, even if we don't want to follow them. Because we all know about cutting quarters trying to get through the day because of complacency. Everybody gets complacent in their job when you're doing it. That's why, especially things like electrical welding, not so much plumbing. Plumbing 90% of the time, what you're gonna do is uh find out Poseidon is actually below the water or uh below the surface, and you know, you'll just be knee deep in shit literally. Um or you know, making seven holes in my yard, which is a different story for another time.

SPEAKER_04 41:43

Oh, that's that's yeah, that's a different type of electrical. So some of the things we do, obviously residential base, nothing too crazy, nothing out of the ordinary, you know. Uh usually fairly small, strictly electrical. A lot of the things that you mentioned, you get pretty deep into it where if you're digging holes in a yard, you're you're dealing with um more of the electrical provider for case such as uh how we have uh SRP or APSI here, where you're you're utility providers. If you're digging holes in the ground, you're kind of working for a utility provider. You want to make sure things are done safely. And then there's just the small home projects where it should have been just a quick small home project to uh more of something custom. Somebody just didn't want to spend the money or the time to do it, they just got it done, you know. And that's where a lot of those things have caused an issue over history, especially when, say, for example, hey, there's the uh I don't know the specific years for the actual books, but just an example. There's the 1990 handbook on how to get electrical done. Okay, a few years next. Here's the 2012 electrical handbook. That time in between the old one and the new one, things change and change rapidly. Some people keep up with the times, and some people, hey, it's an old school way, so it's not breaking. Things get miscommunicated and redone, and you get nightmares in between. Somebody just did some work, called it work, and closed their eyes and left.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Yeah, those people are very dangerous, especially for experienced trademans to come in behind them and have to do, you know, like you said, oh, this is gonna take an hour, but the puzzle actually becomes an eight-hour project or a three-day project, and now you're undoing somebody else's work and redoing it all over again the right way.

SPEAKER_04 43:35

The ones that get me are so bad. Hey, who rang that bell? That's just that last call bow. Yeah, I remember. We'll have a few more minutes, but are the ones where it's so bad. Hey, you're gonna have to pay somebody else to come do this. Because not only can I not do it, I don't feel safe doing it. You need to get this completely redone for it to ever be safe.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

Right.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Um, I got I got two other funny stories. Uh one of them short, one of them is a little longer. Um Danny, I do want you to talk about the guy who um was walking across the beams and then suddenly was not anymore two times. I want you to talk about that story because I thought that was really fucking funny.

SPEAKER_08 44:22

Yes. Oh yeah, no, he didn't even make it to the beams. That was the problem. Yeah, I can end with uh that one real quick before we wrap up.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

So in college, hold on. In college, when I was doing labs, um, I was really far ahead of everybody else. Maybe it's just because, like I said, I'm very technical. I can get this shit down really quick. Um, I used to be like three labs ahead of everybody else by the end of when everybody in my class had left because they were two classes ahead of me. Um, all the people behind me were struggling with their labs, and I'd, you know, I walk around with the professors because I was always early to college, and I'd just see the absolute horseshit and terrible teaching from the people previously that sent them into the advanced class with really, really bad knowledge. Um, and just see how they put like four four hot wires in one box that needed one. Um three-way switches with two hots or three hots where they weren't supposed to be.

SPEAKER_08 45:23

That sounds like it might uh go boom.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

It just won't work, and also, yeah, it could be very dangerous if wired improperly. If they wired a hot to a neutral, can cause a lot of problems. Uh so yeah, the um teachers shut it down immediately. So one day I was going back to my lab that I was working on. It was like a three-way switch uh and also a half-hot switch that turned a receptacle into a switch basically for like lamps. It's like, you know, how old people used lamps and fan, like four fans. They would hook them up to a switch to where half the outlet would turn off because you can break off the tabs on the side of them. So I had it hooked up to a half-hot hoop, which that receptacle was also hooked up to a transformer that transformed the voltage down to 20 volts. I've actually I think it was 12 volts, but the configurations were 10, 12, 16, and 20. Um, I had it on the 12 volt for a lawn light, which was uh a light sensor activated. So it sounds very complex because looking at it, it looks like Chinese, but if you understand it, it's not too bad.

SPEAKER_04 46:32

Um I kind of understand the goal with it because I used to do something similar in high school where he'd give us these modules, we'd re recreate the modules.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Yeah, it's like shot class. Yeah, when they used to teach that. Oh shit, that's an ambulance. Um and I noticed somebody was cheating and looking at my labs. And I didn't notice that my hot wire that was sitting on my three-way switch or my or my half-hot, whichever one it was, was sitting on the metal mud ring, which is that ring that goes in front of commercial, um, that faceplate that goes in front of commercial outlets where there's a gap in the back of the outlet that you can stick your finger behind, but you shouldn't. Those are called mud rings. My wire was sitting on it, so when I flipped that that switch, um it exploded in my face. Oof. Yeah, because metal touching metal, and the metal was grounded because everything had to be grounded on the metal. It was all metal studs, all metal boxes. So as soon as it grounded, I had it.

SPEAKER_04 47:36

Yep, but at least that's all that would happen. I'm very sure the instructor had a layer.

SPEAKER_01 47:40

Oh, yeah, it was I put a hole in my shirt, and he's like, Oh, you got too comfortable, Frank. I'm like, uh, no, I see the problem. Somebody pulled my wire out right on top of the thing instead of just leaving it in the mud. Right, we didn't have enough screws, so I couldn't screw them down. Uh, that's the context of that. Anyways, that was my favorite story, my favorite story to tell in doing my college.

SPEAKER_04 48:02

I'm assuming the guy that copied you also did the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

I wish. Oh, I hope. That would have been a nice surprise.

SPEAKER_04 48:09

Fireworks instead of uh I mean it was already too late, but hey, I'm about to say the instructor. Not only was the instructor checking with you, props to that guy, because he knew what the mistake was, but he's glad that you recognize what it was. But it's also set it's a it's a controlled chaos. He's gonna let you do your projects, but even if you do something that would cause chaos, it's only enough to probably flash at you, we had but not burn the whole school down, you know.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Yes, we had separate breakers set up for those panels, so we would literally have panels on panels on the main panel. So there were actually um two subs inside of the inside of the shops and each of the in in each of the um the lab rooms that were connected to the main, not the main breaker, but like the main sub load for the entire building, which was connected to the main one outside, um, which is your main disconnect. Because you have to have like several disconnects just in case shit goes wrong down the line. You know, you don't want the whole house shutting down because somebody decided to put a turkey in the oven and also start an air fryer and the microwave and also plug in their uh their 2005 boombox stereo that actually has an outlet to it and not uh big D batteries in it. Um, anyways, off topic of my last thing. I had and I can get into multiple stories with this guy, but I I want to just talk about him as a whole. Multi-millionaire, he's a dentist. Uh he works out of Illinois on the weekends, or Indian, no, Indiana, sorry, and then he he lives over in uh Venice, over in West Florida. He had a house with a another multi-millionaire realtor. And the interesting thing about this is every time I went there, this was one of my handiwork guys that I kept going back to because it was just a literal money pit. Every time I went there, uh I would be going in focusing on one project and leaving there having done little work on five projects. He's one of the people that you have that starts another project while you're doing a project, and then while you're doing that project, starts working on another. So me and my dad go there, and this mansion is an old mansion, it's like all wood. There's a really bad ending to this, and this is very sad. There were so many problems with it. Like when I was trying to pressure wash one of the sides because you wanted it clean because it was super dirty. Um, it literally melted the cord from the outlet, meaning that it was a different voltage than what it was rated for. It literally melted the cord of the pressure washing system. So that happened. Um we we we would start a project like, oh, we're gonna put a shower head over here in front of the pool for some reason. Don't know why. We're gonna do it. Alright, we'll do that. Oh, by the way, I want to make this storage closet into a mini-bar and we're gonna put tile on the floor. Okay, we'll do that. Oh, I want this storage closet to actually be an outdoor um bathroom, and we're gonna put tile on the floor and the walls. Oh, lordy, lordy. Okay, we we we can do that. Um, hey, we're gonna do yard work. Oh, okay, we can do that. Um, we're gonna tear down the whole walls of the downstairs basement and put up more newer sheetrock. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 51:58

That's a little strange. Now it's been like two years to finish, but it ain't. No, it would we were there we'd be busy until it's every weekend.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

Every weekend we would get an easy like hundred and something dollars, two hundred and something dollars. Every weekend, we would go there on like a Sunday or a Saturday. Maybe do two days in a row. We would we would never we were never almost done with that house until up until Hurricane Melissa happened.

SPEAKER_05 52:25

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

Or those two hurricanes.

SPEAKER_05 52:27

No. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

Danny, do you do you remember when I showed you that picture of that guy's house that had his whole roof ripped off of his house and dumped back onto this onto the house, and the whole left side of the wall was bowing out of the entire house front to back?

SPEAKER_03 52:45

That was this guy.

SPEAKER_01 52:46

That was this guy's house. Oh no. We got we repainted the whole house, spray painted all this all of the all of the um skylights just to rip them all out, and then have flooding for like three to six months in every bedroom that the skylights were in because they weren't sealed properly, and then the roofers fucked up, and then they didn't do a good job, and they actually scammed them, so then they got in a lawsuit with them, and then got a new roofer to do the job, and then they finally did it fucking properly after about eight months of waiting.

SPEAKER_03 53:17

Yeah, so got a new one at that point.

SPEAKER_01 53:19

If I was born again, 2.7 million dollar house, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 53:23

Um yeah, no, get rid of it. Nope. Lost clothes, blow it up, rebuild the new one.

SPEAKER_01 53:28

So this guy again, this guy, we're talking multimillionaire problems. This is the same guy that calls my dad, and like, you know, he talks, he's a great guy. He's a Christian, he goes to church on Sundays, he's a great guy, he's just scatterbrained. And I don't want to he's a really great guy. He has a lot of wisdom, and he has a lot of knowledge that I've kept from him, I've taken from him. But um, my two favorite things was he always tried to tell my dad what to do. My dad was like, You're not a plumber, you're a dentist. So stop telling me how to weld pipes and how to do this stuff. And it's like, it's no offense.

SPEAKER_08 54:02

But like most of the time when you have the many projects uh owners, they typically always have some idea of well, this should be done this way. Whether or not you are professional or not, they always will come in and be like, well, I think you're I think it should be this way, or wouldn't it make sense if you guys did it this way?

SPEAKER_01 54:23

I like explaining it in a way where it's like, I see what you're trying to do, and I will tell you how we can do it a different way, but the way that you're thinking is not possible because of blank. Because it's a great way to explain it to a client without being rude. And if they keep arguing with you, you can just keep going back to the same thing and be like, I understand that. However, you literally cannot do that. You have to do that.

SPEAKER_04 54:54

But their knowledgeable mindsets are also they don't understand, but they understand enough to try to have you try a different idea so they can get it done. Kind of it's a it's a weird thing, but it helps them understand what you're talking about or what you're doing. So what they'll try to do is basically tell you and have you tried this, but then we already know. They don't know, but in a way, we already know sometimes I find my own self doing that where somebody's talking about something and me trying to completely understand it. I'll, you know, have you tried this? As if I'm not saying that they didn't think of it, but it's just like it's kind of a common thing to help me understand, but also, you know, am I right or are they right? But let you know, trying, you know, it's I I'd say like a middle point, you know, just right in a way try to communicate compromise with them, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

And but try to communicate what went wrong or what can't happen, what can't be.

SPEAKER_04 55:52

Because in a way they understand, but in a way they don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

Right. Um on that note, um, I think we might be losing a frame. Yeah, it was really offsetting.

SPEAKER_01 56:11

Oh, there we go, I'm back. Sorry about that. Um an another thing with that whole roofing thing that happened before the hurricane up and undid the millions of dollars that house was worth. So bad to the point where FPL took the fucking literally took the um the main service right out of the panel, uh the exterior panel.

SPEAKER_07 56:30

Yeah, it probably took it out.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

And then they put a absolutely because the all the wiring in the attic. They they can't have it. They said it's a fucking car hazard, you know, because I think it's compromised and burned the house and it's all wood.

SPEAKER_00 56:45

So um, you know.

SPEAKER_01 56:50

I feel so bad for the dad, but at the same time, he's the same guy calling my dad talking about how they're gonna lose the Lamborghini. The half a million dollar car, by the way.

SPEAKER_08 57:01

So Lamborghini hurt a crime. But honestly, guys, this has been a lot of fun. And I uh I see more stories down the road. I think I have a I think I have another episode that will probably be devoted to drywall in the future because I do have a few stories to talk about drywall.

unknown 57:26

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 57:26

Drywall's an easy one to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 57:28

The eyes the literal eyesore of I I have a I have a story about that. There this that was one of my favorite stories as well. I'm gonna save it for that episode.

SPEAKER_07 57:39

Well, yeah, I'll definitely reach out to uh both of you the next time we want to schedule this.

SPEAKER_01 57:46

How about we end off with the addict story?

SPEAKER_00 57:49

I think that would be a great close.

SPEAKER_08 57:51

I think all of my stories are addict stories.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

Yeah, but the specific one that I was talking about earlier, about the the oh so fortunate guy who didn't last an hour on job.

SPEAKER_08 58:04

You see. And I would love to, but that's how you tease the next episode. So, with all that being said, guys, thank you so much for coming on and giving me your stories of different weird jobs to have been done at construction world.

SPEAKER_04 58:21

Um there's plenty of holes, and I feel like there's two holeside of work that we had.

SPEAKER_01 58:28

I'd like to also say for those two holes in the walls, we'll send some uh lead men and some crew out here throughout the next couple weeks. So if anybody in the background, you know, hears them, uh just you know, let them know that they're just fixing the uh holes in the wall.

SPEAKER_08 58:46

Alright, we'll do.

SPEAKER_03 58:49

But as as one man that I know that me and you know say, just L-bracket it.

SPEAKER_08 58:54

Once again, Cam, Frank, thank you for coming on.

SPEAKER_03 58:58

And no, I don't like it.

SPEAKER_08 59:01

This is once again Danny with our Tavern Talks. And from a surprisingly chilly after a very hot week, Arizona.

SPEAKER_04 59:12

That is I don't like it. I don't like it.