Roof repairs
Not my own story but that of an acquaintance in Ireland. He had a leaking roof - it looked like the seven seas - and rather than spend a few bob getting it repaired properly, engaged the services of a couple of 'travelling gentlemen' who got up into the loft and had a look. A few euros later they departed and assured him all was well. And it was for about six weeks. Which was how long it took for the large bucket they had placed beneath the leak to fill up. Then it overflowed and fell through the soaked ceiling onto the kitchen table just as dinner was being served.
Length? Told you.. about six weeks.
(reinvented, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 21:09, Reply)

How to anonymize your index finger
(Excuses for missing english vocabulary. Period)

It's so easy. You just need a motorbike, need for an oil change and some strength of will.

1. Drive the motorbike for 20 miles. Park it in your best friend's yard.

2. Place an oil change container under it. (It's a flat plastic container with a 8x8 in. hollow which has a hole at the bottom).

3. Unscrew the oil-drain plug from the oil sump. Hot oil pours out in a thick stream.

4. Drop the plug right into the hollow of the container. The plug fits into the hole of the container like youknowwhat, keeping the oil from running into the container. However, the motorbike still pisses its hot oil into the hollow.

5. Do what a hero would do: Avoid the spilling of 3 liters of hot oil by sticking your index finger up in the hole in the oil sump. Ignore the pain.

6. With your free hand, try to free the hole in the mold. Might take a minute if the screw fits really good.

7. If you got the screw out, the time for cursing and cooling your burnt finger has come. Wait a few days until the skin comes off.

Any motorbike holiday will become a very special amusement, not to mention the joy of putting on your gloves. Yummy!
My left index finger has only traces of a fingerprint since then.

Length? About 30 seconds for getting that plug out of the hole. Felt longer, somehow.
(timbolator successfully hiding from the authorities on, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 20:50, 3 replies)

When working with fibreglass
don't wear a tshirt and no gloves. Heed this advice especiallly if you have skin that has an allergic reaction to E45 due to being stupidly sensitive.

Having your entire upper body covered in small glass splinters is painfull.

Also, when laying tongue and groove flooring, try and look at where the hammer is coming down as you force the planks together. Ideally it should hit the wooden block against the tongue side. Not your finger.

Length- about 2mm thick for the first cm of my finger.
( Madam Marlboro wonders if you've found her yet, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 19:50, 1 reply)

jigsaw....pipe
Back when I was a drug dealing mayor in a wheelchair I decided I needed an indoor stash as well as my outdoor stash. So I removed all the books from a large bookcase, moved the bookcase, pulled up a couple of carpet tiles and dug out my trusty 9.99 aldis jigsaw. I then transferred from wheelchair to floor (this is a big move, if shit happens the floor to chair transfer required to gtfo is big, heavy and prone to bouncing off the florr style disaster) and attacked the thick mdf flooring with the jigsaw. Everything was going well until the water pipe occurred. I was on the floor, the pipe was giving up it's life blood like it really didn't want it no more and the stop cock was two rooms away in the bathroom. I dragged myself like crazy to the bathroom suffering multiple carpet burns in the procss and managed to get to the stopcock. I then dragged back to my hole and cut out the board to reveal the damaged pipe. It was damaged. Proper damaged. Who to call? Hello this is mayor twunty, can you come and fix my busted pipe please, yes I cut through it while constructing an underfloor stash for several 9 bars, silly of me wasn´t it.
That wasn't going to work.
Luckily next door neighbour( alcholic van driver) had just got home and knocked on the door for a friendly spliff. He ran up to the local diy bin and returned with plumbers repair tape. Job done. The stash worked perfectly for some years and the pipe never leaked. If it ever does go the new tenants are going to wonder why the hell there is a sawn through pipe under a section of flooring that is apparently secured by screws that are sawn off underneath. If I left a stray bar under there they are going to get really stoned while wondering all that.
The outdoor stash btw was a spaghetti storage tub buried under a foot and a half of earth that was easily removed by the simple expedient of pulling what appeared to be a bit of old carrier bag.
Damn I was good!
(godisdove I like cheese, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 18:43, Reply)

We have a coal shead.
However, the last people who owned the house, and disappeared over night leaving a pile of debit, bricked it up and rendered it over.

What's the betting it contains a dead body?
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Sat 5 Apr 2008, 18:18, 4 replies)

DIY?
Hahahahah oh ho ho ho hehehehe the stories I could tell you of my failed DIY.

I mean really, theres some great anecdotes there.

Hehehehehehehehe.

Well. Bye.
(Tip-Top Tomcat but you can call me Tommo, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 17:39, 1 reply)

Oh dear...
As noted previously in these hallowed pages, I'm crap at DIY.

Guess what?

The fucking outer oven door has only just gone and fallen off yet again hasn't it?

If I dare to fix it, I'll be sure to take pics of fixing it and maybe do a little story. Hopefully the walls won't be too covered in blood...
(Ghost Atreides enjoying incontestable health benefits on, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 17:27, 1 reply)

Shitty builders
We've had a long procession of them.

A personal favourite was the bloke who 'fixed' a hole in an external wall by bricking over the outside, stuffing it with carrier bags, then plastering over the top on the inside.

Another was an evangelical Christian, and between attempts at converting me, 'fitted' our new bathroom. He laid tiles (on top of Lino) which didn't match up to any of the walls in the room at all, put normal high-voltage spotlights directly above the shower, and a whole host of other idiocies. In the end we made him take it out, and got someone more competent to do it.
(Merrep, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 15:29, Reply)

Tales of Ma and Pa Monkey – Pa and the tree
Ma and Pa monkey bought a house with a lovely little tree in the front garden. Lovely little tree had massive roots. Massive roots were getting too close to the foundation of the house and it blocked Ma’s view from the kitchen window. Little tree had to go.

Pa monkey wonders off to the local tool hire centre and hires a shiny chain saw and sets to work removing the tree from the garden. Ma watches on from the kitchen window. Ma thinks that playing with chain saws looks like a lot of fun and wants a turn.

Most of the tree felling part of the job is done so Ma thinks it is a perfect opportunity to get her mitts on the new toy. “Can I have a turn Pa?” “Of course Ma”. There follows a brief lesson on how to use a chainsaw. “Now Ma” says Pa “I want you to cut this log just here, I will hold it still for you”

Ma and Pa don’t have a great deal of sense between them. Pa holds the log about an inch away from where he wants Ma to cut so combining holding the log and marking where the log should be cut. He had underestimated how little strength Ma has in her upper body. As she goes to cut the log she cannot fully control the chain saw and takes off the tips of Pa’s fingers as she cuts into the log.

That was the first and last time that Pa hired a chain saw.

Length? Hire was 24 hours
(icklemonkey, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 13:54, Reply)

Bathroom
I'm currently doing up my bathroom, and have ripped the old one out, laid some new floorboards, replaced some of the plasterboard that had blown, and.... written a few amusing slogans underneath the tiles..

'If you can read this I know where you live'

'What was wrong with the old tiles?'

'You bum foxes'

and my personal favourite a foot high picture of a spunking cock!

I do hope that by the time the bathroom needs doing again I've either moved out or not got small children!
(Lord Monkey of Yorkshire,OBE killed a gipsy on...., Sat 5 Apr 2008, 12:52, 1 reply)

The lovely flat of doom....
My first flat was bought back in 2003, and it was the first house I'd ever bought.
When I looked round at it I knew it needed some work, which is why I bartered and haggled and got it cheap.

Then I started on the flat.....

WALLPAPER:

The flat was wallpapered from wall to ceiling, and it had been glued on with super adhesive. It took three weeks just to get the wallpaper off the wall before I could even think about painting it. To this day I have no wallpapered rooms in my house because I know how dificult it is to get it off the walls.

WOODWORK:

There were dado rails running all the way round the room, but like most thinks in this flat it had been fitted by a monkey, as the angles were all wrong and it weaved up and down the wall, it was like being slightly drunk. So that got ripped off, and instead of being nailed or scrwed it was fixed with Mr Bodge its favourite tool. No nails.

There were little shelves everywhere, and they were all fixed to the walls with No nails, oh no not screws or anything like that, but no nails, imagine how hard it is to rip that off walls. I ended up hanging rom shelves bracing myself for it to fall.

TILING:

The flat was 20 years old, and as a 20yr old flat the bathroom was nasty dark green, so what had Mr DIY done? instead of painting it bright and airy so the light wasn't being sucked out of the room. Oh no, he found tiles the exact shade of the bathroom suite, and then painted the rest of the walls dark green. It was like bathing in a swamp.

The kitchen, he'd bodged the plumbing so the units under the sink were all rotted, and when I ripped the units out, then the floor underneath was rotted as well. The tiles had been stuck on badly, in fact so badly that some of them were broken or uneven. When I ripped the tyres off the wall came with them, and I had to pay to have the room replastered.

When I sold that flat I'd fitted new floorboards, a new kitchen, a new bathroom, new windows and front door, and new interior doors all the way through. I learnt quite a bit which means now I'm encountering DIT bodges in my current house then I'm better equiped to fix them....

and I'll tell you the new house story later on!
(Lord Monkey of Yorkshire,OBE killed a gipsy on...., Sat 5 Apr 2008, 12:04, 2 replies)

I made
A mistake. Does anyone want him?


He's not ginger.
(DarkLite swallowed my entire undercarriage, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 11:58, Reply)

Being a pedant,
DIY means Do it Yourself. Now, although I'm no expert at "traditional" DIY, I have Done It Myself in terms of providing lots and lots of IT support for people, upto and including building quite a few PCs, and providing technical support - nothing like talking someone who you hardly know through e-mail configuration issues whilst you're out shopping. I'm sure many B3tans have done the same. Parents, friends, vague acquaintances have all benefited free gratis and for nothing. They've received PCs off me with legitimate MS software on worth hundreds...rarely have I been bought so much as a pint.
Which would be fine...but...WHY then do I end up paying for all the DIY that needs doing round my house ?
When are all these buggers coming round with a paint brush ?
Sure, because I work in IT, I *must* love doing it, right ?
Grr - mostly it's great being a geek / nerd but my God I'm owed some.
( I_Was_Mordred, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 11:52, 1 reply)

Halfway through renovating my house at present...
My builder is an idiot.

Unfortunately I can't do these things myself, plastering, woodwork etc isn't my thing.

So the other day he takes it upon himself to remove half the kitchen tiles because... "that socket will be behind where the fridge is going and you won't be able to get to it so you'll need to move it."

EXACTLY my point!

The fridge will be plugged in to that socket. Which will be behind the fridge. So it won't get accidentally turned off.

He was supposed to be replastering the wall by the door, but no... he took it upon himself to knock the tiles off.

Breaking most of them.

And it's a design you can't get any more.

Argh!
(RabidRodent I'm the person your mother warned you about, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 11:20, Reply)

Electrics
My best friend has always been of a practical bent and never one to stray away from DIY. He converted his parents loft. I helped him along, one day I popped round to do some flooring when I noticed he had done all the electrics.

Since he managed to run power to his shed, without earthing it. I should of given It a closer look. I was up there in that enclosed space for weeks. when I noticed that the lights and sockets were on the same ring. In fact everything was connected, all leading to one wire. This wire went down through a hole in the floor into his little brothers bedroom. where it ended in a plug. also plugged in in the same point was a extension lead powering every electrical appliance in the same room.

Roughly 80% of the electrical appliances in his house were coming from one plug socket.

he said he would "fix it later"
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 11:05, 1 reply)

Rubble - a DIY rememberance
My Dad was a bit of a quiet achiever, not really making any fuss about building a whole extension on our house, installing a swimming pool, all the things I used to take for granted that Dads just did. He died on Wednesday, of old age and complications related to emphysema.
I'm currently at home avoiding writing the eulogy I will be delivering at his funeral on Tuesday, pondering those bits of my history with him, and not finding a lot. Because, to be honest, he was an absent sort of guy - even when he was there, which was more than many dads, being a teacher. Until I looked at b3ta and the qotw. Now, I have remembered my very first DIY ever.

The extension I mentioned above happened when I was around 5 or 6 years old, dad used his long service leave to do the job. Part of the job was of course to level the area inside the footings so we wouldn't have to build a floor around a bunch of boulders which would then stick up into our new lounge room floor. So dad showed me how to break rocks. The area we lived in was a big sandstone plateau, so it's not like we're talking basalt or granite or anything. I really wanted to help - to be a part of the team. So dad gave me a boulder of my own to reduce to unboulderness, and the use of a 3- and a 5-pound hammer, because I couldn't even really lift the big sledge hammer dad was using. In my memory this rock was quite rounded, and came halfway up my thigh. E.Normous. I worked on it diligently, for days and maybe weeks as dad did his bit, and moved on to the footings and so forth around me. He never criticised, or offered help, or even asked how I was going - he just looked from time to time, and like me would have noticed the thing getting smaller and smaller. I remember the moment of completion, the previously huge monotlith had been chipped down and chipped down and eventually the last remaining lump about the size of 2 footballs just - split, and i was able to just smash it all into little pieces all in one sitting. I took in a bit of the rubble to show dad. I can see him smiling his simple, pleased smile. He just said "Good job dadadali. Next year we're going to put in a bigger pool - with a deck. You can help if you want".

DIY child rearing. That's it. In so many ways he just gave the job of growing up right back to me. I used to have resentments about his absence, his aloofness, his emotional distance...but now I see the good bits; that in so many ways I was just free to be. His job was just to provide the opportunities. Which he did. Now, I'm a DIY grown-up.

Apologies for length, and thanks for listening to my story about rubble.
(dadadali has hybrid vigour, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 10:39, 5 replies)

My uncle is a builder
and gets to fix other peoples DIY every day.

the budget extension

If you are building a conservatory on your house and run out of money why not superglue a load of 5mm plastic sheeting on top of the brand new (£££) PVC surround windows. Make sure to keep the plastic in place by nailing it to the window frames. This has the added bonus of allowing them to fill with water, so when the summer comes mold will quickly cover up the fact you think bathroom sealant will keep a roof waterproof.

planning permission

When applying for planning permission, you often have to revise your plans. this means that you have lots of slightly different copies floating round the house. So keep in mind that the one marked with a big red stamp of 'approved by planners- final draft' is for the builders. If you give them the one marked 'rough copy -first draft', they will put the roof on the wrong way round. Then when the building inspector comes they will make you tear it down. This is important as carpenters often resent having to tear down what they did two days ago.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 10:37, 1 reply)

I recall...
One time last summer, I was helping my dad put some shelving up in the garage. We'd got all our kit the day before and we're basically ready to get started.

I hand my dad the necessary wood he needs for the first never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down. Haha.
( mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 10:32, 3 replies)

Gravy?
Not really a DIY thing, as I try to avoid such shenanigans whenever possible, unless there’s a detailed blueprint of which screw goes into which hole…
But I am trying to be a little more adventurous in the kitchen. My girlfriend is a real foodie and I often ask her how to make the yummy dinners she regularly dishes up for me.
I bought rump steak last week and thought I’d have a crack at making some peppercorn sauce. This was an unmitigated disaster. I didn’t have Dijon mustard, so I used honey mustard. I didn’t have white wine, I only had red. I didn’t have cream, only Emlea. But I had bags of enthusiasm.
I followed the instructions to the letter but ended up with a putrid pink mass of shite that tasted as far away from peppercorn sauce as it’s possible to get. I did add a healthy quantity of gravy granules though, to make it at least look like what it was meant to be. No go; it still tasted shite.
So I throw the congealed mess down the sink and did what I knew best: threw the remaining gravy granules into some hot water and ground some pepper into it. It was ace.
(Ghostlight, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 9:31, Reply)

Gordon Browns Arsehole, reminds me too...
When my parents bought an old cottage in the 1970s which had been 'renovated' by a team of Farmers who turned their hand to building.

The job was shite, so my parents set about re-renovating it, and removed the woodchip wallpaper in the lounge to be greeted by the words "DEREK IS A CUNT" in 5 foot high lettering painted over the plaster in white emulsion.

I was 5, I didnt know what it meant.
(Vic Flange, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 9:02, Reply)

More wallpaper graffiti
Coopsweb's post reminded me: I recently helped a good friend redecorate her house.

In the bathroom we found the following little gem hidden behind the wallpaper:

"I hope you have as much fun redecorating this bathroom as I did -
When you have finished, treat yourself to a nice long soak!"

And in the living room, a line drawn on the wall about 8ft up with the following written next to it:

"How high is a chinaman?"
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 8:58, Reply)

Frolics part 3
I'm quite good with computers - by trade I build them, write software for them and fix them when they go wrong. And this makes it doubly infuriating when I fuck up.

A couple of weeks ago, I was building a PC for a customer. I knew something was wrong as soon as I switched it on, because instead of going 'beep' and starting up, it instead belched blue smoke.

Turns out that I'd misjudged the position of one of the (metal) motherboard supports, which had made contact with a pin somewhere on the back of the board and blown the whole thing to buggary.

Closer inspection revealed the memory and CPU were also scorched. That's the problem with PC building - it's very easy, but when something does go wrong it tends to blow up many hundreds of pounds worth of components in a split second.

Luckily, I sent it back to the supplier and claimed it was like that when I got it. So there is a happy ending of sorts.

There is also the story of the DIY Home Removal. My friend, who is just as cheap as I, happened to be moving house, and was loath to pay for a proper removal service. The solution seemed obvious - I owned a van at the time, so I would pop down and give him a hand.

And that was how I ended up moving the entire contents of a 2 bedroom house in a Vauxhall Astravan. Yes, that's basically a medium-sized estate car without back seats.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 8:39, Reply)

I used to make guns!
Before uni I had an ace job that involved making laser guns, fixing the “you’ve been hit” jackets and oddly doing some light accountancy.(No it wasn’t laser quest but something exactly like it)It was for a tiny family owned company and there were only 9 of us working in the office.

I admit I never caused any serious damage but there was a certain lax air about the whole health and safety crap, mostly because I was the only one doing the actual assembly of the guns and I’m too cocky to run around finding the goggles that have gone missing and you can’t see out of anyway

I have since learnt several things about the handling off tools and such.

1) For the love of kittens never drill downwards on a slippery surface towards your hand... you will end up with no skin on your finger

2) Don’t tighten zip ties / tie wraps with pliers that no longer have any grip... or they will slip and hit you on your newly veneered tooth which will result in you crying loudly in front of the whole office... I still cant face pliers without a certain kind of dread

3) try not to super glue your fingers together or once more you will be void of skin

4) Glue designed to melt plastic together will give you head rush and shortly later an ear-splitting headache along with plastic melted to your hands.

5) never argue with the accountant

6) Motherboards were designed to rip your hands open in confined spaces... and you can be sure they will always be found in confined spaces, full of dust and god knows which skin borne diseases

7) Bore drills and large sawing machines are noisy, dirty, terrifying and the best fun in the world.


This is where I also learnt my. ‘I’ve just done something stupid and it’s resulted in me slitting my finger open’ dance. a tribal affair where you hop around in silent circles for a few minutes clutching the damaged appendage, you then sadly regard your dissected parts and head to the kitchen to find a big enough plaster


My boyfriend at the time would always introduce me as “hey this is my gf she makes laser gun’s for the MOD.”I earned some serious man points in that job and I doubt ill ever have as much fun in a 9-5 ever again.


*pop*
(levygreen où est le champignon ?, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 3:16, 1 reply)

DIY
OK this isn't strictly speaking a DIY of the black and dekker or ikea variety.

The scene: Sheffield, 2004, a 'quiet' student house inhabited by 5 people with a drinking problem (yours truly being one of those), a catholic, and a happy clappy christian.

Said happy clappy christian is the sort of person who is somewhat tight. Tighter than a ducks arse indeed. He, in fact, squeaks when he walks. The sort of person who will, when in the pub, only drink water because he can get out of a round. I lived with the guy for three years and in all the time there he never bought me a drink, despite the numerous incidences where I bought him one.

Happy Clappy Christian had a Happy Clappy Girlfriend. I hated the woman, and still do. I ran into her a few weeks ago and the sensation of meeting her again was as if my own shit was crawling back inside me. I. Don't. Like. Her.

Anyway, Valentines Day was approaching and Happy Clappy Girlfriend wanted a Special Night. Happy Clappy Boyfriend was less interested, as this would involve spending MONEY.

Happy Clappy Boyfriend decides that he can recreate the sensation and love-in'dness of a fancy restaurant himself. But not on Valentines Day.

February 15th 2004 dawns in Sheffield and finds our God-Bothering hero rummaging in the neighbouring student houses bins to find some roses. Luckily he comes up trumps and finds 11 roses that aren't too soiled or crumpled.

Now dinner.

Logically, when cooking dinner for a loved one (albeit one with whom one is not engaging in the beast with two backs dance due to religious proscription) one would buy something nice. Something that would say, I care for you deeply, I value the time that we spend together,indeed one would pull out all the stops to show the vicious harridan that he cared for her.

One would not, for instance, decide to cook a prawn vindaloo using prawns that one had bought three or four weeks previously and left variously in the fridge or on the kitchen top. A rational person would decide that having left said prawns to fester in their own prawnyness for several weeks would be inviting food poisoning.

Did I mention he was tight?

Both of them spent several days extensively attempting to relocate their bowels to the local sewer. She dumped him a short while later.

Excuse the length, or shiteness. I'm a little drunk.
(Zapiola zip-zap-zop, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 2:56, 1 reply)

Masons are not neccessarily carpenters!
When myself and the not-quite-mrs Lurkaloid bought this house we knew we'd have the odd bit of work to do.. like replacing both doors, all the windows and getting rid of the horrible 70's orange shag carpet *no not that kind of shag*.

The chap that owned the house before was a brick mason and as far as that goes he did pretty good work. The fireplace is impressive, as is the brick bar downstairs (in the basement/cellar). What he wasn't good at was carpentry and framing.

We decided to re-do the finished part of the basement as well as the kitchen over it. When we opened up the floor we found that the sheetrock/plasterboard of the basement ceiling was held up by pieces of wood that looked remarkably like the pickets from a white picket fence. Upon mentioning our discovery to a neighbor they said "Oh yes, they did have a picket fence a while back, I wondered what happened to it".

I found all sorts of scary electrical connections and boxes buried in the walls. After a few of those I made it a priority to re-wire the entire house which is complete and no outages since.

Apart from that the house was pretty sound so I shouldn't complain. My father in law is a general contractor so any jobs I can't do myself we make a quick phone call and pops comes over and sorts it out.

L
(Lurkaloid awarded wanking black belt on, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 2:51, Reply)

Lesbian DIY
Now I've nothing against lesbians, women, fruitbats or anything else - I'm one of those genuine 'live and let live' characters who tries to see the good in everyone...

Following on from this: www.b3ta.com/board/5847410

You'll be pleased to know that we're still here, two years on, and even nearly four years after moving into this particular property, we're still finding unique examples of how women in their mid-50's who suddenly 'found themselves, divorced and moved in their girlfriend' shouldn't be allowed to do any DIY.

- The freaky serial-killer-esk grafitti behind the wallpaper in the livingroom was enough (see repost).
- She put up a picture and managed to hammer a small nail into a central heating pipe. Two years later, it gave way after slowly rusting/seaping into the plaster of the wall. The insurance company rep was pissing himself when I explained who we bought the house from.
- Don't get me started on s*dding superglue or No-More-Nails. Everything in this house is held together with one or the other. The coat rack under the stairs was held in place by three thumbtacks and enough superglue to raise the Titanic.
- Why clean a kitchen, when you can simply lay a new layer of tiles on top of the old one... without cleaning the grease off first? (I suspect they did that before they tried to show the house, as tiles started sliding out of place just after we completed).
- Electrics? Don't bother calling a sparky - just get your 16 year old son to do it for you. I'm still trying to work out why they needed a socket in the downstairs toliet?
- Need to decorate your bedroom? Simply paint everything purple, then ragroll it!

I'm still dreading the abandoned septic tank in the garden - aparently she filled it full of rubble and 'stuff', but I'm still expecting to find one of her ex's down there when we build the extension.

Moral of the story - don't by a house from middle-aged lesbians with rainbow stickers in every bloody window.... and four years later, try not to say anything when you work out that the midwife delivering Son No.2 is... the partner and co-DIYer of said evil woman. Thankfully she did a better job during that delivery...
( HSDriver was probably still at work on, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 2:00, 3 replies)

Disaster in the making, Potentially fatal one as well, Darwin awards here i come!!
I've got a 1978 MG midget, now all laugh and point, that I picked up as a restoration job.
After doing basically fick all with it, i had it nearly road-worthy.
I did find one small irritation with it, it seemed to run out of fuel when the gauge said it had half a tank. So I opened the boot, and removed the fuel filler line. Yes, these stupid, useless cars have the main filler pipe cutting across the corner of the boot.
Anyways, It did indeed have half a tank of fuel, so I traced the fuel line back and realised that the line was cracked from just under the drivers seat, all the way into the engine bay, new fuel line needed.
Did I go out an buy a proper EXPENSIVE fuel line? Nope, I trundled across the road to 'pets-at-home' and bought 20 feet of aquarium air bubble hose.
So now if anyone see's a small bloke with a crap haircut spontaneously combust in a stupid old sports car, then you know that petrol in a rubber fish tank air hose doesn't work.

However, it's served me well for just under 2000 miles, so I think it's holding. Might bitumin over it for it MOT next month.
(Mensa Reject has gone out, I'll be back on, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 1:46, 4 replies)

i am a improvisational wonder
this very night, my sister SOMEHOW dropped her sunglasses (?) from her bedroom window (???) onto the conservatory roof. i constructed a lofty hooking device out of poles from a wendy house, blu tack and paper clips. i then dangled myself precariously out of a window overlooking the conservatory roof. bingo!

she was the least grateful someone could be for something considering she CRIED over it.

possibly irrelevant.
(ladyintheradiator, Sat 5 Apr 2008, 1:25, Reply)

Perils of a single garage
Before I start.... my dad is a diy genius.... Everything he does is to the highest standard - he and my mum have been in the same house 40 years, and he has done absolutely everything himself, central heating, wiring, plumbing etc - he just seems to know how to do it (I, on the other hand, am a numpty, but enough of that)

The other thing he does is restore old racing cars (usually single seaters) which gives me some nice things to play and crash in....

As he spends approximately 99% of his time in the garage, inevitably the occasional accident happens. When such an occasion occurs, he is usually compos mentis enough to present himself before my mum, pouring with blood, before he faints (re: a famous screwdriver straight through hand occasion).

But to the QOTW! We used to have a single garage - it had 3 racing cars in it (2 hung from the ceiling) and a whole load of crap (sorry, tools and bits) in it. The result was there was about 1m squared of floor space. Now as I have mentioned, my dad restores old race cars, and he tends to wear old jeans. These get oily (important point).

One day, he's stood at his vice, angle grinding away at a bit of vitally important flange sprocket or suchlike, and as per the norm, the sparks are falling in the 'upper thigh' area. On this day, it appears that the jeans have reached their own critical mass of oil saturation - 'hmm' thinks dad - 'my leg is getting a bit warm' - and looks down to see his crotch massively alight, due to the accumulated mass of hydrocarbons. His angle grinder at the time didn't have a dead mans switch, so he is left holding it above his head, revolving at approx 1 million rpm, while he flaps around trying to put his 'leg' out, in the process of which he slams the side of his hand on a sheet of steel, impaling himself.

'Hmm' thinks he (OK, it might have been a bit more extreme than 'hmm'), I wonder what I should do now? Cue him pulling his hand off the steel, hurling the angle grinder off (straight through the closed garage door) before putting his 'upper thigh' (OK IT WAS HIS TACKLE) out frantically, then walking to the back door and promptly fainting in an orgy of smouldering jeans and singed pubic hair.

I would tell you about the fibreglass resin and closed atmosphere story, but I was only 3 and it burned all my neurons...

(apologies for length, but the cord to the angle grinder was about 20 feet)
(Chevron71 is oscillating wildly...., Sat 5 Apr 2008, 1:13, Reply)

Carry on DIY'ing
Apprantly my Great Grandad was not a very good DIY'er (a trait that I have carried on).

The day after splitting open his thumb after hitting it with a hammer, he is sent up into the loft to find something by my Great Gran.

This is the time before lofts had electric lights fitted and probably before torches were so common, so armed with a candle he clambers up and starts hunting around.

Distracted by a box containing feck knows what, he becomes careless with the candle, setting fire to the bandage on his thumb.

Instinct takes over and he does what comes naturally, basically dropping the candle and using his good hand to put out the flames on his bandage, managing to burn that in the process.

Hands now blistered and bruised, he discovers that the candle has set the loft insulation on fire, so again does the first thing that comes into his head - stamping on the fire to put it out.

Which he did, except by stamping on the fire in the loft that wasnt on a beam, his foot went straight through the ceiling of the bedroom, got stuck and he had to be helped out.

In the words of my Great Gran "Bloody idiot".
(brocky, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 23:09, 1 reply)