Not Mine But My Dads'
This happened around 1985, in our little Lancashire Cottage, our carpets had been replaced, furniture re-upholstered, and all that was left was for a back-boiler to be put in behind our coal fire.

A plumber was duly engaged and came to do the work. After a couple of days, myself and Mum were ready for the switch-on, and after a few minutes of the virgin pump coming to life, drips of water began to drop from the ceiling of our split-level beamed living room.

The drips soon developed into a small stream of water running through a worrying looking crack in the plaster of the ceiling. Plumber worriedly turns off the pump, and almost immediately, a quarter of the ceiling came crashing down. Plumber looks red-faced and announces that he "must have forgotten to solder a pipe...." Off he goes to get his plastering gear in a fit of apologies.

By the time Dad gets home, Plumber has fixed the pipe, soldered it up and is busy plastering the hole in the ceiling. Mum and myself have cleaned up the best we can. All the furniture has been moved to the front half of the room.

The Plumber advises my Dad that if he was to find any loose floorboards then they need screwing, and not nailing down.

Of course, this goes into one of my Dads' ears and immediately out of the other one.

His work complete, the Plumber / Plasterer packs up and goes home, and my Dad is left to look for loose floorboards. He duly finds one upstairs, at the front of the house, directly above where all the furniture has been moved to. Hammer in hand, he proceeds to secure a floorboard, with a nail he happens to have with him.

A blue flash of light shoots across our little row of cottages, and the neighbours assume that a Thunderstorm is approaching. A burning smell alerts my Dad that perhaps not all is well with his handywork. Consequently he claws the nail out of the floorboard, and is hit in the face with a jet of hot water. Soon afterwards, another quarter of the ceiling upends itself on the now soaking furniture, directly underneath, which is covered already in plaster dust and other assorted crap found between floors of centuries-old cottages.

How he avoided certain death is beyond me, what he'd managed to do was not just pierce a water pipe, but then drive the nail into a mains electricity cable routed underneath the pipe......

First post, apologies for length and unexpected piercing.
(caescarna Hell's Roomba, Tue 8 Apr 2008, 17:06, Reply)