My father
was renowned for being a little tight fisted. he wouldn't replace anything, nor throw anything out until such times as it had either expired in spectacular fashion (mostly electrical) or grown hair (food)
He is reknowned for prowling and lurking at the discount sections of supermarkets prior to closing time, hunting for discounted yellow label stuff.

However, my two most most memorable instances of his miserly behavior that have stuck in my mind have to do with his drill and also the 3 year escapade with the electrical meterbox.

He purchased a black and decker electrical drill back whenever I was a child. It cost him a (then) whopping £40. He still has it - this was from over twenty five years ago. It has been mended, many many times.

The clutch is knackered - drills have been known to either spin out entrirely, or, as you are drilling slowly dissapear backwards into the main body of the drill. Blue sparks are not an uncommon sight whilst it's in use and he has also taped up the handle with insulation and gaffer tape as he has had the occasional jolt delivered up his arm on more than one occasion. The hammer action turns itself on and off with random abandon - which led to some quite funny scences as he was drilling through tiles in the new bathroom.

The chuck key is completely bald and the on/off 'lock' button always sticks on, so you have to hit the drill casing against something hard to turn it off.

Despite all this he point blank refuses to buy another one, as "they don't build them like that anymore!"

The other instance was with the electricty meterbox. In our old house (about 15-20 years ago) the meter box was directly in front of the back door, bolted to the wall. Behind this wall we had the "heater cuboard" containing the old economy seven heater, all the family coats and all the house cleaning stuff, brushes etc, basically a smallish storage room about 2m x 3 on the bottom floor.

My father, an engineer for Michelin at the time, had installed a great big 30 Amp switch with a handle, kinda like a large door handle on the front that made a very satisfactory 'clunk' when turned, directly behind the meter box - but on the other side of the wall. What this switch did was basically switch the electricity supply from peak to off peak.

This was wired straight off the back of the main meter, my father had accessed this by going straight through the wall behind it so that none of the lead seals had been disturbed or broken on any of the metering equipment.

We used this for about three years until we eventually got our economy seven replaced with oil. In the last six months or so we had the electricity men about about six times to examine the meter as our bills were always on the low side, never abused, just low.

Thankfully never once did they go in to cupboard behind the meter though. My mother was a nevous wreck by the time we got it changed...


We still have the switch box in the shed somewhere - it came with us when we moved in case we needed it again...
(uk_viper stopped lurking on, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 12:03, 8 replies)

Have a click
For the mental image of your dad trying to drill tiles on the hammer setting.
( MatJ LOOK, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 19:23, closed)

sorry
your dad is nothing but a common thief
(welgar, Fri 24 Oct 2008, 20:24, closed)

Meh
there's much worse things he could have stooped to than rip off N.I.E. for a few pounds to keep us in food for a few weeks.
(uk_viper stopped lurking on, Sat 25 Oct 2008, 2:43, closed)

yeah
kill someone or burn the house down with some dodgy wiring.

EDIT: its interesting to note that you have changed your above reply. Typical electric board response from me ?
(welgar, Sat 25 Oct 2008, 2:58, closed)

It certainly wasn't dodgy
just illegal. He was a qualified and time served electrical engineer. As for changing the post - I was thinking along the lines that, from some of your prevoius posts that you may have been employed or are employed by an elctrical company? I wasn't sure though, so I changed it. Apologies for any confusion.
(uk_viper stopped lurking on, Sat 25 Oct 2008, 11:24, closed)

Not dodgy, just illegal?
Heh.
( Bob Todd whee, Sat 25 Oct 2008, 12:34, closed)

Good
If he had the ingenuity to get away with it, and repeated checks by the electricity board weren't sufficient to reveal anything untoward, then they are welcome by me to suck it up.

One look at all the 'record profits' they make these days tells you all you need to know about who the 'common thieves' are. (Sorry)
(AndyC4m Eject Eject [><], Tue 28 Oct 2008, 14:54, closed)

:-) Thanks
though I really can't defend his actions as they were, as has already been nicely pointed out, basically theft, however we were in monetary difficulty at the time and he applied his knowledge to help us the best way he could.

Regardless of the morals - I did think it was a good story in line with this weeks QOTW.

As a side note - He still smiles and takes a certain amount of pride in his handiwork when he tells the story even now. :-)
(uk_viper stopped lurking on, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 20:38, closed)