DIY Disaster Stories

[fobose]

I am not normally a clumsy person, but a friend of mine bought a new flat in london and he wanted a hand stripping wall paper and removing the radiators. I bought a few bits from B&Q the night before I was going, including a large flat filling knife which had that annoying blister packaging around it. I was living with my in laws at the time so the only knife I had to hand was my 'mini champ' swiss army knife.

I ended up cutting the packaging with the blade towards me for some stupid reason and slipped, the little 1" knife went straight in to my hand next to my thumbs knuckle. It did not hurt but I couldn't get it to stop bleeding. I showed it to my mother in law (she is a GP), she drove me straight to the hospital where I had to wait for about 4 hours to get some stitches. I made it to London the next day to do the DIY over two days, then got on the plane to Thailand where it got infected and hurt like hell

 

[FortuitousFluke]

Similar scenario, was also doing some maintenance on a car and then wheel unexpectedly turned with my fingers still inside the alloy and one went into the brakes.

Literally torn the fingerprint right off my pinky and nail mostly separated but kept it on so could fall off naturally. Not sure what hurt more, the incident or when I doused the whole finger in iodine as it was covered in all kinds of grime

Did get slightly infected and go a little green so went to walk in centre later on, they scanned it for breaks and then doused it in even more iodine

Didn't lose any tissue though so skin grew back on its own and have a brand spanking new nail, as if nothing ever happened.

I had to dip my thumb in iodine for five minutes to disinfect it. It was absolutely horrendous, and that's after the admitting nurse had dosed me up on codeine.

 

[Theophany]

I've spent my entire life seeing my Dad make half-baked DIY decisions that I've thankfully learned not to make them myself. My girlfriend is also extremely handy with power tools and DIY, so between the two of us we're quite good.

As for my Dad... Last one that springs to mind was him falling off the roof with a chainsaw, then there was the time he cut through a live wire with a pair of shears without switching off the mains, oh and the time he drilled the wall and burst the mains water on a bank holiday Monday...

 

[Flibster]

Worst one for me was just a mains voltage shock from a single socket that I was replacing with a triple socket.

Weirdly, all the power was off at the fuse box, fuse up the line from the socket was pulled out, so shouldn't have been live, but still got a shock.

 

[chroniclard]

Changing an ancient radiator valve, I was unscrewing the top and it just blew off the side, covering my 3 year old stood nearby in black radiator sludge and water, he's now wailing covered in **** while water is spewing up the walls with me trying to hold it back with a towel. Eventually rammed it back on so could turn off water. Then spend rest of day cleaning up the boy and walls.

 

[Monkeynut]

Worst one for me was just a mains voltage shock from a single socket that I was replacing with a triple socket.

Weirdly, all the power was off at the fuse box, fuse up the line from the socket was pulled out, so shouldn't have been live, but still got a shock.

You can get a small pen which you touch against the wire and it tells you if power is present, has saved me a few times.

 

[Flibster]

You can get a small pen which you touch against the wire and it tells you if power is present, has saved me a few times.

I bought one the next day.

Got a Fluke voltage detector pen and a neon indicator screwdriver.

 

[secretspy]

Oof nasty

*touch wood* so far it's just been little mishaps like getting paint on something I shouldn't but on one occasion I was in my mum's loft with her checking the water tank, trying to find/fix an issue.

The pipe leading into it was dripping a fair bit and so I was trying to tighten up the little tap thing on it (I can't think of the correct name right now) I didn't realise that the logic of "righty tighty" didn't apply in this situation. I gave it one finally turn not realising it was loosening off again. Suddenly it shot off into the tank and water was gushing in. It sank too quickly for me to grab for it.

My mum was stood there panicking saying "omg what have you done?! My whole house is going to flood"

I quickly rushed down the ladder, ran into the bathrooms and turned on the taps and the shower etc, then ran down to the kitchen and turned the taps on in there whilst I frantically tried to call a work colleague who's dad was a plumber. (Whilst also calling up to my mum to check the water level wasnt rising too much) I tried to turn the water off at the mains but the tap was too stiff for me

Needless to say that's the last time I attempted any plumbing

 

[thezappa]

Only recently, maybe end of May, my boss was cutting up his garden shed with a mitre saw. He looked away for a fraction of a second and while the blade was spinning down it straight across his left hand from below his thumb to the knuckle of his little finger.
Kids screaming blood everywhere but his Ex nurse neighbour was walking passed and took him to hospital, he had surgery and wore a splint for about 8 weeks.
It’s still swollen a bit now and he’s still having physio but he was damn lucky it didn’t go though any major blood vessels or tendons.

 

[adam cool dude]

I do quite a lot of DIY. Even going as far as fitting a whole new bathroom including pipe work which is still going strong 5 years on so not too bad.

I flush my radiators every couple of years and use a garden hose that is attached to a take off on the boiler pipework which then flushes through to some more hose on the ground floor ratiators that goes out to empty in the garden. I once forgot to put the cap back on my filter so when I started the hose pipe water just came shooting out everywhere upstairs. Luckily the wetvac sorted everything out before the wife came home!

I also once took the end of my finger off with a flappy wheel on an angle grinder. Got no prints on one finger now and it took a good year for the meat to stop being so tender. Now have some proper gloves to wear as it went straight through my old ones.

 

[adam cool dude]

Decorating the spare room and had the carpet up ready to be replaced. Noticed one of the floorboards was sitting up so put a nail in it in line with the joist. Heard a hiss and had to cut out the board pronto. Managed to nail into a water pipe that was running diagonally across the room with a notch in each joist.... God bless push fit, took about 15 minutes to fix.

Happened to me too. Was having new carpet fitted and noticed a loose board. Banged in a few nails and boom. I blame the poor installation of the central heating pipes by whoever did it before. easily fixed although I hate soldering existing copper pipe when there is still water lingering around the pipes.

 

[Street]

Luckily I haven't had any real disasters, just messy screw ups or jobs where one thing snowballs into others when I discover the bodges the previous owner has done to the house.

When we moved in, before we had carpets put down, I took the chance to run some CAT5. I was nailing the floorboards back down, using the existing holes, but checking underneath for pipes first before tapping the nails in. I got to the last floorboard and as all the other holes were fine, I got complacent and banged the nail straight through without checking. I was then hit with a jet of water and I realised I'd gone straight through a water pipe! I quickly jammed my finger in the hole and shouted for the missus and tasked her with finding a plumber quickly on a Sunday evening.

The other week, I was trimming the hedge in the garden and had forgotten that the previous owner had run the unarmoured mains cable for the pond pump straight through the middle of the bush. It was a job I'd meant to sort for ages, but as it was working, I never got around to it. I cut straight through the cable with the trimmers. The quick job of cutting the hedge then turned into a trip to Screwfix before they closed to buy a new cable, redrilling the holes and running the cable properly. I've realised that if you do DIY on a Sunday afternoon, something is bound to go wrong!

The last one, I was cutting some slate cladding with a circular saw and a splinter of slate pinged off straight into my eye. One trip to A&E later and with my eye patched up, I'd learned a valuable life lesson about wearing goggles when doing DIY!

 

["andy"]

was once pulling out a dishwasher that seems to have had the kitchen built around it. accidentally pulled hose off and had water streaming out. went to turn the plastic tap handle and it cracked then just span on the tap. I ran out to my car for tools for the tap and tripped out the front door! neighbour was washing his car at the time and was very entertained as i jumped up and frantically gathered tools and ran back in

only silly injury would be my hand slipping when prying off a skirting board. slammed my hand down to the floor and a barbed carpet gripper tack went through the middle of my finger nail . very unlucky and very painful. weird watching the barb shaped hole grow out of my finger.

 

[randomshenans]

I dropped my car off the jack once. I had it supported on 2 axle stands and the jack as well. Doing something to the rear brakes and had both rear wheels off. On a slightly inclined gravel drive. It rolled forward and the wooden blocks I was using as chocks just pushed out of the way rather than stopping it.

I did this at Uni. Widow maker, me under, fell off it, widow maker pinned my hand to the floor by the fatty part on the outer part of your palm. Couldn't get the car off it, or the jack to move. Full weight of the car on it and no one around. Ended up having to just pull it out as hard as I could. Luckily as it's fatty tissue it just ripped a massive section that could be stitched up but only time I've been able to see all layers of tissue on my hand that's for sure.

 

[pingwing]

Most recent has been the escapade into thinking plumbing is stupidly easy... Decided at the start of lockdown I needed a washing machine early (house still needs a new kitchen so I've been waiting till now) and after the success of putting a boiler powered shower back in the wet room it felt a doddle. Forgot that to make soldering pipes work you have to take the paint off the old pipes first. Results in one very cold night with no water to my boiler as I can't make a non elating joint!

Next day I go and buy Brillo pads tto clean up the old pipework and get my new/well placed cold feed to the washing machine nicely secured. Thankfully no one can see the bricks propping up the waste feed...

I also removed said chimney breast later on , to save time I just chucked bricks from the top of the attic down the chimney flue, after about 30minutes I went down stairs to put the bricks in a skip only to be greeted by a thick plume of black dust throughout the whole bottom floor

For some reason this made me laugh as what did you expect to happen?? One of the times things happen in cartoons and in real life

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

First was some car spotlight brackets. My old celica the lights sucked, I got some spots fitted but they wobbled so I figured I would get one of the maintenance guys to make me some 1/4 inch stainless brackets to a mm perfect design I came up with
He did, they were awesome apart from he drilled the holes wrong, just fractionally out, i assumed he used a metric bit rather than an imperial one
I thought simple, got out my drill and the correct size bit, braced it on my workbench and started to drill, the drill spun up, then the bracket spun up before firing off, rebounding off 2 or 3 walls and seemingly still at supersonic speed whizzing past my nose. I have never even attempted to drill stainless since. IT took a rather impressive chunk out of the wall and didnt even scratch the bracket!

Recently, well still am actually doing my new kitchen out. Fitting the watersoftner was fun, the unit is practically the same depth as a floor unit, and you have to be able to connect 3/4" pipes to it. And yes they were imperial and not metric so I had a nightmare with un-flexible imperial tubing, and 22mm pipe, plus having to learn that pipe measurements are not what they say on the tin!. I watched a you tube plumber going on about only small amounts of turns. Turns out it was bloody nonsense as I found out when I connected the water back up and had a rather impressive water feature in the kitchen. Took me about 5 days to finally get all the joints on that right as I was trying to do it in the evenings. Luckily I had lots of isolation values on it, from mains, to and from softener etc so by the end I was a dab hand at isolating it with less than half a bowl of wasted water

When i got to the tiling I had a few awkward ones where it needed to be cut out of the middle, slow and painful to do with a multitool. I was up to the last one, cutting a single socket size hole in the tile when I got a bit of a fizz in my hand
I had forgotten as was exhausted that it was the central heating I was doing (controller) and not a socket from the ring, so it had its own isolator in the panel, oops!

 

[JBuk]

I do quite a lot of DIY. Even going as far as fitting a whole new bathroom including pipe work which is still going strong 5 years on so not too bad.

I flush my radiators every couple of years and use a garden hose that is attached to a take off on the boiler pipework which then flushes through to some more hose on the ground floor ratiators that goes out to empty in the garden. I once forgot to put the cap back on my filter so when I started the hose pipe water just came shooting out everywhere upstairs. Luckily the wetvac sorted everything out before the wife came home!

I also once took the end of my finger off with a flappy wheel on an angle grinder. Got no prints on one finger now and it took a good year for the meat to stop being so tender. Now have some proper gloves to wear as it went straight through my old ones.

a guy I used to work with cut Deep into his leg

Most recent has been the escapade into thinking plumbing is stupidly easy... Decided at the start of lockdown I needed a washing machine early (house still needs a new kitchen so I've been waiting till now) and after the success of putting a boiler powered shower back in the wet room it felt a doddle. Forgot that to make soldering pipes work you have to take the paint off the old pipes first. Results in one very cold night with no water to my boiler as I can't make a non elating joint!

Next day I go and buy Brillo pads tto clean up the old pipework and get my new/well placed cold feed to the washing machine nicely secured. Thankfully no one can see the bricks propping up the waste feed...



For some reason this made me laugh as what did you expect to happen?? One of the times things happen in cartoons and in real life

I was rushing about and focusing too much on removing the masonry to consider the mess I was about to cause, luckily I was gutting all the rooms anyways

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Wife asked me to put a cabinet together. Instructions said drill through door to screw handle on. I ignored this and screwed through anyway, only to push large section of the front surface of the door off. Wife was not happy.

 

[LeMson]

Fireman bought house near me, his dad was helping renovate, open up downstairs living room and kitchen by knocking a wall down.

The house ended up very open plan when the upper floor collapsed onto the ground floor, only took them around 12 months to sort out before he could move in lol

 

[Puzzled]

I once tried to rewire an extension socket while it was turned on, that hurt (I'd already done it once but for some reason decided to redo it but forgot it was still on)

Luckily no injury, its weird how it kinda sticks to you when you get a shock. I'm guessing its the muscles not responding or something but it freaked me out and I've been very careful since.