Old foreman told me to double tape my threaded rod drops and he was dead right.

Worked a job in Nashville last summer, 4 story office build. Had a foreman named Roy who kept telling me to double tape every rod drop. I thought he was just being old school and wasting tape. Third floor we had a ceiling grid come down in the middle of the night. 12 footer just peeled off the rods. Turns out the vibration from the HVAC unit above loosened the single wraps. Roy was retired by then but I called him to thank him. Cost us 2 days and like $800 in material to fix. Anyone else run into a situation where you ignored advice from an old timer and paid for it later?

2 comments

2 Comments

nina_jenkins23d ago

Did you ever have that moment where you realize the old guy was right all along? I had a similar thing with an old electrician who insisted on wrapping every splice in a j-box. Thought he was being paranoid until I had to fish a burned out neutral out of a wall. Now I never skip it.

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the_ray23d ago

And it's ALWAYS the old timers with the weird specific tips that save your bacon later. I've got a buddy who's a mechanic and his grandpa swore by putting a zip tie on every single bolt he removed during a job so nothing got lost, and now he does it without even thinking.