There had been a tomato sauce disaster at our home and we decided to put a shirt in the sink to soak along with some baking soda, needless to say we had covered the plug hole.
When we went into the bathroom to check there was at least an inch of water covering the bathroom floor and the lino was curling over everywhere…
Me and my husband decided that we should pull the lino up to dry and check whether or not the floor boards were damp underneath.
We didn’t realise until we began doing it that we didn’t have to just pull the lino up but also pull the boards up covering the boards too… We didn’t have no tools in the home so the husband told me ‘not to worry’ and pulled out his swiss army knife and began pulling up the first board.
At this point the disaster begun as the board bounced backed and the knife some how double back on itself and snapped shut on his finger so badly that when he bent his finger you could see bone!!!!
Even now my husband still shows the scar on his finger and the disaster still haunts him.
Submitted by mandy Briggs.
Although this may not be the biggest DIY ‘disaster’ to date I thought I would share this anyway, and give you all a giggle!
Because I know i’m not the best when it comes to any form of DIY I decided paying an extra £20.00 to have my wardrobe delivered already assembled seemed like a wise option…
Although it didn’t turn out to be that simple, because the wardrobe was all ready assembled it was too big to get up the stairs, meaning it had to be taken apart anyway!
When I got upstairs I spent six hours figuring out what goes where etc. And in the end I managed to piece it together only to find that the pole for all my clothes to hang on was missing, no wardrobe is any good without anything to hang your clothes on. So in essence I wasted twenty pounds and a whole day to find out I couldnt actually use the wardrobe anyway, what a nightmare!
Submitted by Brenda Porter.
Last Christmas we were having various condensation/humidity problems in our loft and I spent a lot of time up there fixing various different things my local roofer had recommended to me.
Anyway half way through one of my ‘improvements’ I tripped on something in the flooring and BANG straight through the ceiling I went.
Luckily I was OK and we got the bedroom redecorated on our insurance, but for some reason I dont think my wife was too happy at the time!
Submitted by Paul Fiend.
My flat isn’t the biggest in the world but it has plasterboard over the breeze block walls.
I simply needed to get a nail in the wall for my darts board and unfortunately my drill had died. I thought it was a simple enough job and I could hammer the nail in easily enough.
The nail bent, which in theory was always going to happen! So I tried to pull it back out which was in fact a total disaster due to the fact two breeze blocks fell out with it!
I had dust and rubble in my living room and sever worries about the whole damned building !
Submitted by Ryan Tisdale.
I had a layer of gloss I wanted rid of on my door, so I decided to use the paint stripper to get rid of it.
Everything was going fine, until I got to the bottom of the door… I managed to burn a lovely straight line into the carpet because I was stupid enough not to put anything under the door to protect it!
Anyway… I now have a lovely new glossy door complete with a brand new mat to hide the burns on the carpet, how smart am I??
Submitted by Lucy Askter.
We had been in need of a new television for quite a while and therefore I took it upon myself to by a new one and surprise the wife when she got home from a weekend away with friends. I Bought a 42″ Plasma Television, top of the range it was!
Seen as I had already spent all that money on the television, I thought I’d save myself a few quid and fit the wall bracket myself… After all how hard can it be?
Once the job was done and the television was hung on the wall I stood and admired what a good job I’d done.
I actually noticed though my job wasn’t quite perfect as it was hanging slightly to the right.
I thought, you wont notice it. Anyway the next day when I came home with my wife after picking her up… She got a surprise to find a smashed 42″ Plasma TV that she had never seen before sat in the middle of the living room floor.
Submitted by Kevin McDowell.
When i moved into my new home i had the task of sorting through the attic to clear all the previous owners things, Unfortunately it turned out that the previous owner had in fact neglected the flooring, and as a result I tried to replace the flooring in the loft.
I made a start and removed 95% of the flooring and the insulation near the water tank. The insulation was soaked, and I called in a plumber to have a look what was wrong.
Turns out i actually removed the supporting wood braces for the water tank as a result the water tank came crashing through the ceiling, and put a large hole in the floor below/ground floor ceiling.
Due to the fact that the previous owners allowed it all to rot and the braces were sodden, when I called the insurers they refused to pay out. £12’000 later and the better part of a month repairing this, it is fixed, but it is still a story that makes me grind my teeth at the frustration of it all.
Submitted by Josh White .
This is not really a disaster of my own but a laugh also.
It had come the time to renovate our home again and we were beginning with the living room, repainting and adding a few new bits and bobs.
Anyway i decided to make a cup of tea to keep me and my dad going.
My Dad followed me in where we chatted for a minute or 2, leaving my 2 year old daughter pottering about on her own.
I went back in too find that she had not only dipped her hands in the paint but obviously didn’t like the colour of the TV or anything else for that reason and had redesigned the whole look of the room.
Although it was annoying it was a laugh at the same time!
Submitted by Mark Longbottom.
I had been asking my husband to put up a set of shelves in the kitchen for months and he kept saying that he would do it tomorrow. Tomorrow never came, so one night in the winter I decided to do it myself.
My husband was in the bath at the time and I very carefully looked where the electric socket was and started to drill the wall about eighteen inches to the right. I always assumed that wires either went vertically or horizontally, but how wrong could I have been.
I drilled into the ring main, there was a huge bang, the fuse box left the kitchen wall and all above where the fuse box used to be was black. All the lights went out and my husband rushed downstairs with just a towel wrapped round him cursing me.
We had to call out an electrician and it cost rather a lot of money to repair. Needless to say if I ask him to do DIY now he does it straight away!
Submitted by Julie Thresh.
This week we bought a new American Style Fridge Freezer and it needed water supply.Well toilet was in room above and 10mm was big enough so needed to cut channel down the wall. I got two hack saws and sawed down each side so I could bury the pipe in the wall.
It was all going very well… Until i was left level with the light switch and woke up on the floor! I had not checked for cables I had never expected to find horizontal cables coming from switch although I knew it was permitted and I had a cable tracing machine but never bothered to use it.
Seems when extension was built the guy wiring had not gone up and around with strapers for two way light switch but had taken shortest route. Also no capping used so not felt anything with saw. It is now in mini trunking but same route. Also was surprised as getting such a belt I know it takes 40ms for the RCD to trip but never realised what a belt it could give you in that 40ms.
Next time I’ll be sure to use my tracker!
Submitted by Rhys Linderton.