How dirty have you gotten on a job??
Had to replace the overhead section of the water wall heat exchanger in the fireplace, started leaking after 30 years.
Edited 7/29/2007 8:54 am ET by junkhound
How dirty have you gotten on a job??
Had to replace the overhead section of the water wall heat exchanger in the fireplace, started leaking after 30 years.
Learn how to plan, fabricate, and install a chute to conveniently send your dirty clothes from an upstairs bathroom or hallway to your laundry room below.
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Replies
I once had to sandblast charred floor joists on a fire restoration job so the inspector could decide which were burnt too bad to stay.
I stopped at a 7/11 on the way home and the clerk said "You're the dirtiest person I've ever seen." I looked in my truck mirror and it looked like I had blackface on(like Al Jolson or Ted Danson).
This was in Washington D C where that kind of political incorrectness could have been hazardous to my health.
Talk about ashen grey<G>
I used to have a job undercoating trailers at the beach. We'd buy 55 gal drums of cosmoline and cut it with burnt motor oil so I could spray the carriage. First I'd have to wire brush as much rust as I could reach.
Needless to say, when I came out from under, I had sweat, grease and rust all over me...the stuff hanging off of my beard and hair was especially attractive. Never had a problem getting paid...who'd want a lubed up hippie standing in the living room too long, ha.
Whoever it is I wish they'd cut it out but when they will I can only guess.
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy,
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me.
I can't help it if I'm lucky.
Drywall dust, just as dirty but comes off a whole lot easier than that coat you're wearing.
Better than sewer though?
Joe H
I had a job in Dallas remanufacturing toner cartridges. The toner is such a fine mist that it still got through the filters. At the end of the day, I looked similar to your pic on this thread.
Would get home, brush my hair and it would come out black. Clothes had to be washed seperate from the others, we started wearing black shirt, pants and shoes after a while so we didn't look as bad!
My brain + his brawn = a perfect team
I lived in a Colorado toen where a lot of the guys worked in a molybdenum mine. That stuff can be describes as gray grease that clings to every thing.The laundrymats had a couple of extra machines they labeled as "Molly-washers" - same with dryers. There was no way to get it all out and it would contaminate everything it touched.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Redcliff, Gilman, or Minturn? I taught kindergarden & third grade in Minturn for half a year - it was like being in the Peace Corps -
Kremmling and Hot Sulphur Springs
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I should have known...all the miners in Eagle Co. spoke Spanish as their first language. It was 1965, & in another country...
I once had to change out 10000 cotter pins on an old boiler at the paper mill. They had little ceramic "hairpins" on a conveyor belt that took the fuel to the fire. It had years of soot on them much like your job there.
A dirtier job than that was cleaning the lime on the kiln that was crusted on. But on that job we wore hazmat suits and scba's so I myself didnt get dirty.
My brother called me one day and said he needed someone to replace him at his job so he coud get promoted. No one would take his place longer than a few days, the turnover rate was huge.
I had a few weeks between jobs so I agreed to take his place, so he could move on.
THis was in an ink factory, 55 gallon drums of paste ink everywhere. If you touched anything it got all over you in a hurry.
My job was to mix base colors into their fiinshed color, Mrs Fields red Apple Jack green etc.. Sometimes in batches of 600-800 lbs. This job was all manual, scooping ink with short shovels and mason trowels.
So you might imagine the mess I came to be reaching in the bottom of the barrells for 10 hrs a day. Our uniforms were picked weekly and washed then brought back clean, except mine. Mine had ruined a huge lot of uniforms because of the close to 30 lbs of ink smeared into them.
I still have socks that have green, yellow, blue, black, red stains on them.
When they finally moved my brother to Fort Wayne I had gotten good at it, I would cut the barrels in half with a sawzall, and use a hook blade to cut the bottoms off the buckets so I barely got dirty.
Then I quit, my next foundation was ready and waiting for me and ink was not my bag at all. My dad did it for 20 yrs and my brother is still doing it. Ink is not genetic.
Matt
I've seen coal miners who were worse!
Last time I was in MS I sanded lots of drywall and said I looked like the Pillsbury Dough Boy when I was done each day! (One day we went out to eat right after work, but stopped at a roadside rest area to clean up a bit--turned out we pretty much blended with the clientele of the Shed anyway, so needn't have worried.) (Hope I didn't offend any of you who eat at the Shed--I love it, great food and drink, but not exactly what I would call genteel or a "fine dining experience" (nor would I want it to be!).)
Your photo reminds me of the time I laid sod all day and never saw what I looked like--was covered with that fine black humus the sod grows in. The lady where we were working came out about 6 p.m. after we'd been working since 7 a.m. and offered me a bag of cookies--I started to reach into the bag and she literally recoiled from me and the guy I worked with said, "Dan, why don't you pour some into your hand." "Oh, okay..."
"that fine black humus the sod grows in."LOL, we called that ####! p i g s h i tI guess Taunton has an extensive censoring system!
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
Edited 7/29/2007 3:51 pm ET by Piffin
Well, let's see...
I have rawled inside a fireplace and chimney to to prep work for a fireplace insert. Your photo looks clean compared to one of those jobs I remember where things went bad and it took until midnight to get home.
I have crawled in mud under houses where water had been running.
I have torn off roofs in West Texas where the dust stored between shingles makes up as much volumn as the old roofing. I ate as much dust as I did lunch on those days.
I have pulled horsehair plaster off ceilings and walls and shoveled it out into the chute. Just the other day, I cuit out a wet cieling t fnd a plumbing leak, and went home miserable with moldy plaster dust in my underwear.
I worked in a dairy farm in the silo and in the gutter both.
Overall, I would say that at least once every two months. I strip my clothes off before I enter the house - and that is at the basement entrance!
You're kinda cue in black, BTW, LOL.
a tip for all. Rinsing in white vinegar while in the shower helps cut a lot of that crud loose, so you only have to soap up twice instead of four times.
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
Worst I ever got was Caveing ( spelunking) in Butler cave in Va.
A group of us had permission to go in for a weekend , it is a private cave.
My first time too. Slimy , greasy bat poo, and clay silt...crawling, slithering around, and also huge rooms that you could not see the far end of, due to not enough lights...10 hours in there.
The best was when we all went skinny dipping in the river afterwards..about 12 of us couples.
Edited 7/29/2007 3:36 pm ET by Sphere
Most were just like - "oh well, it's just dirt. It'll wash off."
The one that really bothered me the worst was when I broke a pallet of eggs all over myself at the egg factory. Even after rinsing off under a hose at the loading dock, I could feel the slimy egg whites drying on me all day long!
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
No pix, but when I was a CMU plant operator (repairs too) I had two people ask me in one day if I worked on an oil rig.
Mike
So why aren't we wearing some kind of respirator?
This thread sounds a lot like Monty Python's "Four Yorkshiremen" ... each man tries to one up the other with hilariously outrageous tales of suffering - see it on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo
Brian
I thought the same thing.
First liar aint got a chance!
Sorry Junk, not inferring that your a liar!
Doug
ROFLMAO!"...an open mind is a powerful thing. The ability to listen to others is invaluable."
Jim Blodgett
There's an older MUCH better version of this sketch. Includes Rowan Atkinson and John Cleese. I think it may be even before they were Monty Python.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FatHLHG2uGY
That was the version done in 79 for Amnesty International, it definitely wasn't the original.
A respirator doesn't work to well when you have a beard.I knew a guy that worked for a asbestos removal company. All the guys there were always clean shaved. One Monday my buddy got to work without shaving. He had a 3-day beard and the boss left him with 2 options: Go home for the day or you shave here. He shaved there, didn't want to loose a days pay.Martin
I was spraying latex through an airless one night on a rush job right around Christmas. Down the street some friends were having their annual holiday party and wouldn't let me slide on making an appearance. I dropped by around ten looking like the ghost of christmas past in my overalls and short sleeve shirt (my hair, eyelashes, face, arms and hands were all frosted white). I didn't know many of the people there, and got looks ranging from amused to frightened. I had a beer and some food, mingled a little, then went back to work.
Oddly, none of the well dressed party goers had asked me about my appearance, and I didn't mention it either.
Probably thought you were the ghost of Christmas past!
Working for the Forest Service setting chokers in a burned area. At least it was clean dirt!
Man, that orange shag carpeting...that does bring back memories...
I hate to think what your lungs look like. It does not look like you wearing a mask.
When I was a kid I worked for an old Polish guy that believed in cleaning out the chicken coupe once a year whether it needed it or not. Those of you that have cleaned a chicken coupe will understand.
Dave
Chicken sh!t is a longlasting thing.
Pressurewashed an old coop once readying for a reno to a reading room
and some of that old dried chickenpoop would not come off even under the threat of damage to the wood.
be listing ingredients of a powerful paint
Definitely a spring job. After it thaws and before it gets hot and dusty
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Youse guys don't know the secret to getting clean after a dirty job. It's...cold cream! Crisco will do - just a layer of primer will keep all that yucky stuff out of your pores & make it easier to get clean.
Liquid fabric softener will keep fiberglass insulation out of your skin, too.
I, too, have personal experience with chicken, cow, goat, sheep, horse, & deer **** - but pig is far, far waaay-out-there worse!
They ought to make roads out of that stuff. Packs better than oil & gravel. Probably last longer too.
jt8
"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
my best... i bought a building that had been a drive thru chicken place....
mid of summer ... sweating i was remove'n ductwork in the attic...
alot of very old flour.... a few fires and everything stuck to me...
i looked.. good
p
I don't seen the marks of a dust mask.
Bad doggy!
(Yeah, I hate 'em too).
What's all this 'dust mask' concern?
Big crap, chucks of soot, not powder or dust, snot was not even black when I picked my nose <Gbig>.
Notice the eyes and the safety glasses in the shirt pocket, not totally ignorant....... ..<Gagain>
BTW, did some Hydrogen/Bromine Fuel cell work in the 80's, always had to have 2 other clean shaven people in the room, safety determination that respirator non-functional for bromine with a beard.
tut tut tut... now if you'd done it right the FIRST time, it would have lasted 31 years!
jt8
"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
tut tut tut
A number of pinholes corroded thru sch 80 black 1-1/2" pipe, probably the low PH of the ash.
Of course, could have used stainless pipe, but too cheap for that <G>, although did put stainless pipe where it is immersed in ashes, the original galv pipe corroded thru twice in the 30 years.
I sometimes wonder if there is too much hype about SS. How long has SS stove pipe been in use? Long enough to warrent the hype and price? Or in 30 years are we going to discover that it has to be replaced as well...
jt8
"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.