What is the biggest mistake you have made?

[steve-tiler]

I dropped a tile in a 1400mm walk in shower tray. Was doing top cuts and it fell out my hand and when through the cardboard and dust sheets and took a big chip out it. Had to be a matki tray didn't it.

I was employee of the month!

 

[kevsalt]

left out the mosaic border...got two walls up before i realised,,,,doh ..what a numb nut

 

[andyb1]

Put some feature tiles up, forgot the metal trims they wanted In between :lol:

 

[Rich Midge]

Turned the water on under the kitchen sink in a show house when I was an apprentice. Filled 10 or more buckets to clean them before I noticed the water coming through the light fittings from upstairs. Turns out the plumber hadn't capped any pipes. The whole of the upstairs was under about 3 inch of water. Mains pressure straight out the cold tails.
A fella tipped me £20 (half my weekly wage as a 17 year old) after I'd finished grouting his kitchen floor. Picked up a bag of adhesive and walked right through his house and down his newly tarmaced drive to the van before I found out the bag was split. Gave him his cash back and spent about 2 hours cleaning.

 

[Ian]

I was doing two ensuites a in the same house, got the floor tiles mixed up, fortunately the adhesive was still soft(ish) when the homeowner spotted it. I may have mentioned before that I nearly burnt a house down when a spark from my grinder lit a dust sheet I'd used to cover a motorcycle in the garage!

 

[peteablard]

Fitted the wrong colour vinyl in 2 houses once but never heard anything back from the customers. Fitted tiles landscape instead of portrait too a couple of times. Me and a subby cocked up the bond on a marble floor once but had gone too far to change it. It's still there in one of the designer outlets in Heathrow Terminal 2A. Have known floor layers set fire to floors when using contact adhesive when heating the vinyl with a blow lamp!!

 

[Stef]

When I worked for a house builder years ago we always worked with a trade sheet that every trade got.
Standard house for me was a bathroom upstairs & a downstairs toilet/shower room.
About 3 times I fitted the tiles in the wrong rooms, a black "Inky" was employed & I wrote everything on the wall, what tile, landscape or portrait & what border.
Had a few disasters over the years.. [emoji16]

 

[WetSaw]

Not tiling but...
About 2 weeks after I'd started my apprenticeship we (John the mechanic and me) were working on an Austin 1300. Back end was up on axle stands with the wheels off waiting for new brake shoes. John was in the car fitting a new gear lever gaiter. I was under the bonnet fitting new spark plugs. Then, in what is one of my finest moments, I dropped the ratchet which shorted across the starter solenoid. The car lurched forward accompanied by a scream of "What the f**k" from inside the car (John had put it in gear while changing the gaiter) fell off of the stands and continued to lurch forward and stopped as it trapped me between it and another car just hard enough to make sure I never did it again!!

 

[Stef]

Oh, that could have ended in real tears..

 

[WetSaw]

Oh, that could have ended in real tears..

It did, but as a spotty 15 year old I blamed it on shock not the biggest bollocking I'd ever had in my life!!

Could have been worse though.....another lad had the parts managers new company car up on the ramp for it's first service. Door open, he had his left foot on the throttle and turned the key with his left hand......yes it was in gear...as the car lurched forward he's trying to hold it back, the whole workshop is shouting at him to let go which he does just in time as the car nose dives off of the ramp onto the workshop floor then tips onto its roof. It then went very quiet and it all seemed to go in slow motion. Then someone noticed the lad was clinging to the post of the ramp, white as a ghost and unable to move. They had to get a ladder to go up and prise him off the post so they could let the ramp down.

 

[stusgsx]

I've laid a chequer floor but with just the white. Oops!

 

[widler]

Getting married [emoji15]

 

[John Benton]

Mine was fortunately in my own house. Just fully decorated the kitchen and the wife and I had been out shopping for a new clock, ended up with a heavy glass wall clock.

Anyway 9 o'clock Saturday night she decides that it's got to be fixed that night couldn't wait till Sunday :mad2:

With the weight of the clock it needed to be drilled and plugged to hold it. I knew that there was a cold water pipe buried in the wall, so I thought 6" to the right of the RSJ and move it out into the extension side of the kitchen will be fine. Should've drilled it where the wife wanted it and would have missed BOTH hot and cold pipes. Water everywhere.

Still can't work out to this day why the pipe was routed where it was, and had to redecorate whole wall again.