Just found these dangerous examples of incompetence while excavating our patio. They are from a gas installation done 20-odd years ago by a “certified” maestro. The almost completely unsoldered Tee connection had only a slight leak, I guess the solder flux acted as a partial seal.
If gas had had space to accumulate, this could have caused an explosion.
As for the crushed pipe, the maestros just filled the trench with the excavated material, instead of using sand to protect it. Luckily this was the older heavier-gauge pipe, the modern stuff would have probably punctured.
The “maestro” renovating our house hired teenage boys to help him. I walked into the kitchen to see one of them vainly trying to hammer a screw into gyprock.
For example, why you probably don’t want to let the maestro even know you have tools, let alone let them use them on the job. I made the mistake (once) of letting it be known that I had a 19 volt cordless drill. It disappeared on Friday and reappeared on Monday morning with the battery discharged.
At least it reappeared.
The obligatory behavior of a painter has long been thus: when the job is done, every empty paint can that you paid for , is left for you to count, as a way of the worker suggesting that he didn’t steal any of your paint.
Maestros will steal some percentage of the screws you paid for, and sometimes a percentage of the cement as well.
The chispas, the sparky, the electrician… the certified “persona autorizada” electrician might be OK but his underlings just might fail to follow instructions and use screws that are too long, enough to penetrate the walls when installing the outlet boxes. Which you discover later.
That said, I can’t paint them all with the same brush. I have one gasfiter who has proven to be an absolute gem, and who has screwed his other customers to come to my assistance in difficult times. During the COVID Plague it was nearly impossible to get calderas for calefacción central. One and only one available in the region, of the size I needed, was on order for a Chilean Army facility. Gasfiter said, fook 'em, they can wait, and brought it to me instead. Over the years there have been many occasions cuando me salvó la campana.
