Have You Ever Left a Tool Behind?
I do it all the time, but it was collection time for me earlier this week on a job in SF. I found these nice Milwaukee channel locks high on top of a wall-hung boiler.
I know who left them there. He's got his promo stickers on the boiler and zone valve control. He even put his stickers over mine. That's not cool and he's not getting his channel locks back.
Two btu per sq ft for degree difference for a slab
Comments
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So that's where I left it… Have I ever left a tool behind? Good heavens yes.
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England0 -
When I worked for Johnson controls as an apprentice, I used to leave those small round thermometers in the ductwork above the ceiling. Fortunately I found as many as I left
Ray Wohlfarth
Boiler Lessons
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I have the opposite happen. Trades picking up my tools that look like theirs.
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"A" tool? I wish it were only one!
Rough looping slip joint pliers.
Bob "hot rod" Rohr
trainer for Caleffi NA
Living the hydronic dream0 -
That was my Trademark ™. If you didn't have one of my tools , then you were not one of my customers.
Edward Young Retired
After you make that expensive repair and you still have the same problem, What will you check next?
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Does losing them at the house count? Actually losing them 10 seconds after you used it.
7/16,1/2, and nowadays 10mm sockets.
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A doctor reaches into his pocket for a pen and finds a rectal thermometer instead. "Dammit!" he exclaims. "Some A-hole has my pen!"
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Ya! The tools that I have left behind is very disconcerting. I tack on an extra 10% on my bill for all the tools that I left behind. (Just Kidding)
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Stick thermometers. Probably lost a dozen of them by now.
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Yikes!
I have found as much and as many as I have left behind. Lately, it's been the cordless tool battery charger. I often go back to get it.
Oh! and @Alan (California Radiant) Forbes Those are my pliers but NOT my stickers.
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Had a guy who worked for my brother and me named Tom Munson. Always left something behind. To this day, we do a "Munson check" before we leave a jobsite.
"Did you do your Munson check?"
Long gone, but his name lives on.
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.2 -
a number of years ago I was working a job in an old house and found a old wrecker bar in the rafter of the porch roof . Thought that was pretty cool until a couple weeks later I noticed my modern wrecker bar had disappeared on that job. What the house gives the house takes away. 😎
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My father taught my three brothers and myself how to use tools at an early age. We helped him work on the cars, motorcycle, boat, yard, house, etc. I am forever grateful that he took the time to teach us. However, he was a stickler with regard to returning the tools to the same location you found them. If the old man found a tool in the yard or left on the workbench you were going to hear about it. Friends and neighbors would ask to borrow tools often. If they did not return them, my father would call them. Dad valued his tools and taught me and my brothers to do the same. One family friend borrowed a set of jumper cables and did not return them after numerous requests. Dad never spoke to her again.
Fast forward to me working for Dad as a young adult I rarely leave tools on the job or loose them. With regard to my employees, that is a different story. When I visit a jobsites after my guys were there, I have found an aluminum four-foot pipe wrench, push broom, sockets, screwdrivers, drills, pipe vices, hand carts, etc.
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Lost plenty of tools but also found some others left behind. 1 Find that was good was a pair of Greenlee ratcheting cable cutters. Still have them. At the time I found them 28 years ago they were going for $150. I think they are $250 or more now.
Made up for some of what I lost.
Worse place for me was working in drop ceilings. You leave a tool behind and replace all the tiles. Then try and find the missing tool don't know where to start.
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Sometimes you don't leave things intentionally. There's a very good reason that a modern mechanic's tool set will have half a dozen 10 mm sockets… they have a way of dropping into the engine compartment where you can't get at them without removing the engine…
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
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Was in a basement once where it was so terribly cluttered I put my brand-new Estwing hammer down and could not find it no matter how much I looked.
Another building I was in was such a poor design that I kept getting lost.
It was so bad that I couldn't find myself. But that's a discussion for a different forum. 🤔😉🙃
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We once did a job for a fish wholesaler in one of the SF piers in the bay and had to do all the drainage work on a raft. We consulted the tide tables for proper reach. But we also lost some tools and materials when we dropped them and they bounced off the the deck of the raft and into the bay.
Whatever money we made was spent on replacements that went into the drink.8.33 lbs./gal. x 60 min./hr. x 20°ΔT = 10,000 BTU's/hour
Two btu per sq ft for degree difference for a slab0 -
As of now I'm very anal about this and each tool has a place, so I take an inventory before I leave the job and will not leave until every home has its tool.
With that said, when I was a fresh apprentice about 17 years ago I lost my Leatherman on a job and had no idea where it went. It bothered me every time I thought about it. 12-13 years later, different company with different people, I was sent out to that job to move some baseboard element for the abatement contractor. I told my coworker that I'd lost my Leatherman on this job 12-13 years ago and we had a chuckle but moved on. 2 days later, he's buried in the ceiling isolating the baseboard zone we're about to disconnect and starts laughing hysterically up there. What's so funny? His hand comes down from above the ceiling tiles with a Leatherman in it, covered in dust bunnies, open to the flat screwdriver option. It took a minute to realize the situation, but HE FOUND MY LEATHERMAN right where I left it more than a decade ago. Apparently I'd been bleeding air from a coin vent up there and set it on the ceiling tile. Odds 0/100 but it happened.
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Decades ago I and a helper were lighting pilot lights on water heaters in the trailer court. (not my usual customers but the helper had buddies there).
He got through with his and come over very excited proclaiming he now has a wrench just like mine.
He was holding a 8" Diamond adjustable wrench with green handle covering. He was proud of it until I asked him to read the ID engraved on it. It was the one I lost years earlier had replaced. Good tool that was wide opening and thin jawed that fit in tight places………
And no, I did not let him keep it.
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It was fun reading all the comments and a relief knowing that I'm not the only one cursed. Ya! when a lost tool turns up it's like Christmas.
I worked with an Australian contractor and when ever he queried us about a lost tool, I always told him its gone "Walkabout".
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I also found my very first Knipex pliers that laid on top of the collector box of a counter flow furnace.
The nice handles were baked quite well after 10 years.
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My story isn't about lost, but found, tools.. last Spring i found a great set of old machinist tools in an old oak toolbox I bought for $100. I figured i'd ebay the tools to recoup my money and give the toolbox to my Lady to use for her jewelry.
Problem was all of the tools were engraved with the owner's name so I called the woman I bought the box from and she said she inherited them from a father figure who passed away. She also told me he worked at Los Alamos (few hours north of me).
So I googled the guys name, Gus Schultz, and turns out he was the shop foreman hired by Oppenheimer at the manhattan project.
Bryant 245-8 2-pipe steam in a 1930s 6-unit 1-story apt building in the NM mountains. 26 radiators heating up 3800sqf.
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that’s amazing. Don’t break up the set; as a group with toolbox probably worth over $1000 with the documentation.
maybe you can split proceeds with widow if she needs the income.0 -
The widow is long gone as are his children, no grandchildren. It's probably why it ended up with a family friend. When i called her to explain what a big deal he was she didn't seem to care, in fact she gave me the other oak toolbox (sans tools) from his estate.
Several museums wanted the set but they wanted me to donate it and they were just going to store it instead of displaying it. The box with tools sold for $1800 last week.
https://historical.ha.com/itm/arms-accessories/tools/-manhattan-project-tools-in-tool-box-personally-owned-by-gus-h-shultz-foreman-of-the-machine-shop-hired-by-oppenheimer/a/6310-43281.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515
Bryant 245-8 2-pipe steam in a 1930s 6-unit 1-story apt building in the NM mountains. 26 radiators heating up 3800sqf.2 -
That's a great story. I couldn't help but be reminded of what Oppenheimer is alleged to have said when he was asked if he worried about the Germans developing a bomb first: "No, our Germans are smarter than their Germans."
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The atomic heritage museum's reply included this interesting tidbit:
Bryant 245-8 2-pipe steam in a 1930s 6-unit 1-story apt building in the NM mountains. 26 radiators heating up 3800sqf.0 -
The tool fairy gives and takes!
Bob "hot rod" Rohr
trainer for Caleffi NA
Living the hydronic dream1 -
I’ve only experienced the tool gremlin. 🙃
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That last picture, showing a tool made in Athol, MA, reminds me of a joke that was told when Endicott Peabody was governor of Massachusetts:
"Endicott Peabody share a name with four towns in Massachusetts: Endicott, Peabody, Marblehead, and Athol."
(It's pronounced Ath-ole).
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actually, I misspoke. The tool fairy did grant me a gift in 2010 when I bought a 3 bay craftsman tool chest from a large customer that was closing a facility. Noticed it was heavy when we began loading at the warehouse and found it was full of mechanics hand tools arranged in cutout foam drawers. Brought it to the warehouse guy and he said; “you paid the $100 so it’s your box now and I need it out of the building”. 😎😎😎
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I found these nice Milwaukee channel locks high on top of a wall-hung boiler.
3-foot barring-bar wrench left inside jet engine for 34 flights
Airbus A380 flew for 300 hours with metre-long tool left inside engine0 -
Funny story. Years ago, we added a new bathroom. The plumber that the contactor hired, left behind his channel locks. I told the contractor about this, but apparently he never relayed the info to the plumber. About 6 years latter, I happen to see a plumbers truck in my neighborhood and recognized it was the plumber that left behind the channel locks. When I approached him with the pliers, he was happy as a kid on XMas morning and had been wondering for years, what happen to those pliers.
BTW, I bicycle a lot and over the years I have found tons of box cutters, pliers, screwdrivers etc… on the side of the road.
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Driving down the road here, there is a Bungee cord about every 20 miles.
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I was repairing a roof & had to trim back some branches & tossed my loppers into some pachysandra & told my helper to make sure he dug them up as soon as he finished what he was doing. 15 years later doing something on the same property & & wound up having to root around in the same pachysandra bed & came across my missing loppers.
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Plus whatever that bungee cord was holding 100 yards later.
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I was working in a small town only accessible by plane, doing a tune up on a "water heater" style boiler. I always had to try and guess how long a job was going to take so I wouldn't miss the return plane. I was running late trying to get the job done, and I knew I only had about five minutes to run to the plane, but I could not find my leatherman. It had to be in a four foot clean radius of where I was working, and I just could not find it. I finally had to just pack up and abandon it in order to catch the plane. I finally realized about five hours later after thinking about it that I had used it up on the top of the exhaust collector, which was just out of my vision a little. So, I am not sure if it is in the boiler, or just on the outside of the collector, but the next person working on it will appreciate it.
That was a good leatherman though.
Rick
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You all would love me as a customer. I have called many contractors to say, "Hey, you left your tools at my house". If fact just last week the guy did boiler maintenance and left a hose. This article just made me remember to deliver it to the office next week. I did keep the carpenters home made saw horses. They have come in very handy in the last twenty years. Oh, and the plasterer's scrub brush which I use to wash window screens. It wasn't worth my time to call him. Every day for a week I would arrive at the house to open the door for the plasterer to work. He NEVER showed. Each time he said he would be there the next day. After week of this, I said, "Call me when your standing at the door".
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Oh dam, I forgot about this one and it was bad, real bad.
I went on a service call late in the day to troubleshoot some electric heaters in a large AHU at a college.
Around 4:30 I was finishing up and packing up my tools and the maintenance guy kept bugging me and bugging me he wanted to lock up and go home "I am not getting paid for this" he kept saying. "Just write me out a slip so I can sign it".
I used to carry my tools in a big electrician's pouch with a belt over my shoulder. (never should have still have neck and shoulder issues")
So, I run out to my truck with my tools and hang the belt on the passenger side mirror (big mistake). Grabbed a slip went back in the building and filled it out and had him sign it.
Back to the truck, yup drove off with the belt on the mirror. Never found it (or someone stole it off the mirror when I went back inside) Lost a meter a Fluke 52 thermometer and all the tools.
Never realized it until I got to the first job the next morning and looked in the truck. Where the F…are my tools?
Oh ****.
Went back to that job and thought I might at least find a screwdriver or something in the parking lot. No dice.
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wow, @EBEBRATT-Ed that is a bummer.
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