I thought I would show this shot of the job I am on now since this is a more typical job for me instead of the Big House. Jobs like that house are few and far between. Anyway, I was brought over to this job to weld up that red steel you see towards the bottom of the photo. It is a support for a movable wall basically. This is in a huge multistory office building in Birmingham. Work like this can be a pain even though I love welding because you can get in some really tight places when you add to existing structure. You have to cram yourself up in all that pipe and concrete and over and under stuff and then strike this arc only a few inches away sometimes. You get burned a lot etc. It always cracks me up that the box of welding rods comes with these instructions that say "teach the welder to keep his head out of the fumes". I would like to send the manufacturers of the rods a letter saying " teach yourself to cram these rods up your #$%^%&". Well, I mean, we are not stupid; we know to try to avoid breathing that stuff but it's very hard not to breathe the fumes and now alot of older welders have Parkinson's. But I enjoy what I do and make a pretty good living. Oh, there are 2 other women construction workers on this job! I couldn't believe it. Also, this piddleling (sp.?) thing (the steel) had to be inspected and out of all the other big, structural stuff I've done in 13 years, this is only the second or third time I have had to be inspected and show my papers. That figures.I'll try to have more about the house soon. More is happening. I am also trying to figure out how to list the blogs of other people that I read like everybody else does on their blogs. I'm a moron when it comes to stuff like that but I have noticed that I am listed on others blogrolls and want to do the same on mine.
2 comments:
i installed solar on a`university in palo alto. the photo you took could have came from the area i had to work in. it was a crazy job, they required me to braze all of my joints which was a first for me. the only connections that normally require brazing are in the collectors themselves--which i've done plenty. the inspections on that job were also a bit extreme
Working on existing buildings can be crazy and inspections are a pain although needed. They can be very arbitrary too depending on the inspector you get and whether or not he or she is in a good mood. The same guy that is the main inspector on this job was on one when I first started construction and I remember he made us bush down a whole flight of concrete steps because they were 1/4" too high. He is actually a very nice man and remembered me after all these years.
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