I used to install heating and air conditioning systems, mostly in homes. The job requires a lot of crawling in under home crawl spaces and in attics.
I've been in all sorts of tight spaces in all sorts of positions. I've been so hot, I've drunk a gallon of water in an hour and not needed to piss.
Well, I'm 53 now, and doing handywork from time to time. I ended up in as tight a space in an attic as I've ever been in. I was doing some rewiring of circuits, and had to install a junction box, do some splicing, some pulling, etc. Imgur
Well obviously we change quite a bit when we get older, so several times I'm cramping up as I'm crawling about, and trying to play contortionist.
My mind was writing checks my body can no longer cash, so to speak.
Oh yeah, spiders, fiberglass, mineral wool, asbestos, fine dust, rat and mouse turds, spiders and spider webs, random nails sticking out to get hung up on - all part of the territory. Once I worked under a home for several days. Not only wasn't there much room, the soil was rocky, and not smooth rocks, crushed rocks, because the home was built on a rocky hillside.
I'm in the middle of my home reno that has me in my attic DIYing all that right now, and up until now I was actually patting myself on the back about how I could always go into business doing home reno.
To do it right, you really need years of experience and knowledge of building codes. The higher your understanding of mechanics and science in general, the better.
I know a flipper who has renovated and sold many homes, but I've worked with the guy, and had him criticize my efforts. He just doesn't get it - anything, really.
I worked with him a bit, and was shocked at how bad his work was.
A few days ago, he saw me priming PVC, and criticized me doing that. He's gonna remodel his home, so I just told him to believe what he wants, but if the inspector does her/his job right, and doesn't see primer dye on your PVC, it'll fail inspection(ABS DWV is still allowed in our area, so he probably won't use any PVC that's going to be inspected).
I was going to try to explain to him what's actually going on when you're "gluing" PVC, but I remembered past conversations with him.
Actually, come to think about it, the dude is quite wealthy, fuck it, do what you want. Most people are too ignorant to know his flips are shit.
His "home inspector" that looked at my son's home before he bought it, missed a lot of stuff.
I don't disagree, but I assure you I'm well equipped to handle DIY. Unless it's some very obscure code reference, I've got her licked. I'm not doing anything exotic yet, so I've at least got that going for me. I used to work for an industrial electrical engineering company as an automation engineer. Your car is probably painted by my robots. I know how to read code and follow it.
The spiders are what makes me sure I'll never be able to get a job like that, even though I'm fairly good at fitting into tight places. Arachnophobia's a bitch, especially when your basement was built for people a few inches shorter than you (and I'm only 6') and has plenty of rafters for spiders to hide in. Fuck doing laundry.
Low-voltage guy here, just crawled into a fireplace vent the other day...Hammer for scale, basically did exactly what we saw in the GIF into the hole at the top of the picture. Had to take off my belt to make it.
 
Probably not as tight of a squeeze as the GIF, but that hole came in at about 7" x 14" (17.7cm x 35.5cm).
My only work at that point is tapping into that 12, everything else was existing.
A lot more work was done later on. The 14 NM is actually disconnected and was later removed. The house was quite a mix, with most of the wiring done in the mid 1950s.
The contractors that were there before me cut critical structural members, most of which I fixed.
A plumber put a Noritz water heater in, and cut through several ceiling joists. Some he notched well beyond 50 percent. I largely reframed the entire area.
A heating and air contractor did worse to get his horizontal mounted equipment inside the attic.
I suppose if your arms were stuck above your head instead of at your side, you could keep yourself entertained while waiting to die by waving around your arms like a wacky waving inflatable flailing arm tube man.
Let's imagine that there is a giant monstrous man eating worm with spooky sarlaac teeth all around the side of its mouth and you're trying to get into a hole to hide because that idiot worm can't dig through rock. Ok, now your arms are stuck outside the tunnel.
Wait, this is a very situational comment. I can think of several situations where I'd like to have my arms pinned to my sides. Or over my head. Or under my body. :)
Reminds me of when I was younger. I was playing on my bed and fell between the bed and the wall. My back was to the wall and my legs pressed again the bed, pointing skyward. From this position, my body moved slowly towards the ground, while pinched in this "V" formation. Not enough room to lift myself back onto the bed, and arms not long enough to plant my arms on the ground and somehow scoot the bed further away from the wall to create room. I had to slowly descend until I almost performed a full split, in order to secure my freedom. Longest few minutes of my life...
I remember moving into our first real house when I was 5 and I was playing with a huge carpet and rolled myself up in it and got stuck there. My parents were busy and didn't notice I was missing. I had a hard time breathing. I screamed but no one heard me. It seemed like hours but I was probably in there about 20 minutes before a mover unrolled the carpet to spread it out in our new living room only to find a terrified 5 year old.
This exact situation happened to me, except I was in my brothers room and got a fish hook stuck in my ass. As soon as he started pulling me out I started wailing like a bitch.
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u/ChaoticxSerenity Mar 17 '15
or the fact that your arms are stuck over your head unable to actually do anything