Workers Converted an Old Factory Into Offices. One Employee Insisted There Could Be No Exposed Wires
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Imagine working in an office building that used to be a factory. Would you expect it to look like a boring office building, or would you expect it to have a more industrial look since it used to be a facotry?
In this story, we hear from an HVAC worker who was working on a factory that was being converted to office space. One office worker was pretty hands on with the project and made it very clear that there were not to be any exposed wires no matter what.
OP tried to explain why there needed to be an exception in one specific situation, but the office worker insisted.
Keep reading to see how the story plays out.
No exposed wires!
So I work in HVAC and we were doing some relatively minor duct work on an old cigar factory building.
An architectural firm had bought the building which was already being used for office space, and being an architectural firm they of course wanted to make some changes.
The big change was cutting out a piece of the second floor above the downstairs lobby to make a more open inviting space.
This impacted the ductwork for the first floor, hence us being there to move it.
One employee was very hands on and pretty picky.
Everything was going pretty smoothly for us but there was a guy from the firm who was very hands on with the subcontractors and very picky about exactly how things got done.
1 issue he had with our work was with a basic return air grate we put in. He didn’t like the looks of it so we swapped it with one he liked. No problem.
Upstairs was the main office area and he was obsessed with having nothing exposed. Power wires, thermostat wires, Ethernet, etc.
But this was easier said than done.
The problem with that is, the buildings in the area are old mills and factories and are made of brick with huge timber beams supported by solid metal columns.
The common way to deal with this is to run your wires as neatly as possible, exposed.
There were some interior sheetrock walls so for the most part everything got re routed through there to appease the no exposed wires rule.
But one wire was almost impossible to hide.
The issue: the building has forced hot water for heat on the office floor and while we had the central main thermostat on an interior wall, there was a separate zone of baseboard along an outside wall with a zone head that needs to be wired to a thermostat to work automatically.
He didn’t want to see that wire.
I explained the wire needs to be attached to work correctly and suggested re-running the small brown wire along the corner of the brown wooden beam so as to be practically unnoticeable.
But that wasn’t good enough.
Nope! No exposed wires!
A little more back and forth with same answer.
Ok, everything else is done so I cut the wire, pulled it off the wall and we’re out of there.
Fallout:
Jump forward to winter…
Wintertime, we get an extra cold week. Firm calls us “hey this area of our office is real cold!”
I go out, show them how to manually open the zone head so it heats when main loop is heating.
Things start to be warmer but still cool enough for heat to be on.
“Hey this area is too hot!” Go back over and show them again how to turn zone off manually.
The manager finally found out what happened.
Next year wintertime. “Hey this area is too cold!”
I go out and open zone head and tell office manager that this will be the last time doing this for free. Next time will be $100 service call to move the lever.
Manager questions why we left it like that and I get to explain that their guy (who didn’t seem to be around anymore) instructed me to remove all exposed wires so that’s what we did, and we could put it back for $x.xx if they wanted.
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Not sure what they ended up doing but that was the last time I went over there.
Well, they got their wish. No exposed wires. It’s just a little extra annoying every winter.
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
One person shares how building costs increase.
This person has a question and a potential solution.
Another person has the same suggestion.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who found a way around his company’s denial of company time to study for his Commercial Driver’s License.
An HVAC worker weighs in.
Maybe there were other options after all. I think OP was so annoyed with the office worker that he didn’t want to offer a compromise. Instead, he just cut the wire and walked away. Done.
Getting what you want isn’t always the best idea.
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