Cabinet almost fell on top of me today...

[mattx]

One for WTF perhaps ?

Today I decided to start the up-grade of our switches. Over to the science block I go....

I take out the old 10/100 un-managed switches out, and replace them with nice new managed gigabit switches....All ok so far - [ apart from putting the fibres in the wrong way....]

So after a quick test [ after putting in the fibres the right way round ] I proceed to put back all the patch leads which thank god are all ready marked.

Then all of a sudden it started, the cabinet starts to come away from the wall - me thinking, :censored:it !!! There is a quite a deal of expensive kit in there starts to try and hold it, I scramble down and start to take the weight on my sholders, feeling my back tingle I manage to reach for my phone, praying Mark [ our maintenance chap ] has his switched on I ring....

Thank god he answers - I tell him the situation I am in and that there is no way I will be able to hold the cabinet for much - he legs it up to the science block sees the situation I am in, rushes over and helps take the weight.

We then manage [ whilst holding up the thing ] to pull over a filing cabinet and use the pressure cooker to prop the thing up.....[ You can just see it behind the other wooden shelf thing we found to also take some weight ]

My back is still twinging now......

Laugh at the pictures - I do.....

 

pix 2 and 3 show just what was holding the cabinet on the wall - Hmmm, I would like to meet Mr Cowboy who put this up.......

Edited July 21, 2008 by mattx

[plexer]

Lucky escape I'd say.

 

It could have fallen at any point good job you were underneath it when it did.

 

Ben

[Diello]

Ruddy 'ell!

[webman]

Those cables are messy.

 

 

 

 

 

Whoever mounted that on the wall wants hanging.

[torledo]

The guy who put that up has a lot in common with the plank of wood that WAS keeping it up. hehe

[DSapseid]

I had a similar thing happen to me about 2 years ago. The cabinet was held up by 4 screws into plasterboard it held 3 switches, patch panels, 3 cable tidys it was right above my desk as well. It only fell of as i had my had inside trying to grab a cable from the back that i had dropped in the top! I managed to shout to my colleague for help and we had 2 engineers on site in the room of the office so we shouted to them for an hand so the 4 of us proceeded to take the cabinet apart to get the units out of it. 2 years later the switches are still on the shelf and tied round a pipe with network. Its now just a store room so its not to much of a problem!!

[SYNACK]

That is a nasty install, who nails up a networking cabinet?

 

@webman - just don't let him build his own hanging tower or it won't do much good.

[maniac]

Had a simelar one when I first started at my last school it was supported on an old filing cabinet for almost a year until we brought a nice floorstanding cabinet and re-wired the lot into it. I don't trust wall mounted cabinets with a lot of heavy kit in, I always try and have floor standing ones where possible.

 

Mike.

[localzuk]

That looks remarkably like a lot of the installs we had at our school until recently. Even down to the Krone patch panels and that sunk in fibre tray. Not in the SW are you?

[sparkeh]

Wow, amazed it stayed up in the first place! Lucky escape.

[Pyroman]

what the heck!!!!

 

my bathroom cabinet's got bigger screws than that holding it up!

 

think the builder must've been

[powdarrmonkey]

I should have your back looked at mate, hidden injuries are sooo easy to some by and if it's twinging it can't be good...

 

Mods: Can we have a cowboy alert smiley?

[mattx]

Feeling a bit better now - just had a two hour lunch break at the local cafe !!

It's a good thing our maintenance man had his phone on him other wise the thing would be on the floor - i had plans on diving out the way and just letting it fall.....

 

We are now checking the other cabinets.....

 

These were put up before I and the maintenance chap joined.

 

Those cables are messy.

 

Not as messy as my boxers.....

[flashsnaps]

lmao, who put this thing up?

 

Looks like someone has just nailed it to the wall!

[gaz350]

Had a similar thing happen here, lucky there were 2 of us working in the area. was probably 1 of the oldest small cabs we had from a previous company we got to do our installs. Thing had tiny screws to hold it up!

 

our current installer does the monkey bar test. If it doesn't hold his 15 stone in weight while hanging off it then its not good enough

[teejay]

cough

Have you had an accident at work recently that wasn't you're fault? Call rip-off n scarper the accident claim specialists...

cough

[mattx]

Problem I have now, [ now its all back up and new switches in ] - is that the entire backbone switch [ 4104 GL ]comes to a grinding halt.

Just about to knock up a e-mail to HP support - i think it boils down to stacking two of these new switches [ 1800-24G ] and using 1 GBIC connection - and when ever a workstation has to do something major - BOOM goes our network.....

[Heebeejeebee]

Ha!

 

That happened in a council office in my LA - the consequence was that they had to send a chap around to ALL council buildings including schools to see which ones were installed with dirty great wall bolts of just 4" screws. They wanted to re bolt al the ones that were screwed in.

 

Out of our 10 cabs only 2 were install 'safely'. I suspect that all schools/offices were in the same boat. I've not heard back yet

 

HBJB

 

Not heard back

[Edu-IT]

That's interesting. After checking all of the other cabinets did you find anymore mattx?

[Oops_my_bad]

The easiest solution would be to use lighter switches

[mattx]

That's interesting. After checking all of the other cabinets did you find anymore mattx?

 

I'll let you know tomorrow - I've got one in the pre prep to do - [ which is in the worst place of all - again most probably plasterboard ]

I shall be checking it out before I remove anything !!

Then its another one in our main building - [ which is an old 18th century solid wall building ]

 

I'm still sore from this morning !!

[sidewinder]

Glad you're ok!

 

Something similar happened to a colleague a few years ago, was patching in some cables and it just fell down!

 

Most of our cabs were put up by a shambles of a company so Ive got no doubt others are dodgy as well...Im just very careful around them. In fact a fair few seem to be supported by filing cabinets - eg theyve mounted them flush with the top of the cabinet...could see them coming down if the cabinets are moved

[maniac]

Actually it has kinda raised this issue for me, I'm going to check all of my cabinets tomorrow of which there are a fair few. In particular the one in my science block, as it's directly above a doorway! I've got no idea who fitted half the stuff in this place, many many different companies over the years no doubt. I need to replace 2 very old planet switchs in it anyway (actually one's a hub ) so good excuse to do so!

 

Mike.

[mattx]

I think this sort of thing comes with the job !!

 

Just glad this one was not in a classroom near some kids.

Health and safety at work ? What's that ?????

[mattx]

I'm going to check all of my cabinets tomorrow of which there are a fair few

 

As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus says:

 

'Let's be careful out there......'