These days I'm at the twilight of my career after years of restoring historic homes, and I have the confidence and professional equipment you would expect after decades of experience. But early in my career I had to learn an important lesson the hard way, and that lesson could easily have cost me my life. That incident on a job site drove home the importance of owning the right tools for the job, and what meaning they give to you as a professional.
It was a hot and humid summer day, and I was working on a farmhouse that had been built around 1790. Some parts of the home had been updated over the years, but the best I could tell, the original Southern yellow pine flooring had never been refinished. The room where I was working had an old-fashioned-type cast iron radiator that could not be easily disconnected, and my edger would not reach far enough under the radiator to be effective. So, I visited my friendly local hardware store and rented what I thought would be a suitable edger.
The edger went flying across the floor, crashing into the baseboard on the opposite wall.
I decided to edge the baseboards first and leave the radiator for last. As I was about halfway through the sanding under the radiator, I remember hearing a loud "pop," accompanied by multiple flashbulbs going off and the room lights going out. The edger went flying across the floor, crashing into the baseboard on the opposite wall.
At that moment, I had no idea what had just happened. After unplugging the edger, I checked the main panel board and, sure enough, I found that the circuit breaker for that room had tripped. I reset the breaker, and the room lights came back on, as well as power to the receptacles. By that time, it was late in the afternoon, and I noticed that I felt a bit dizzy, which I figured must be due to dehydration, so I called it a day. On the way home, I dropped the edger off at the rental hardware store, explained what had happened, and asked them to check it out.
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The next morning, they apologized for any trouble that I'd had, saying that their "electrician" had previously worked on some "loose connections" in that unit, and in the process he apparently got the hot and neutral wires mixed up when reconnecting the wiring, thusly inadvertently energizing the metal edger casing. Making matters worse, he failed to notice that the edger grounding wire had become disconnected from the grounding pin in the edger plug. All the time I was using that edger, it was hot, literally, but there was no effect because I (and the edger) were ungrounded. That is, ungrounded until the metal casing came into contact with the grounded radiator, which caused a direct short and blew the circuit. I was lucky. The outcome would have been much, much worse had any part of my sweaty body come into contact with that radiator as I was holding the edger, which would have caused the electrical current to course through my body. As it was, the only damage was a black mark on the cast iron radiator and a melted ding spot on the casing of the edger where it had contacted the radiator.
The first thing I did was go to my local wood flooring distributor and buy a new edger and a new big machine.
Looking at the bright side of things, the hardware store was happy to refund my rental fee, and the first thing I did was go to my local wood flooring distributor and buy a new edger and a new big machine. Those two machines enabled me to do a quantum leap forward in terms of not only floor refinishing but in the confidence I had with clients. When you know you have the right tools, you are more predisposed to do higher quality work or tackle jobs you might have stayed away from before. And having those tools—with the knowledge and skills to use and maintain them properly—gives you confidence when you're eyeball to eyeball with prospective clients, and they see that—they look inside and see you're a professional. If you've got that confidence, you can do superior work in a safe and efficient manner and charge enough to make a good living.
Later, I found out from the hardware store owner that they'd immediately scrapped their rental sanders and stopped offering rental services. I would encourage everyone to buy their own tools (the highest quality they can afford) and keep them maintained in a safe condition. If you have to rent, make sure you rent from a reputable source. As for me, when I look back on this incident from many years ago, I'm happy to still be alive.
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