OffGridForGood
Catch, make or grow everything you can.
I was doing some work on a big box store a number of years ago, also on the site was an electrician changing all the lights in the store to LEDs
All the work had to be done between 10PM and 7AM each night - so everyone on the store prefab'd as much as possible during the day, then ran in at night and installed everything as fast as possible.
So I see the electrician has the new LED's all bolted to 20-foot prepainted strut, wired and ready for install, so later I go round back of the store to see what they did with the old lights that came out - all tossed into a metal recycling bin! (they pulled the bulbs and ballasts and left everything else attached to the old strut.
So I ask the foreman if he minds if I grab some of the old strut/light fixture assemblies "for my own shop" he says knock yourself out" ie take what you want. I only wish I had more work on that building and was there every night while they were...instead of only the one night.
It is amazing what gets tossed out or sent to a recycle centre, simply to speed up the new work. Perfectly good material, just had some old paint on it and a bunch of old light fixtures to remove and you have strut for free. At the time I had no idea that strut prices would be so high now...damn.
All the work had to be done between 10PM and 7AM each night - so everyone on the store prefab'd as much as possible during the day, then ran in at night and installed everything as fast as possible.
So I see the electrician has the new LED's all bolted to 20-foot prepainted strut, wired and ready for install, so later I go round back of the store to see what they did with the old lights that came out - all tossed into a metal recycling bin! (they pulled the bulbs and ballasts and left everything else attached to the old strut.
So I ask the foreman if he minds if I grab some of the old strut/light fixture assemblies "for my own shop" he says knock yourself out" ie take what you want. I only wish I had more work on that building and was there every night while they were...instead of only the one night.
It is amazing what gets tossed out or sent to a recycle centre, simply to speed up the new work. Perfectly good material, just had some old paint on it and a bunch of old light fixtures to remove and you have strut for free. At the time I had no idea that strut prices would be so high now...damn.
