From the diaries of a member of the Trotec media team: How a building dryer and a fan saved my bacon and the day.
We all make mistakes. After all to err is human. And if my story helps prevent anyone else from making the same mistake as I did, then some good may come of what nearly turned out to be my own little Waterloo.
We’ve got a wonderful garden. It’s a great place which we like to retire to at the end of a demanding day or the end of a long and gruelling week. But there was something missing, something that would give this idyllic spot the final, special, finishing touch, something that would perhaps put our garden a cut above the rest – a swimming pool.
Nothing extravagant. Nothing on an Olympic scale, but one which would allow us to swim a few strokes, one which we could cool off in on a hot summer’s day or simply romp around in and have some fun. And hey, if it turned out be impressive enough to knock a few neighbours for a six, then we didn’t really mind that either.
After much deliberation and after doing our sums we plonked on a quick assembly model which for us ticked all the boxes as far as design, practicability and value for money were concerned. The pool was a modest 4.57 m across and 1.22 m high and could be filled to a capacity of exactly 16,290 litres. The time had come to invite a few friends round for our first of what we thought would be a string of wet and wild pool parties.
But first we had to get rid of tree that was would otherwise spoil the fun we were planning on having because it cast a long, dark shadow over our pool when the sun travelled across the pale, blue sky. A stout rope was wrapped taughtly around one of the thicker branches towards the top; the chain saw tore into the trunk and a wedge was rammed into the gash it cut. The tree towered above us, tottering slightly on the stump that supported the full weight of the magnificent specimen. And then it twisted and fell with an almighty crash – right on top of the pool that we had finished filling only moments before.
The pool seemed to halt the fall for a fraction of a second as the sides of the pool briefly withstood the force of the impact. And then the trunk thundered to the ground and the walls of the pool split open to make room for the tree’s added mass. Exactly 16,290 litres of crystal clear water gushed out over our lawn and swamped our garden.
But worse was still to come. We watched in awe as the tidal wave that the fallen tree had caused carried on undeterred and spread out under the fence that separated the two properties as it flowed into our neighbours’ garden subsequently setting their garage under about 10cm of water.
It took a while for the water to subside and seep into the ground of our neighbouring plots. And it took a while for our neighbours to calm down after they had seen the extent of the damage which our botched attempt had caused.
Fortunately, help was at hand. We knew who to call and we knew what the machines and appliances which we at Trotec sell and which our rental division TKL hire out are capable of. Within hours we had managed to secure a TTK 400 building dryer and a TTV 4500 fan which were recommended to us by our hotline and which we then proceeded to install in order to dry out our neighbours’ garage. The TTK 400 was just the right size for the job while the TTV 4500 had the job of circulating the air so as to accelerate and optimise the drying process.
It took three weeks for the garage to dry. In these three weeks we cleaned up the mess we had made and put up a new pool. Needless to say we thought it might be a nice idea if we invited our neighbours to come on over and join in our first pool party.
So what is there that we could learn from the little mishap we had? First fell the tree, then put up the pool. And should something go wrong you know who to call and where to look.
TKL. A division of the Trotec Group.
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