American/Canadian Electricians

[Pete999]

Just been watching Holmes on Homes (Canadian) any how sparky boy turns up to seal off some redundant outlets in the Garage, takes the cover off disconnected the receptacle ( see got all the names right) right now what does he do? well twists the hot, neutral and ground together puts on a screwit and says "that's OK now if anyone livens it up back at the panel it will pop the breaker" sure I saw him tie his horse up outside. Any one else got any horror stories from across the pond, without ruining the Special Relationship lol

 

[Andy78]

Yet i have seen threads on here where people recommend connecting all three ends of a disconnected circuit together to prevent accidental re-energisation??? Or am I wrong?

As Davesparks says, earthing all conductors at source is the best way of decommissioning a circuit that is not to be stripped out.

I have also seen plenty porcelain scruits. Usually on VIR or stranded twin cable, and usually in a lighting junction box/wiring centre.... although I did find some the other week wrapped up in string and tape....

 

[Pete999]

We have had threads on here castigating people for fault finding by repeatedly switching on the cb to see if they had found the fault, thus putting the cb under constant pressure under fault conditions. I would not recommend the Canadian/American way, the only way to safely isolate a length of cable, would be to identify it, disconnected it and remove it from any possible source of electrical energy.

 

[bossian]

Plenty! The best one is when you turn up at a venue (me wearing my old hat) and discover someone's forgotten to order the 110>240 tx's so you ask the house lads to give you two phases out of three and use the third leg as a neutral....always guaranteed to keep them scratching their heads!!!

We have some American machines at work wired this way.....when you look at the drawing you understand how I works....but it don't look right when you looking at it! And the funny thing is there's 2 ACME transformers in the panel......beep beep

Will try and get some pix tomorrow

 

[mache]

Not a screwit.
A wire nut.
Or, maybe in this case, just a nutter.

I'm sure I've heard of these referred to as 'fire nuts' in the past. Probably on this very forum

 

[Robotstar5]

Just been watching Holmes on Homes (Canadian) any how sparky boy turns up to seal off some redundant outlets in the Garage, takes the cover off disconnected the receptacle ( see got all the names right) right now what does he do? well twists the hot, neutral and ground together puts on a screwit and says "that's OK now if anyone livens it up back at the panel it will pop the breaker" sure I saw him tie his horse up outside.

I watched it today and thought exactly the same!.

Another one that I don't understand is why all the drains from sink, bath etc. have to be vented, we don't do that in the UK and don't have any problems.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

I seem to recall that Scruit was a trade name - a branded product.

Yes it was, and now I'm stumped as to the name of the manufacturer. They were in Acton, IIRC. I have some original Boxes of Scruit 'Midget' and 'Normal' sizes from the 1930s, illustrated with their 'mascot' - a stick man made of pieces of wire with a Scruit for a head.

The main difference between a typical modern US wirenut and a Scruit or similar (and there were others, including European brands) is that the Scruit was just porcelain, but the wirenut has a sharp-edged spring wire spiral inside to cut a thread on the outside of the copper to secure it and provide additional connection points. Or possibly to create lots of tiny heating elements as was discovered when people tried using them on aluminum cable that didn't make proper contact core to core due to the oxide coating.

The thing about venting - we did and still do vent branch wastes over a certain length, but we have always tried to minimise branch length and avoid sharing them between fittings. In the US they often use smaller diameter stacks and permit longer branches, under which conditions venting becomes more important to avoid unsealing traps.

 

[Marvo]

I watched it today and thought exactly the same!.

Another one that I don't understand is why all the drains from sink, bath etc. have to be vented, we don't do that in the UK and don't have any problems.

Most domestic soil drains in my country have a vacuum vent on them. No idea why, I've never thought to inquire to be honest.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

To avoid the water being sucked out of traps either due to pressure fluctuations in the stack or the momentum of water travelling along the pipe as the discharge from the fitting comes to an end leaving nothing to replenish it.

 

[Marvo]

I think you must have been a plumber in a previous life

 

[shanky887614]

I watched it today and thought exactly the same!.

Another one that I don't understand is why all the drains from sink, bath etc. have to be vented, we don't do that in the UK and don't have any problems.

correct me if im wrong but the soil pipe it all connects to upstairs is vented?

 

[Robotstar5]

correct me if im wrong but the soil pipe it all connects to upstairs is vented?

You're right, but they seem to vent each waste water outlet then combine them higher up so lots more pipework.

 

[norcal]

Just been watching Holmes on Homes (Canadian) any how sparky boy turns up to seal off some redundant outlets in the Garage, takes the cover off disconnected the receptacle ( see got all the names right) right now what does he do? well twists the hot, neutral and ground together puts on a screwit and says "that's OK now if anyone livens it up back at the panel it will pop the breaker" sure I saw him tie his horse up outside. Any one else got any horror stories from across the pond, without ruining the Special Relationship lol

The Canukistanis do a number of things that are not done or allowed in the states the number one thing is mount their panels sideways, which is not allowed because the National Electrical Code, NEC requires when a circuit breaker is mounted vertically that "ON" be in the up position, but since Canadian main panels are required to the section with the main breaker separate from the branch circuit section & any branch circuit wiring is prohibited from that section, they can mount them sideways for ease of wiring, there are other differences also. The act of wirenutting abandoned wiring together is poor practice in my opinion but I am not a fan of Holmes, the DIY (Destroy It Yourself) shows have some strange ways of doing things. Rarely will residential work be very clean, it's mostly low bid git R done mentality which means as cheap as one can get away with, but then there are craftsmen like on this job: NM Run With An Iron. - ECN Electrical Forums

 

[Knobhead]

Can anyone spot the N→E connection? Or even a neutral going in to the plant?

The LV side is bad, the MV side really inspires confidence.