Being a trainee, having recently started my own jobs on the side, I'm highly conscious of not making mistakes. Obviously something everyone should do, but to some extent I am probably overly focused/anxious about this at the moment as I don't need anything to knock my confidence, and more importantly, I want to make sure that everything I'm doing is safe and correct for the customer (to this end I obviously turn down work unless I am pretty damn certain I know what I'm doing, and have already done it a number of times before as a subby).
I suppose I'm really asking about 'big' mistakes, and focused more on the execution of electrical work itself rather than other aspects, but any feedback welcome. I guess this is mostly aimed at domestic electrical work, but still would be interested to hear of industrial / commercial mishaps too. I've searched a bit for previous threads on this topic but haven't come across anything, if there has been a previous thread, if someone could please link it and I'll move the relevant parts of this post over there instead.
It has occurred to me that it would probably help me to find out about 'big' mistakes that others have made, and maybe what happened as a result of them, and what resolution if any was implemented to make good. I suppose that would require a bit of humility and more honesty than some may be willing to share, and of course I don't want to encourage anyone to inadvertently incriminate themselves, but that aside, I thought there's no harm in asking. I think reading about other's experiences would help me to reinforce the underlying suspicion I have that obviously things can and do sometimes go wrong (although I acknowledge that in the electrical industry there is a limited scope for mistakes due to danger to people, property & livestock etc hence regs) but that, most likely, the vast majority of the time no-one is killed or seriously injured, no-one goes to prison, and generally speaking the long term harm is minimal or non-existent.
I suppose it's only fair I share my own errors to date, albeit from my very limited experience and time served in the field. Last year I put a nail through a water pipe while hammering a floorboard back down. Fortunately I identified this immediately, because I could hear a quiet hissing from beneath the floor. We shut off the water while I plugged the hole with my thumb, and a colleague came to the rescue with some plumbing knowledge, and chopped out the punctured section of pipe, installed a pvc length in replacement with a couple of plastic couplers, and ptfe tape as I recall, we then tested it under pressure and it held. Since then I always carry basic plumbing parts on the van, in case this happens again (and am now fastidious about replacing floorboards).
The only other thing that springs to mind, is a mistake I witnessed from someone else, who was pulling out an old board, and mistakenly left two grub screws sticking out of the meter (the cover was already off when I got there, I don't know the details of permissions etc but assume it was all granted/authorised). They were multitooling the wooden support for the old board to get rid of it, and there was a bang at the meter. Turns out the vibration from the blade had caused the grub screws to jostle and arc, and although no real damage, the meter was blackened a bit. Fortunately in that case that meter was to be removed anyway by DNO, I wasn't present to see how that panned out. But nevertheless, I made a mental note to ensure that if I'm ever in that position, I make sure not to give live ends the opportunity to arc under any circumstances.
I suppose I'm really asking about 'big' mistakes, and focused more on the execution of electrical work itself rather than other aspects, but any feedback welcome. I guess this is mostly aimed at domestic electrical work, but still would be interested to hear of industrial / commercial mishaps too. I've searched a bit for previous threads on this topic but haven't come across anything, if there has been a previous thread, if someone could please link it and I'll move the relevant parts of this post over there instead.
It has occurred to me that it would probably help me to find out about 'big' mistakes that others have made, and maybe what happened as a result of them, and what resolution if any was implemented to make good. I suppose that would require a bit of humility and more honesty than some may be willing to share, and of course I don't want to encourage anyone to inadvertently incriminate themselves, but that aside, I thought there's no harm in asking. I think reading about other's experiences would help me to reinforce the underlying suspicion I have that obviously things can and do sometimes go wrong (although I acknowledge that in the electrical industry there is a limited scope for mistakes due to danger to people, property & livestock etc hence regs) but that, most likely, the vast majority of the time no-one is killed or seriously injured, no-one goes to prison, and generally speaking the long term harm is minimal or non-existent.
I suppose it's only fair I share my own errors to date, albeit from my very limited experience and time served in the field. Last year I put a nail through a water pipe while hammering a floorboard back down. Fortunately I identified this immediately, because I could hear a quiet hissing from beneath the floor. We shut off the water while I plugged the hole with my thumb, and a colleague came to the rescue with some plumbing knowledge, and chopped out the punctured section of pipe, installed a pvc length in replacement with a couple of plastic couplers, and ptfe tape as I recall, we then tested it under pressure and it held. Since then I always carry basic plumbing parts on the van, in case this happens again (and am now fastidious about replacing floorboards).
The only other thing that springs to mind, is a mistake I witnessed from someone else, who was pulling out an old board, and mistakenly left two grub screws sticking out of the meter (the cover was already off when I got there, I don't know the details of permissions etc but assume it was all granted/authorised). They were multitooling the wooden support for the old board to get rid of it, and there was a bang at the meter. Turns out the vibration from the blade had caused the grub screws to jostle and arc, and although no real damage, the meter was blackened a bit. Fortunately in that case that meter was to be removed anyway by DNO, I wasn't present to see how that panned out. But nevertheless, I made a mental note to ensure that if I'm ever in that position, I make sure not to give live ends the opportunity to arc under any circumstances.
