best wiring.......in the world!

mike2790 · Jul 1, 2011

This post is dedicated to one of my previous posts in another thread regarding some of the truly crap things I have come across at work. Rather than expand on the previous thread I thought these pictures really do deserve their own thread.......as I am sure you will agree. I should add that the following images may be offensive to some people and anything which is contained within them should not be tried at home.

Basically, the story goes....following a callout to a house (I was living in the Isle of Man at the time) it was found that there was a major fault on the incoming supply to the house. This lead to investigation which is when it was found that there was 100+ volts across neutral and earth at the incoming tails. After a lot of kerfuffle with the MEA (Manx Electricity Authority) whereby they had to dig up nigh on the whole street to locate a blown up joint to fix it, you would think everything was fine again.......

Until we noticed the mains board in the house which is protected by a single pole 63A breaker.

[ElectriciansForums.net] best wiring.......in the world!

A lot of investigation followed this along with what shouldnt have been laughter. Simply because it was without a doubt the most dangerous installation I have ever seen.........ever. Bear in mind also that this was all installed by a relative of the people living in the house around 3 years ago. I felt so sorry for the family as the only thing we could do was to recommend a re-wire (it was THAT bad). I regret not taking more photos of the "install" as the ones I have uploaded only constitutes maybe half of what we had found.

Enjoy fellas/ladies.

I found it hard to believe the ammount of cut off earths at accessories. Theres an image there that shows a socket with both earths cut out which the superspark did because "there was a fault". Also another thing that tickled me was the use of the security cable used as the common for a two way lighting circuit, although he did twist all the cores together which he must have thought would make that okay. Bear in mind that these photos were all taken in the same house. Also I should say that the customer who had this done to their house reccommended the "electrician" to next door-but-one and their house is exactly the same.
Should we host a competition for the highest ammount of "irregularities" that people can find in the pictures?

Mike

sorry about the state of the picures strewn all over the post, its quite hard to arrange 30 odd photos haha

Thomas123 · Jul 1, 2011

fair play, lovely job.......... :L

DurhamSparky · Jul 1, 2011

worked fine !!???

OMG thats shocking!!

mike2790 · Jul 1, 2011

DurhamSparky said:
worked fine !!??? OMG thats shocking!!

it did work, only because earths arent functional, especially when there isnt any.

mogga · Jul 1, 2011

holy crapola how someones not dead with crud like thats down to sheer luck Whoever put that in should be charged with something god knows what but there MUST be something FFS

mike2790 · Jul 1, 2011

mogga said:
holy crapola how someones not dead with crud like thats down to sheer luck Whoever put that in should be charged with something god knows what but there MUST be something FFS

pretty much what we said, at first we were absolutely fuming with the way someone could get away with such a thing but the client was concerned at the fact that it may cause "family friction" as it was a family member who installed that crud, so she didnt want to take things any further. (kind of strange since there was 3 kids living in the house who could realisticly have been killed). once the installation was isolated and ready to be stipped out for rewire, we had a good laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. like the white "sleeving" on a couple of his earths, which he had stripped from security cable.

Geordie Spark · Jul 2, 2011

It isn't just the amateurs who don't connect earths.

Today, I was at a house that had just had a new cut out & tails fitted (looped from next door) by the DNO, who very carefully connected everything - including the earth - but then neglected to connect the earth to the earth terminal in the house that they looped from.

There was no sign of safe isolation being employed either with not a test lamp or voltage indicator in sight.

electromonkey · Jul 2, 2011

I don't think there was any need to show us picture 17! You'd best get a doctor to take a look at it!

You said that you recommended a re wire, did they take you up on your advice?

Cheers for sharing the photo's by the way.

mike2790 · Jul 2, 2011

yeah we ended up stripping the place and completely rewireing it, even the tv and telephone points because they didnt work very well either. ended up a nice job though.

Engineer54 · Jul 2, 2011

Are you saying this installation was installed by an ''Electrician'' ??
If so, is he still working as an ''electrician'' in the domestic field, or any other come to that?? I take it, this work was done prior to completion certs etc being required??

Personally, ...I wouldn't give a rat's arse if he's a relative or not, if this guy is still doing installations such as you have shown, i would be reporting him to every authority i could think of. Taking money from customers for work such as this, he needs stopping, and stopping fast!!!

Spudnik · Jul 2, 2011

Thats gotta be a DIY effort surely?

Mr.Si · Jul 2, 2011

Well, one thing's for sure... Well done to you Mike for preventing deaths, those cables melted together would have surely caused a fire, if nothing else got there before it.

It's a relief to know the family can live safely in their house now.

Did you fix their neighbour's house too?

Richard · Jul 2, 2011

Thats a cracker mate, thanks for posting!

mike2790 · Jul 4, 2011

Mr.Si said:
Well, one thing's for sure... Well done to you Mike for preventing deaths, those cables melted together would have surely caused a fire, if nothing else got there before it.

It's a relief to know the family can live safely in their house now.

Did you fix their neighbour's house too?

Cheers mr.si,
it is just pure luck that we got there in time i think, theres a couple of properties my boss has quoted work for which the other guy has done work on but i moved back to the uk shortly after the rewire on the mentioned property so i wont be involved in any of that work. Im sure i'll be kept updated via my boss though.