How do some people sleep at night !

Dannyg8810 · Sep 5, 2017

so yesterday I was on a job as x2 radial socket circuits had loss of power as the rcbos had tripped .
This was due to what I first thought a piece of equipment as was an office with lots of laptops printers etc.....
When the first tripped they all moved to another set of bench desks and this tripped I soon found out after investigation.

Checking a monitor lead and this was red hot and the next thing I know I'm getting a right whizz from the lead!!

This had a sticker on this and was pat tested last week ........did an IR test and got 0.14 Mohm!

Sticker jockey springs to mind

ferg · Sep 5, 2017

This surprises me TBH.
I thought all PAT testers were very thorough and conscientious types.
Don't they have to spend minutes at college to get the relevant certificate?

Joshua · Sep 6, 2017

ferg said:
This surprises me TBH.
I thought all PAT testers were very thorough and conscientious types.
Don't they have to spend minutes at college to get the relevant certificate?

I thought the same here?
They did spend 1 whole day to get a level 3 certificate in PAT testing after all, so they must be highly skilled right?

westward10 · Sep 6, 2017

How/why was this lead "red hot".

Dannyg8810 · Sep 6, 2017

westward10 said:
How/why was this lead "red hot".

maybe a loose connection at the monitor end/low resistance

The Ghost · Sep 6, 2017

Yep the latest I came across was an Ariston water heater in commercial kitchen. Not working the safety button had popped. Why? well the neutral was cooked in a plug, quite visible it was loose inside at the termination. 2.5mm² flexible going into the plug (a no no!) Burnt out cable inside of water heater. Replaced cable reset and FCU'd it problem solved. Had it's PAT label though just two months old. These guys must have done around a thousand items in a day at £1 each, I know that as it was going on and I had to get PAT on my gear as well. And that is not the only such thing I found. No wonder such things go on with so much to do and such pressure to get the price below everyone else.