In the confessional....

[Dave Appleby]

Morning everyone.

As the weekend fast approaches I thought a little confessional thread might be in order.

We've all seen and critiqued dodgy work, however, I thought let's try something different.

Have you ever had a moment where you have been on a job and suddenly had an. "Oh you stupid idiot" moment?


I'll start...

Consumer units work far better if you actually remember to insert the busbar.

Felt a right numpty when I finally realised what was going on.

 

[DefyG]

Pulled into big private house little bit early, no one in so thought we'd (apprentice and myself) have a picnic (lunch) on their patio. No sign after about 40mins so called agent only to discover it was the wrong house.
There was cctv and although never heard anymore about it, I'm sure they would have thought it a little cheeky to use their patio for lunch and just p........ off again!

 

[Yahtzee]

Testing a 30ma RCCB at the terminals this week and it didn't trip, tried ramp test and still no trip. Very strange as it was a recently changed board. Then the penny dropped........ maybe I should use the out going terminals ???

 

[Flanders]

Wire a house years ago with another spark .Turned on power all ok but one of the rings had no power at any of the sockets. After an hour of testing and trying to trace what the issue could be we realise neither of us had taken the legs back to the board
? .

 

[ipf]

I'll take the 5th

Slicing a sock?......Is that the little toe?

 

[roper_ni]

To be honest, I bet most people have done it at least once.

Putting a RCD on the wrong way round, it was one of those moments

 

[Mikegh]

Reconnected a sub-main minus the neutral

Blew emergency lighting, power supplies , washing machine, heating equipment

 

[Mikegh]

Short-circuited overhead busbar

Singed my eyebrows, the bang was something else

Radio was blaring but the whole factory was staring at me

Cut through live 3P SWA with hacksaw

Blew 2 fuses but no harm done to me

I like SWA

 

[littlespark]

are you safe to be anywhere near electricity? Anything more than a 13A plug, id be worrying.

 

[Mikegh]

are you safe to be anywhere near electricity? Anything more than a 13A plug, id be worrying.

Alcohol had no small part in most.of.those events

 

[telectrix]

fitting a schneider easy 9 and got the polarity wrong on the back to front main switch.

 

[littlespark]

sigh

I wasn’t going to admit to anything, but I thought this recent incident just shows the importance of turning things off.

Saturday morning past, doing a little job for a friend. Old immersion switch, but no tank. Boiler has been installed elsewhere… so there’s a switch in the airing cupboard doing nothing.
I unscrewed the faceplate to pull it forward so I could test it…. No labels on the old CU.
Put my fingers over the plate to grip it and Ooooooya!

the flex was still connected but just cut off, and as the switch was on, there was power going to the cut end of flex…. As it had been for the so many years before whenever the hot water tank was taken out.

Lesson learned. Never trust a plumber to finish a job.

 

[Mikegh]

I learnt a few lessons from my various disasters

Never trust 2-pole testers alone for proving dead

Never trust single pole isolation when working

If the installation is an unknown quantity , double pole main isolation is safest bet

 

[Mikegh]

Domestic main isolation i'm referring to above

Never trust 2-pole testers alone for proving dead

Never trust single pole isolation when working

If the installation is an unknown quantity , double pole main isolation is safest bet

 

[Mikegh]

Another one is putting the ladders on the van roof rack and then forgetting about them

And forgetting the clamps

 

[loz2754]

Another one is putting the ladders on the van roof rack and then forgetting about them

And forgetting the clamps

Yup. Done that! And lost them on the M69....