nothing like being thrown a curve ball

[martin mcguinness]

I was asked to change a light fitting in a neighbours house easy job help out a neighbour I thought. I had my 2nd oldest son with me so thought it would be good to show him how to work safely ie how to use a voltage indicator and work safe.
normal procedure
prove indicator using proving unit
check voltage at light fitting
demonstrate fitting dead (lock mcb off)
prove indicator with proving unit
get young lad to disconnect light and he said I've just had a shock from wiring (single twin and earth at light ) I thought I just checked and its dead so I checked it again and no voltage so I decided to do it. I got a cracker of a shock made me look like a total plank in front of young lad so I checked again, no voltage between L+N but 240 between L+E.
turns out when there smart meter fitted the installer made a small mistake (don't know how to find sarcastic emoji)
turns out the MCB switched the neutral as L+N reversed
anyone else had something like this
and DNO contacted to rectify issue

 

[DPG]

Makes you wonder how many of these there are out there waiting to catch people out.

 

[Dillb]

Makes you wonder how many of these there are out there waiting to catch people out.

It wont catch you out if you carry out the correct procedure for isolation though will it.

 

[Squid]

Safe isolation pull main fuse.....

 

[DPG]

It wont catch you out if you carry out the correct procedure for isolation though will it.

No but you get my point.

 

[davesparks]

in fairness it would have detected the voltage in the cross polarity in the OP's scenario

Correct testing during isolation would have the same effect.

 

[davesparks]

So what about safe isolation for a distribution board change, how many people would test all the outgoing cables as well as the incoming supply?

You don’t have to test all of the outgoing cables separately, just test with all breakers and main switch closed.

 

[Scotty R]

You didn't follow safe isolation, electrocuted your son and then electrocuted yourself........

 

[Dave OCD]

Everyone's perfect on here when it isn't them who made the error.
In fairness I'm pretty certain that many would just switch the light on, see which MCB made it go off then just crack on, in fact a one cable light fitting job would be 'safely isolated' by many just by turning the switch off.

 

[Which One’s Live?]

If the meter fitter had checked their Martindale pre and post job, it would have alerted them to the mistake they made. Not following what is a very basic and simple procedure is inexcusable really.

Also, visually checking and tracing cables after the job (which should have been tagged and identified before removal) takes 2 seconds ... and there are usually only four to look at!!

 

[johnduffell]

that is a lesson learnt had voltage indicator on l+n when switching off tbh I didn't check between l+e for some reason on this occasion but as I said season learnt
anyone else had this issue after a meter change

And even if you had it wouldn't have identified that there was a problem as the n-cpc had the voltage

 

[FatAlan]

I had a DNO engineer out a couple of moths ago to remove a meter and install isolator. He reversed the tails but checked polarity on completion and corrected mistake.

 

[Spoon]

I had a DNO engineer out a couple of moths ago to remove a meter and install isolator. He reversed the tails but checked polarity on completion and corrected mistake.

An interesting time concept... was it the a month was too short and moths generally live for 5 weeks??

 

[FatAlan]

An interesting time concept... was it the a month was too short and moths generally live for 5 weeks??

Didn’t you know there are two months to the moth?

 

[stevels4]

Safe isolation pull main fuse.....

Not much use if the cut out is reverse polarity though?

 

[stevels4]

You didn't follow safe isolation, electrocuted your son and then electrocuted yourself........

They weren’t electrocuted or they would be dead...they both received an electric shock.