Take a day off mate...

[Matesrates]

This video came up on my facebook. ive seen a couple of his videos elsewhere aswell.

if im on holiday theres no way id be bothering with the state of the wiring let alone making a point of taking tools with me to check.

 

[PEG]

Just to add...i watched that video,and there is a reason he is alone in that holiday apartment,with his imaginary missus,and shoulders he stole off a snake...

 

[DPG]

Sorry mate, not me I have turned all the private settings off at least 3 times now,I’ll try agian, i spent many years driving and teaching gottwalds

Ooohhhh, crane friends!

 

[Midwest]

Bet he ain't told em about the dodgy rear ball joint, bald tyre and that the AC's buggered.

Click here to support Im giving away my van for charity organised by Thomas Nagy - https://www.gofundme.com/the-big-van-giveaway

 

[telectrix]

that looks suspiciously like a renault trafic. if so i'd not even risk £1 to obtain a shed.

 

[Baddegg]

Bet he ain't told em about the dodgy rear ball joint, bald tyre and that the AC's buggered.

Click here to support Im giving away my van for charity organised by Thomas Nagy - https://www.gofundme.com/the-big-van-giveaway

Ironically the electrics on the electricians van are definitely buggered...

 

[Gavin John Hyde]

I brought a screwdriver from the local market on my last holiday to Spain, took the board cover off and bypassed the contactor so the AC stayed on when I was out the room

I can beat that @Leesparkykent and I doubt anybody can beat this one, I stayed in a hotel that had this card that says if there is a problem with the room and they cant fix it within 20 minutes the room is free.
well, music to my ears was that. in the shower pod behind a panel above the toilet is a small consumer unit for the room. I had previously worked on some refurbs in similar hotels so knew the layout.
I was staying there on an over night job and being last minute had to pay £180 for the room and they were fully booked ( i checked website!) so I got my handtools out the rucksack, open up panel ( the staff use a plunger to pull it out) faced with the consumer unit I decided to knock the main rcd off.
put panel on, went down stairs and told front desk, up comes the young girl with the plunger and proceeds to reset the rcd main switch. with no idea of my trade, told her it happened when I put tv on and after a few minutes it all went off in darkness. off she went and i waited 5 minutes before going down again saying this is ridiculous as if i use anything plugged in the power goes off and its dangerous as the shower lights go out too.
mentioned the card and got a full refund for the night and free full english next morning aswell. My boss was in hysterics when I told him and said keep the money for the audacity of it.
Mischievous, dishonest I know, but wanted to test the 20 minute promise.
He did it himself a few months later at another of the hotels.

 

[Deuce]

Singles and ferrules. It's just so much smarter than the chewed up end of T&E fed into the CU In machine/automation, that is how we do it. Singles and conduit!! I don't know how we ended up with T&E, it's horrible stuff really, it's difficult to pull/chase, it's plain ugly and for the eco warriors, it could be considered wasteful on copper.

He also questions the relays which are indeed extremely common on the continent. I think it's simply because it allows the freedom to use whatever kit they wish for doorbells, occupancy lights, ELV lighting circuits etc. It also allows for a single relay to turn off a 48v ac circiut whilst at the same time energising a 12v dc circuit. In short, it allows for flexibility. In the UK there does seem to be a determination that all that belongs in CU's is switch-gear to control/protect the mains power. Elsewhere in the world, it's far more similar to an industrial panel, in that pretty much all control is routed to/from the same box. Irrespective of where the power supply/transformer is stowed. 3 or more voltages through one CU (or panel as it's no longer a CU) is not unusual.

I think the biggest jaw dropper here is that in the UK, most domestic sparks are anti relay, based on the belief that they arc, stick and are a problem waiting to happen because they are mechanical. I posted in another thread about this - but it's simply not so, not anymore. I recently wanted to test a solenoid valves ability to open/close under a stressful cycle, so I lashed up a programmable delay timer and relay to control the solenoid, and set it to energise every 2nd second for 1 second, and then energise for 60 seconds every 5 minutes. It ran for about 10 hours a day every day for almost 2 months until in the end the valve seal split, some 1 million activations later. And guess what? the solenoid valve failed before the relay controlling it. More so, the relay itself in that arrangement was controlled by the relay switching of the delay timer, which in theory is not meant for that kind of cycle. That is how reliable relays are these days, and that is why the rest of he world doesn't think twice before using them. I would say under normal usage, they are going to have an operational lifespan at least on par with a MCB.

But in the UK, all that seems to advance when it comes to domestic electrical is the quality of the protection and the tightness of regulation. There has been no real evolution in how things are done since the grid was unified and people decided that separate protection for each circuit could be a useful idea. Speaking of which, do you see how many circuits that chalet has? A typical UK house is far larger and has half as many.. As with broadband, public transport, highways and mobile networks, everyone is an expert yet we get a below average result.

 

[Deuce]

I can beat that @Leesparkykent and I doubt anybody can beat this one, If you stay in the Hotel Ibis budget hotels, often found in cities and by airports, the rooms are actually okay apart from the plastic pod shower room. they have this card that says if there is a problem with the room and they cant fix it within 20 minutes the room is free.
well, music to my ears was that. in the shower pod behind a panel above the toilet is a small consumer unit for the room. I had previously worked on some refurbs in similar hotels so knew the layout.
I was staying there on an over night job and being last minute had to pay £180 for the room and they were fully booked ( i checked website!) so I got my handtools out the rucksack, open up panel ( the staff use a plunger to pull it out) faced with the consumer unit I decided to knock the main rcd off.
put panel on, went down stairs and told front desk, up comes the young girl with the plunger and proceeds to reset the rcd main switch. with no idea of my trade, told her it happened when I put tv on and after a few minutes it all went off in darkness. off she went and i waited 5 minutes before going down again saying this is ridiculous as if i use anything plugged in the power goes off and its dangerous as the shower lights go out too.
mentioned the card and got a full refund for the night and free full english next morning aswell. My boss was in hysterics when I told him and said keep the money for the audacity of it.
Mischievous, dishonest I know, but wanted to test the 20 minute promise.
He did it himself a few months later at another of the hotels.
i reckon if the hotel have no idea you are an electrician and had just a small socket tester with rcd test button on it, you could likely blag a free stay in most decent hotels.

So you defrauded a business and then your boss let you keep the money which is impossible without some level of book keeping trickery - assuming you failed to provide an invoice for your crime to the business that paid for it?

I have an excellent sense of humour, but you took a room and tricked those that provided it out of being paid. As a spark, you are paid by a business too. You provide a service too. Think about that.

 

[Gavin John Hyde]

So you defrauded a business and then your boss let you keep the money which is impossible without some level of book keeping trickery - assuming you failed to provide an invoice for your crime to the business that paid for it?

I have an excellent sense of humour, but you took a room and tricked those that provided it out of being paid. As a spark, you are paid by a business too. You provide a service too. Think about that.

Fair comment, but being younger then I thought it was worth doing, i am older and wiser now! I paid for the room on my card and sent the invoice to the boss, when it was refunded it came back to me, a bit dodgy but in size of that firms finances a drop in the ocean.

 

[SparkyChick]

I think the biggest jaw dropper here is that in the UK, most domestic sparks are anti relay, based on the belief that they arc, stick and are a problem waiting to happen because they are mechanical. I posted in another thread about this - but it's simply not so, not anymore. I recently wanted to test a solenoid valves ability to open/close under a stressful cycle, so I lashed up a programmable delay timer and relay to control the solenoid, and set it to energise every 2nd second for 1 second, and then energise for 60 seconds every 5 minutes. It ran for about 10 hours a day every day for almost 2 months until in the end the valve seal split, some 1 million activations later. And guess what? the solenoid valve failed before the relay controlling it. More so, the relay itself in that arrangement was controlled by the relay switching of the delay timer, which in theory is not meant for that kind of cycle. That is how reliable relays are these days, and that is why the rest of he world doesn't think twice before using them. I would say under normal usage, they are going to have an operational lifespan at least on par with a MCB.

But in the UK, all that seems to advance when it comes to domestic electrical is the quality of the protection and the tightness of regulation. There has been no real evolution in how things are done since the grid was unified and people decided that separate protection for each circuit could be a useful idea. Speaking of which, do you see how many circuits that chalet has? A typical UK house is far larger and has half as many.. As with broadband, public transport, highways and mobile networks, everyone is an expert yet we get a below average result.

My personal take on why we like to keep things simpler...

More complexity = more time required when fault finding which in turn = greater cost. Also more complexity = greater cost at installation time.

There is a commonly held view that we are extortionists who charge way more than we should. There is also a lack of knowledge amongst the public about simple things (like the fact we're obliged to upgrade the earthing and bonding if it's sub par, even on small jobs... why is it going to take half a day? all I want is an extra socket next to that one!), this means when someone who gives a dam rocks up and quotes a lot more than Dangerous Dave, they're fighting a loosing battle because the potential client thinks you're just hiking prices and trying to rip them off.

To qualify that with an example... I was asked to quote for an extra outside socket. Simple enough, until you start looking at the existing supply arrangements for the existing outside socket that of course the client thinks you can just connect to. It was a spur from a spur (a single supplied by a 20A DP switch on a ring final that had been converted to a double - supplying washing machine and drier, so clearly no consideration given to the ratings of the switch, the cable or the socket outlet). I quoted to sort all of that out (in other words to bring the circuit I would be certifying back into compliance with the regs) and install the additional outside socket. Needless to say I didn't get the job (to put that into perspective, the top end was 6 hours and all in was around £250 which I think is reasonable, clearly not reasonable enough for ending up with a safer, regulations compliant job).

If I need relays, contactors or PLCs etc. to do a job, I'll use them, but thus far I've not come across any situations where they were needed, so using them just because you can isn't, in my opinion at least, a good idea mainly for the reasons I've outlined above (additional cost and complexity). But, whether you like it or not... relays, contactors etc.... they can fail and if you can get away without using them, you've just removed a potential point of failure which is beneficial for the client and beneficial for you.

Looking at that Italian board... first, it has one RCD for the whole board (there are regs that advise against this here - we aim to minimise risk and inconvenience in the event of a fault - that board, an earth fault on one circuit and it's all going out). Second, it's using double pole MCBs (so it actually only has 10 circuits - similar to the numbers you get here) but this is a reasonably good idea because it will disconnect neutral/earth faults (but there is a cost implication to this - bigger devices = bigger board = greater cost). Personally I'd rather have fewer circuits on RCBOs than lots of circuits on one RCD. But again, there are cost implications... more circuits = more costs. It's a balancing act.

As for the wiring methods... granted singles in conduit are nicer than twin and earth, but cost wise it's going to be more expensive as there is the cost of conduit, the time to install, time to pull the cables and the additional work terminating, and lets not forget building methods. It's bad enough trying to run twin and earth in some houses, I certainly wouldn't want to be running conduit in them.

I use ferrules where appropriate... flex (boilers, lights etc.), big ones on earthing conductors (sometimes) to keep them in reasonably good shape, larger cables (for the earths and neutrals in the CU) or for terminating in cooker/shower switches as you can get much better connections without damaging the cables. As for the chewed up ends... if everyone considered the next poor soul to work on an installation, they'd leave enough slack to allow for damaged cables to be redressed, unfortunately a lot of people don't and for some reason they seem averse to leaving the odd meter of slack here and there in cables, instead preferring them to be almost tight everywhere. So no slack = the inevitable chewed up cable ends.

It's easy to criticise something when it's not your regular job. You're operating in a specialist market which gives you an advantage in pricing as there is less competition. Domestic... we all know the problems in the domestic market... far too many unscrupulous gits who push the prices down and make it hard for those of us who give a dam to compete. So if it's a choice between using fancy gear because I can (and having a higher price for the job) or not because I don't need to (and having a more competitive price for the job)... which option do you think most people would take?

 

[Toneyz]

I can beat that @Leesparkykent and I doubt anybody can beat this one, If you stay in the Hotel Ibis budget hotels, often found in cities and by airports, the rooms are actually okay apart from the plastic pod shower room. they have this card that says if there is a problem with the room and they cant fix it within 20 minutes the room is free.
well, music to my ears was that. in the shower pod behind a panel above the toilet is a small consumer unit for the room. I had previously worked on some refurbs in similar hotels so knew the layout.
I was staying there on an over night job and being last minute had to pay £180 for the room and they were fully booked ( i checked website!) so I got my handtools out the rucksack, open up panel ( the staff use a plunger to pull it out) faced with the consumer unit I decided to knock the main rcd off.
put panel on, went down stairs and told front desk, up comes the young girl with the plunger and proceeds to reset the rcd main switch. with no idea of my trade, told her it happened when I put tv on and after a few minutes it all went off in darkness. off she went and i waited 5 minutes before going down again saying this is ridiculous as if i use anything plugged in the power goes off and its dangerous as the shower lights go out too.
mentioned the card and got a full refund for the night and free full english next morning aswell. My boss was in hysterics when I told him and said keep the money for the audacity of it.
Mischievous, dishonest I know, but wanted to test the 20 minute promise.
He did it himself a few months later at another of the hotels.
i reckon if the hotel have no idea you are an electrician and had just a small socket tester with rcd test button on it, you could likely blag a free stay in most decent hotels.

As blagging goes that's a good one mate.

 

[telectrix]

serves the hotel right for charging extortionate price for a room. for £180 i'd expect a full week with full english breakfasts included.

 

[telectrix]

it's like if i go into a pub and order a pint served in a logo'd glass ( eg theakstons or old rosie) and get charged over £3. then the glass goes home with me. i've paid for it. so far i have around 150.

 

[Toneyz]

serves the hotel right for charging extortionate price for a room. for £180 i'd expect a full week with full english breakfasts included.

It is probably to make up from all those scousers taking the contents of the room when they leave.(only pulling you leg Tel)

 

[Toneyz]

it's like if i go into a pub and order a pint served in a logo'd glass ( eg theakstons or old rosie) and get charged over £3. then the glass goes home with me. i've paid for it. so far i have around 150.

Your local must have no glasses left then Tel.