Tell us about your faults!

[kung]

Hi ALL
Just thought id put this one up for all those faults we find.
heres one to kick it off !
Domestic RCD tripped and wouldnt reset cause was a blown low energy light bulb.
There you go now for yours !

 

[Steve D]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

I got called to a house to rectify a cooker circuit that had tripped and stopped working. Traced the fault all the way back to inside to cooker only to find an electrocuted mouse between live and earth.........nice!

Just out of interest, is IP2X or IPXXB large enough for a mouse to get into ??

 

[GT1]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

called to a house where sockets "going on and off".. found that a previous house extension some ten years ago, had piggy-backed a radial into the existing ring mcb. Final result being loose connection and almost a fire from the c.u.
Melted insulation and burnt mcb...!
however the other horror story is the bathroom lights powered off the old shower circuit 6mm cable, and still installed via 45amp mcb..!!!

 

[Eggster71]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Had one ages ago. Split load board change. Wall lights in the lounge kept tripping the RCD, the lights not being on that side did cause some head scratching.
On further investigation it turned out he'd run T&E from the light switch. Obviously no neutral. Solution? Borrow one from the socket behind the wall!

Still occasionally find a shower or cooker wired into the lights with 30A fuse wire in a 3036!

 

[cbw]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

My Mother wanted to know why 4 particular downlighters out of 30 downlighters keep blowing their bulbs.

Took them out to find the joist drilled almost all the way through, browned/singed wood.

Why oh why would you fit NON fire rated downlighters INSIDE a joist?????

 

[Toonlad]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

A good few yrs ago my dad asked me to look at his immersion heater circuit kept blowing a fuse, strange i thought he doesnt have one.

Checked it all out, turned out the landlord had installed a shower off this circuit, but to my horror it,had been taken from a jb in the loft and extended in 6mm T&E. From 1.5mm feeding from the consumer unit.

The landlord did get it done properly, after i mentioned court of law, etc etc. funny how stuff like that works.

 

[spamwize2]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

tried my best to live up the frame to fry my bosses head but no good health and safety being taken to extremes, i think he knew when i put barriers out, flashing beacons, and locked on, oh and patrolling security to guide him the right way.....what a mess!

 

[MarcT]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Has this happened to anyone?
A friend of mine was doing a CU change and this what remains of a 16A mcb feeding a radial
Brand was wylex, all connections checked beforehand

 

[super_stuey]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Mate rang me last week with an "electrical emergency".
RCD fault narrowed down to downstairs ring with live earth short.
Took a few socket fronts off and found a pattress FULL of dirty orange slime and.........

A freshly fried slug accross the terminals!!!!!!!!

gotta start takin me camera to work!

 

[MarcT]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

I remember a call out a few years back where the occupant was
getting a 'tingle' every time he had a shower. It quickly transpired
that everything connected to earth was in fact live.
I confirmed this when I grabbed the dangling piece of bare 7044 masquarading
as an earthing conductor while my other arm was resting on the gas meter.
not so much a girly tingle as a slap in the face! I've not got through a whole
box of clamps in one sitting before.
The guy asked what could have happened if i'd not discovered the problem.
in the nicest possible way I told him his house was a faraday cage and just
needed an exit path to complete the circuit, hence the 'tingle'. I never saw
a mans face so white.

 

[Jason Smith]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Attended Break down today, RCD tripping whole house, old style fuse board. Traced to downstairs ring. One leg reading poor insulation twixt phase and earth. Socket found to have 1 mil lighting cable in back off to two wall lights, pull cord. Metal ring from broken shade had been left in fitting, bridging E and live. Circuit removed, all well.

 

[Graeme Harrold]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

PAT testing in a kebab shop and plugged the machine into the socket near to where I was finishing tests. The Fluke 6500 has a self test on the supply and "alarmed" that there was no earth connection. On further investigation, I pulled the socket off the wall and just watch the pattress box drain of gloopy grease................

Earths strangelt were terminated in a chock block and not into the socket outlet!!!!!

 

[pennywise]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Went around one of the girlfriends friends house on a night out we were all in the living room she was saying she had got through two laptops in as many months and the screens where never the right contrast. Looked at where she had it plugged into, some muppet had only made up a 4 gang extension lead and put a 5amp round pin plug on the end, the laptop was being dimmed.

 

[robsparky1975]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

when to a call out with faulty immersion circuit,element shorted,checked supply side of switch no l-e no reading,zs test socket outlet same,fusebox ze test 763 ohms,oh dear this was on a tn-s supply no rcd just all re-wirables,fault on supply cable in road

was doing a central heating s plan,client said she was getting shocks off the sink,checked it out 90 volts sink-socket outlet earth,no gas or water bond,tt supply, old stlye voltage operated earth leage circuit breaker,you know the one with the yellow test button,hmmmmm,re-wirables,isloated circuit,turns out she had a lightning strike and it melted the cable,lol she said to me to touch the sink i said no ta thats why ive got a meter,on the same job some botchit and scarper had wired her a 4 way extension lead into the existing faulty circuit double socket with the 1.5mm flex as supplied,i had the pleasure of meeting said git,after politly asking client to get him back,he could not see what he had done wrong and even had on his business card electrcis/plumbing etc,unfortunatly i did not have my boxing gloves with me,but git said he would not do any mor sparks work,well i bleedin hope so.

 

[Brian Boyd]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Has anyone come across empty mcb`s. By this i mean just the casing with terminal top and bottom and a load of nothing in between. I got called to breakdown at old ladies house and her sockets had stopped working. She recently had full refurb done which tbo was quite good. Opened cu cover everyting tidy and properly terminated. So out came the multi meter and quick check found mcb with no power going through even though sw was in on position. I thought just straight forward replacement. I isolated cu and removed the mcb and its only when i lifted the new one that i thought hang on theres something different. I decided to take it to bits to see and found what looked like 5amp fuse wire across it that had fused causing loss of power. I asked the old lady and she gave me number of the spark who was decent and explained that he`d ordered stock through internet and had got box of duff mcb`s. He Paid my bill and sent letter of apology to the lady.

So to cut long story short has anyone else been caught out by this??

 

[Graeme Harrold]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Has anyone come across empty mcb`s. By this i mean just the casing with terminal top and bottom and a load of nothing in between. I got called to breakdown at old ladies house and her sockets had stopped working. She recently had full refurb done which tbo was quite good. Opened cu cover everyting tidy and properly terminated. So out came the multi meter and quick check found mcb with no power going through even though sw was in on position. I thought just straight forward replacement. I isolated cu and removed the mcb and its only when i lifted the new one that i thought hang on theres something different. I decided to take it to bits to see and found what looked like 5amp fuse wire across it that had fused causing loss of power. I asked the old lady and she gave me number of the spark who was decent and explained that he`d ordered stock through internet and had got box of duff mcb`s. He Paid my bill and sent letter of apology to the lady.

So to cut long story short has anyone else been caught out by this??

I was shown thes on a course to highlight the need to be aware of cloned products entering the UK market. Basicaly what you have is an "on/off" switch in an MCB case. Basically why you should always buy your kit from a reputable source.