Tell us about your faults!

[keniff]

No surprises there.... Classic house bashers doing council rewires? Lol

 

[Ohmyword]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

I've had most of these listed on here, I reckon, over my 43 years in the trade.
1 or 2 classics; two consumer units in a village shop, one mounted above the other. Some numpty had wired a 2.5mm T&E cable out of the load side of a rewirable fuse way of one board, feeding it into the load side of another way in the other board. CRAZY.
I recently went to a shop unit to carry out some work and discovered that the consumer unit tails had been wired cross polarity. So how could anyone have carried out any live tests on the original installation?

 

[Ohmyword]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Just been reading a few more posts on this thread and it reminded me of the reason and fine example of why you should always listen to a child.
A few years back when heating firms didn't try to nick our work, I was called in by the "lady of the house" to install the power supply for her new wall hung gas boiler.
When I arrived to carry out an inspection the frame for the boiler was already screwed to the wall.
The mains c/u was in an under stairs cupb. (with the gas supply) adjacent to the boiler position.
In chatting to the plumbers and the lady about how to get the supply in etc., her young son said that he had "got a tickle" from the kitchen sink or the gas cooker (I can't remember now). She dismissed him, telling me he must have imagined it.
I believe that children don't tell lies (why would he make something like that up?).
With just my mains probes to start with I was able to get a full 240V. reading from two sources in the kitchen.
I eventually found out (after shutting down the plumbers) that the boiler frame's fixings had pierced most of the circuit wires for the house.
Who ever worked on the boiler was not making a circuit as he was kneeling on the worktop.
I explained to them and the householder that there would probably be no problem for anyone - until they carried out the final connection to the gas meter. Someone could have died and/or blown the end of the house out.

 

[Ohmyword]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

I had to sort out and re-wire some store buildings on a farm.
How much do you charge for saving someone's life? Some burke had connected a 13A. socket with the Live cable connected on the Earth terminal.

 

[rocker]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

My old gaffer told me about a guy he knew who supp bonded a stainless steel sink to the live terminal in a spur.

He'd been doing the job well for 20 years, and this day just had a bad day, maybe didn't get enough sleep and made a mistake. He wasn't ----ed or stoned he just made a mistake.

Unfortunately a woman died, and the guy went to prison. No punchline on this one, I'm afraid.

 

[Ohmyword]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Ok here's mine for this week - working at the YMCA (no singing - or dancing) shifting a socket outlet to make way for a new doorway. Noticed (as you do) that there was a spur wired off to the side out of the backbox into the metal framed cavity wall with no sign of a socket outlet in that direction anywhere. So tugged at the cable to see if I could guage where it went, and it started to free up, so tugged some more and HEY-PRESTO out pops the end of the cable - BARE ENDS (and I mean BARE and stripped back ends) live and fizzing just left in the wall. Boy God moves in mysterious ways to keep his own safe & sound.

Went to a property where customer experiencing problems with E.L.C.B. tripping out.
Soon realised it was one of the ring-mains. "Splitting the ring" I was able to isolate the problem to a socket in a downstairs room. Nothing wrong with the appearance of the cables behind the socket. Then the customer informs me that some weeks previous he nailed a tack into the wall above the socket to hang a picture - it blew the trip so he removed it and everything was o.k. I was able to lift a piece of flooring above the socket and proceeded to pull one cable up through the conduit, it emerged sparking and fizzing on the end. Cable was burnt black and still smouldering. I had to calmly ask the customer to go downstairs and isolate the consumer unit for me.

 

[kung]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Gee ! safe isolation

 

[m25maintenance]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

y did u not iso the circuit if u were working on it, but i did d same thing under a shower floor, pulled out a live cable

 

[allroundhunter]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Mad next door must have more money than scense not even to quibble the bill lol mad but funny story.

 

[Jurassic Sparks]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

whilst rewiring a house, the owner decided to start using the chasing machine to do the cuts in the sitting room ( he was helping to keep his costs down)
I told him to wait till I arrived in case ( had found rubber cables with no cpc on new sockets!!!)
I arrived and he said he had turned off the supply to the lights and was going to chase for the sockets
heard a flash bang and found him on the floor
some muppet had used the supply from the night storage heater to run the wall lights , also wire were sellotaped behind the plaster and run horizontally?
lucky he was ok but now understood the reason I told him to wait for me to check, always test then remove fuse adn test again
I am bound never to tell any one about it, but he is the senior safety officer for my old employer!!!
I pull his leg about it even now