unusual electrical faults

[ferg]

cooker stopped working.

eventually tracked it down to customer hanging a picture over the isolator and the picture switching the switch.

customer had no idea what the switch was for, had never used it and assumed it was no longer used.

in fairness it was on a diferent wall to the cooker.

 

[dingledong]

Must have been high up then this isolater

 

[dan86]

Built in fridge isn't working.

Genuine call out about 3weeks ago - the cheeky 'bread bin' had obviouslly been knocked and turned the fuse-spur for the fridge on the worktop off behind it.

Customer was red-faced, i had a chuckle and everyone lived happily ever after.

and you charged them an hour for wasting your time yeah?

 

[gutterball]

I've had that a few times with spurs in cupboards full of crap.

 

[ferg]

Must have been high up then this isolater

Yes it was. It was in a ridiculous place for a cooker switch TBH.

The conversation went something like ..

Where is the switch?

There isn't one.

Have you done anything just before it stopped working?

Just hang this picture.

Remove picture, switch on, re-hang picture, laugh, finish coffee and drive home.

 

[Pete999]

Went with Camerabloke to look at a faulty alarm the other day, door opens come in the box is in there, so he proceeds to pick up all the clutter in the cupboard, bung it on the Kitchen floor, Camerabloke does the biz and matey chucks all the stuff back in the cupboard, some people?

 

[camerabloke]

And on the return visit was the same. Even though time and date was agreed I still had to wait while it was cleared

 

[dingledong]

Get that lots yes I need to get to your fuse board or immersion, turn up on the day and you have an hour of cleaning the cupboard out

 

[NDG Elecs]

Had one that took around a month to solve, with approx 6 visits in total. RCD was tripping intermittently only on hot and sunny days and in the late afternoon only. Straight away I was thinking WTF! Long story short it turned out to be a cable to an outside light that went through the wall between the brick and a dark coloured uPVC door/window frame. The frame was heating up and expanding just enough to slightly crush the cable. Only found it after the umpteenth visit and the customer mentioning their uPVC door did not open at all after a hot sunny day, which made me think was this related.

I hate intermittent faults - PITA usually.

 

[Tiny Spark]

Strangest one I was ever involved with went something like this:

Company had shut down for a week so we had all the HV testing done, After the testing and all the HV was back up and running my then boss was turning all the LV sub main breakers back on when one blew up when he turned it on!
Give him a nasty burn on his arm and the air turned blue.
So anyways contractor was called to test it and replace which they did, IR testing clear and breaker replaced turned on and it trips instantly (luckily no boom this time).
So they re-checked everything again and said it was ok and couldnt understand it.
So My gaffa concludes this is BS and wants a second opinion so sends us in to break the circuit down and test.

This perticular breaker fed a sub main board which had the breakers for 2 DB's and 2 Lifts which were all isolated so we knew the fault was between the sub station and the sub board.

So we stripped the sub board down to basics, IR tested the bus bars etc etc and found nothing!

I ring the gaffa and tell him its all clear and we found nothing, He shouts and swears at me that there has to be somthing (which I agree) But nether the less there is nothing.

By this time we are all getting a bit ****ed with this thing so in a bit of a temper I smack the side of the board and low and behold a 32mm metal hole saw cut out bounces onto the floor and you would never guess it was all black and crispy!

I have no idea how it didnt show up on the IR tests or where it was actually hidden, I can only assume the second time the circuit was energised it had blown off to a location undisclosed until I smacked the board one!

But after putting everything back together and turning the breakers back on everything was fine and dandy again