When electrics go wrong!!!

[Darkwood]

Just setting up a new sticky thread that unlike the dodgy trade pics thread is focused on showing the result of failures in electrical installations IE - damage caused which may be due to various reasons. Please do not post pics of poor workmanship if there is nothing else to show like the consequences, use the dodgy pics thread for that.

I will start off below with an example. I am hoping the fresh faced members and inexperienced can get a visual incite of what to expect when you come across such things and how to understand what has occured.

 

[James]

I'll wager that all the sparks here have converted side cutters to wire strippers!
Since I did my second ones I've kept a new pair in the bag hoping I'll never have to take them off the card!

Most will not admit to it.

personally, of course I have never done it.
especially not whilst up a ladder and subsequently scaring the brown stuff out of my rear end.
Pity that I have NEVER had that learning experience.

now where did I leave my pet unicorn?

 

[Mike Johnson]

I have converted a pair of wire strippers to side cutters, well put it this way the strippers where no good for stripping cable after my brush with 230volt, luckily only one of the Phase's.

 

[SparkySy]

I have never done it, I especially didn't do it when I was working on a 50a sub main in a gunsmiths, through a 10mm twin and earth with croppers, and it didn't blow the stripping notch clean off them and splatter molten copper all over! No not at all, and I didn't scare myself and half the people who were in there who thought it was a live round going off and all ducked in sync!

 

[Raptor0014]

Got a phone call earlier this week. Here is a brief synopsis to explain the pics

Customer - "Hi, occasionally when I use my tumble drier there is a strange smell from near the plug and it sometimes trips the electric"

Me - "Sounds like a faulty drier, if you unplug the drier does anything else cause the electrics to trip?"

Customer - "No, just the drier and it is getting more frequent"

Me - "Ok, unplug the drier and don't use it. I will be with you on Friday morning (4 days from the call)

Turns up on Friday morning to find they had still been using the drier and it had decided to let go. The madness continued when I found they were still using the extension lead it blew in! Not anymore after I cut the plugs off both.

 

[brianmoooore]

unplug the drier and don't use it. I will be with you on Friday morning (4 days from the call)

Turns up on Friday morning to find they had still been using the drier

Had a similar one to this, but with a washing machine. Before the few days were up, they had tried to repair it themselves, and the lady of the house had electrocuted herself.
Made more tragic by the fact that the socket would have been RCD protected within a few weeks, and there was a launderette five doors away in the street.

 

[Mike Johnson]

@Raptor0014 Surge protected, but not Muppet protected, the fish smell is quite distinctive with out the visual aids.

 

[Mike Johnson]

You guys have seen this before, but thought it was worth posting again, the smell in the room was a very distinctive fish smell, it comes from running two 3Kw fires off the same double socket, neither the MCB or RCD reacted to the overload, just got very smelly in the room.

 

[Raptor0014]

You guys have seen this before, but thought it was worth posting again, the smell in the room was a very distinctive fish smell, it comes from running two 3Kw fires off the same double socket, neither the MCB or RCD reacted to the overload, just got very smelly in the room.


View attachment 93240

That’s quite concerning that neither protective measure reacted to that.

Then again if nothing created a short then it’s a failure of the socket. Especially if it was connected to a 32a MCB as 26a it would be happy with. Guessing the materials in the socket weren’t rated to withstand 26a for that long.

 

[UKMeterman]

You guys have seen this before, but thought it was worth posting again, the smell in the room was a very distinctive fish smell, it comes from running two 3Kw fires off the same double socket, neither the MCB or RCD reacted to the overload, just got very smelly in the room.


View attachment 93240

Is that one of the ones with lever contacts, rather than screws?

 

[Mike Johnson]

Is that one of the ones with lever contacts, rather than screws?

Yes, it's French Legrand socket off a 20amp MCB.

 

[UKMeterman]

Me thinks I want to stick to crabtree...

 

[Mike Johnson]

The socket was Legrand, but the MCB and feeding RCD where both Hager and both tested out as per the specifications for them, I can only think that the fan and thermostat's for the heaters did not come on at the same time consistently, so an intermittent accumulative overload over a long period.

 

[pc1966]

The socket was Legrand, but the MCB and feeding RCD where both Hager and both tested out as per the specifications for them, I can only think that the fan and thermostat's for the heaters did not come on at the same time consistently, so an intermittent accumulative overload over a long period.

The back plate looks a bit corroded, maybe contacts were a bit tarnished as well?

In any case a 30% overload (26A on 20A rating) is not likely to trip a MCB but would definitely be considered unacceptable design practice. I guess the approval of double sockets was kind of based on the assumption you would not have two max loads on the same one...

 

[Mike Johnson]

The corrosion is quite normal on the ground floor of an old French farm house, no DPC or DPM so walls are always damp, if does not seem to bother the French,

Believe it or not they where not on each socket, but supplied off an extension lead onto lefthand outlet, oh can I say receptacle.

 

[pc1966]

Believe it or not they where not on each socket, but supplied off an extension lead onto lefthand outlet, oh can I say receptacle.

Well they can't really complain about the socket in that case being poorly made as it was clearly overloaded by 160%.

Now if only the French had a 13A fuse in the plug...