Tell us about your faults!

[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.

 

[Notsosmart]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

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.

Wow; an honest to God thoroughly decent bloke. If he is a member of this forum. he has my vote.

 

[Jason Smith]

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.

Rob- Have met this bloke did the same with a dish washer circuit. He was warned the same from me, however this was a year ago, I hope that yours is not thesame bloke and more recent !

 

[robsparky1975]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

welcome to the forum jason,this geezer was 50ish,and the job was in freshwater about 4 months ago,could be same bloke,but there are more of his kind out there in fact 1000s

 

[Tester Steve]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Got called to a job yesterday. House owner said that when he shuts the front door, the lights flicker!! Kid was in the front room watching the telly (on full blast!) and all the lights were on. Shut front door behind me and the lights flickered and the telly flashed!!!! Had a look at the meter and CU, tails hidden in 25 x 25 trunking. Took the front off the CU, both tails loose. Told him I was going to switch off the supply at the isolator, kid moaned about his telly going off!! Turned off the isolator............................ nothing happened!! Lights still on, telly still blairing out!! WTF?? The conversation went like this...

me: this meter doesn't supply your power?
him: No
me: where does your power come from?
him: next door
me: next f***ing door!!!???
him:yes, last year when he had his house done up the sparky connected me to his meter
me:does he know about this?
him:no!!

So... put the cover back on the CU and turned the 'isolator' back on and told him to get someone else in!!!!

Steve.

 

[Jason Smith]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Rob........ We have spoken !!! I have spoken to you on the telephone. Eventually Mrs V.B called my colleague and I in to sort this out. We rewired the kitchen and New cu. I found the reason for the shocks from the sink in the first Joint box I examined, pure luck, the earth had melted into the phase from the original lightning strike. I will assume the lady and her elderly husband are still alive because the equpotential was doing its job. Shame there was not a RCD as she would of had to have had this fault fixed when it occured which I understand was years ago. I was very worried when I heard of this character as I am a qualified ( not heating ) plumber as well as Sparks.( domesticinstaller only ) However he apparently is in an unmarked vehicle, just a mobile number etc, no one seems to know his name. Regards, j.

 

[m4rkfish]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

I got called to a house where their downstairs sockets had tripped, I asked if they had done any DIY work and they said no the sockets went off when they were watching TV, eventually found fault was a 5.5mm hole in the wall above a socket next to the window (where you would put a curtin hook) to my amazement 2 days later they phoned back saying it had happened again so i went out asked if they had drilled any more holes they said no but I found a 5.5mm hole above a socket on the other side of the window (ready for the curtin hook) UNBELIVABLE, I was charging by the hour and they didnt think that it would be cheaper if they told me what had happend. (and they did it twice)!!!!

 

[Neil]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

I am a bit overweight sorry guys!

 

[galin]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

I had one similar to yours In the time between the first and the second fix one of the builder's people made some changes to the electrics never letting my boss about them. During the second fix (which was 1 month later) i saw a suspicious cable which was not placed by me just hanging off the ceiling....just hanging unsafe (as unsafe cable i mean without any connectors blocking the access to the wires or any other type of insulation to prevent any "innocent victims" of accessing it). When I tested it...what a surprise it was live!!! Now I am testing every cable that I didn't placed during the first fix no matter of the builder's words how good his people are with the electrics

 

[Mr Brady]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Some years ago now, I was called to a hotel, where it was said that smoke and sparks were coming from a socket, and yes! they really were, it was quite impressive.
It was a brass socket with no earth link to the box, the screws (which were longer than necessary) had trapped the live against the metal backbox. The reason the cicuit breaker had not tripped? it was the lacquer the socket was coated with (insulating the screws), as the brick wall was recently built there was enough dampness about to start the show.

The smoke, was coming from the wallpaper which the sparks had started smouldering, luckily this all happened when there were people about or it might have ended badly.
It's the reason I use links to (metal) backboxes irrespective of any "fixed lugs" it may have.

 

[ChristianG]

Re: Tell us about your faults !

RCCB tripping when the bathroom light (2d 16W Flourescent) was switched off. The Bathroom light was on the main switch side of a split load board, but on a RCBO.

Turned out that a capacitor was missing from between the line and neutral. Some sort of surge knocking out the RCCB. When we took out the capacitor, the light switching off tripped the RCBO.

Added the capacitor from new light fitting to the old light fitting and it stopped tripping.

We still exchanged the old fitting for the new one though.

Also got told today by a customer that her old electrician couldn't fill the gap between sockets in her kitchen because they needed to be vented WTF? lol

If someone could explain exactly why the RCCB was tripping, I'd be grateful........still learning