Tell us about your faults!

Knobhead · Mar 8, 2012

phil d said:
yes Tony my mate got a -------ing doing same on Blackpool prom with bicarb I think it was, got fed up of them trying to knick his chips,apparently they are a protected species,the gulls not the chips lol

That will just cure the seagull’s indigestion from eating the chips!
Carbide is a bit more spectacular (explosive)! Just watch out for the flying debris, makes a right mess on your jacket.

willf · Mar 14, 2012

Another DIY mess. The architrave switch is running the cupboard lights fed off the socket next to it. Neutral connections in CU barely hand tight and only one leg of the ring connected. The other leg is in the JB outside of the board. Guess he didn't know where it went, lol. Loads of other probs, too many to list.

kung · Mar 15, 2012

See what you mean buddy ! also like termination of what looks like a 10 in pic 2 and where the heck is that single from the unswitched double going ?

willf · Mar 15, 2012

kung said:
See what you mean buddy ! also like termination of what looks like a 10 in pic 2 and where the heck is that single from the unswitched double going ?

That 10mm was going direct to a shower. When I say direct I mean straight to the shower with no isolator!! The cable out of the unswitched socket was feeding some other cupboard lights, nice!

kung · Mar 16, 2012

Very nice !

garysparky1 · Mar 19, 2012

Re: Tell us about your faults !

I was doing an IR test and could'nt get a high read checked around and i had'nt taken out the outside light bulb schoolboy error!

ash_s3 · Mar 19, 2012

Re: Tell us about your faults !

Couple of photos off the phone ive taken over the last couple of months, some proper shoddy work.

£10.7M Council offices, built in 2004 - this is exactly as i found it!

£28M Theatre built in 2009

Removed one light fitting to find all this behind

Removed one 2G socket to find about 4ft of singles in the wall cavity

No cover over terminals in ceiling void, Cord grip not used, CPC not connected!

FP200 dogged into a 13A plugtop, cord grip had caused L and CPC to short. FP200 fed a 2G socket!!

£3M Fire HQ refurbishment - Found this in trunking!

GT1 · Mar 20, 2012

I take it the overheated neutral in number seven is the shower..!
lol

Robospark · Mar 21, 2012

Re: Tell us about your faults !

How about this one - Got a call from a guy complaining that when he had a shower, one of his rings on his cooker started to glow!!!

After a bit of poking about found that the neutral in the main switch was open circuit when the switch was on! And that the cooker ring had an earth fault when switched on - in fact I also found earth faults at two switches as well. Both heating up!

So the earth faults were providing a return path for the whole installation. Mucho dangerous!

Guest111 · Mar 21, 2012

worked for a company doing lofts and went to a job where one of the lads(not a spark) had wired the loft light into a jb and when he switched it on the florry strobed, he also found the bathroom light glowed dimly but when you turned bathroom light on loft light went out, he was convinced wrongly that it was a fault with existing wiring,.took me about 2 mins to work out what he had done.answers on a postcard please lol.

rich.250 · Mar 21, 2012

Two lives to light. No neutral. Seen it done by so called 'sparks' I used to work with lol.

Guest111 · Mar 21, 2012

rich.250 said:
Two lives to light. No neutral. Seen it done by so called 'sparks' I used to work with lol.

yep the prat had picked a red and a black,only prob was it was a live and switch wire!

Ohmyword · Mar 23, 2012

phil d said:
worked for a company doing lofts and went to a job where one of the lads(not a spark) had wired the loft light into a jb and when he switched it on the florry strobed, he also found the bathroom light glowed dimly but when you turned bathroom light on loft light went out, he was convinced wrongly that it was a fault with existing wiring,.took me about 2 mins to work out what he had done.answers on a postcard please lol.

It is 'nice' when you (easily) sort someting like that out and can smuggly call 'the lad' a right muppet!

amlu · Apr 2, 2012

went to give a quote for a 3 bedroom rewire. turned out that its a 3 bedroom, with extension at the back and a newly built loft extension. customer wanted to have 3 power showers installed there. 2 were already in, ending in a fuseboard with 10mm tails. one plugged together with a ring circuit. customer wanted some parts of the install be left alone, all work to be done in 4 days, and lots of haggling over the price. I walked off at the end.

leejcooper · Apr 4, 2012

Hi. Am after some advice if possible please.

Have moved into an old victorian house and am currently refurbishing it bit by bit. Have included some photo's of what the CU and main fuse are like at the moment. Not a pretty site!! The CU is halfway up the wall but the RCD for it is under the stairs fed by a 10mm cable from the cupboard which is 6 feet away on the other side of the wall. God knows why it is like this!

Am looking at upgrading the electrics to a new split board but just wondering what the best way to go about it would be? I am currently taking a testing and inspection course so that i can sign off my own work but would like any advice if possible.

Thanks

Engineer54 · Apr 4, 2012

As far as the replacement CU is concerned save both your money and time buying a complete CU, just remove the existing MCB's and go all RCBO!! This is a far,far better option than any other RCD configuration CU!!! These dual RCD CU's can be nothing but a heap of trouble when a fault occurs...

DNS · Apr 4, 2012

I have recently rewired a four bedroom house for a friends parents. One the first inspection visit, I went into the attic, "Throw down the cable with the plug on it" I was asked. I passed it down, stupidly now I know. He proceeded to plug it into a socket outlet on the landing. Swiched on, and hey presto we have lights in the attic.......... After no more than 20 seconds, I shouted "Switch the socket off" I came down, unplugged it and told him never to plug that in again. "why" he asked, "We've always used that for the lights up there". I proceeded to open the plug firstly, 13 amp fuse....... secondly, other end of the flex, another plug containing 13 amp fuse. This plug was plugged into a socket screwed upside down on a roof truss. And to top it all off, this provided the power to two 100watt bulbs in the attic. But the cable running to these lights was speaker wire. It was still hot when I had removed it and showed him......"Thats all I had and its worked fine for years" he said. "I think you have just been very lucky I replied" The jobs finished now and everythings safe and up to regs. He now is the proud owner of a totally rewired house and two energy saving lights in the attic running of the upstairs lighting circuit and operated by a pull cord switch which you operate when the hatch is open. The earth wire attached to the TNS supply was only 4mm and there was no other earthing accept for the cpcs in the cable. I have found that many people think/assume that if the electric works and the telly switches on ok, everythings ok. Especially the older generation.

Knobhead · Apr 4, 2012

leejcooper said:
Have included some photo's of what the CU and main fuse are like at the moment. Not a pretty site!! The CU is halfway up the wall but the RCD for it is under the stairs fed by a 10mm cable from the cupboard which is 6 feet away on the other side of the wall. God knows why it is like this!
QUOTE]

I’d get the gravity checked out first, there seems to be a temporal anomaly.

As E54 says fit RCBO’s, do some tidying up and all should be good. Eeerr correction a lot of tidying up. I’ve corrected the anomaly before I put my neck out. where’s the T+E go that’s in the Henley?
I wouldn’t sling that board out if you can get RCBO’s for it.

HandySparks · Apr 4, 2012

What's the means of earthing? Looks like it might be a TN-S system, but not an arrangement that I've seen before. Have you measured the Ze? (Maybe not if you're still doing the course.)

If you go for RCBOs (which, I agree, would be good), whether you keep the existing CU or not isn't much of a consideration. A new enclosure with main switch will be about the price of one RCBO, although there'll be the time taken to do the swap.

Where are you located? England or Wales, or elsewhere? ie does Part-P apply where you are?

leejcooper · Apr 5, 2012

Thanks for all your replies

Sorry photo's upside down!!!

have already brought the CU when i moved in too long ago to take back. Was looking at moving the CU next to the meter as need to box in the wall where it currently sits.
No have not carried out any testing yet but am expecting problems when i do.
Am located in England so come under Part P
The T+E goes to the RCD under the stairs in the hall, forgot the photo, which then supplies the CU so meggar mess.