Here's a real beaut for you guys.
One of our faultsmen from work got called out to a local church last Sunday, with the complaint that there was no power in half of the building.
One of the phases was missing on the submain that fed the "new" addition to the building, that happened back in the late 1990's.
He happened to get the thing working again, but went for a walk around the building to see what could have taken out a phase, he walked around the building and happened to see what was in the pic below.
I had a look in passing yesterday, and told him it was a water pipe.
I touched the thing to see what it was, there was a crackling that came from where it enters the building, via that metal air vent behind the bush and sure enough the phase had gone out again.
Turns out this pipe is a 3 Core + Neutral Screened 16mm2 PVC cable. mad
What concerns me the most about this, is the fact that a qualified electrician may have installed the cable in this manner.
Here it is:

[Linked Image]

Not good at all!.