ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion House Fire (Isle of Man)

There's a show on Discovery or one of it's sister newtorks called "Mythbusters". In one show they wanted to see if the myth of a drunk (or lout as you Brits call them)peeing on a subway 3rd rail while standing in a water puddle no less would cause electrocution.

Conclusion is it can't because the "stream" is made up of disconnected drops. I guess the same could hold true for a fire hose.




[This message has been edited by Gus99 (edited 04-19-2006).]

That's a good show. In one prog. they busted a story that claimed some guy generated a massive static electrical spark, [ & subsequent fire ], while shotblasting old paint off a big pvc pipe. They tried everything and failed to detect one volt, & wound up building a Wimshurst machine and zapping a presenter, who just got a painful nip off the foot-long static spark.
Best of series for me was busting the story about a tradesman who supposedly got swept off a skyscraper's steel-frame by a gust of wind, while holding a sheet of plywood, then soared on his 3/4" thick wooden "hang-glider wing" round the building and back in through another opening! Tests with dummys showed he would have flown ok - vertically into the deck like a brick!
Geronimoooooooooooooooooooooooooohbugger!

Alan

Ya that is one of my favourite shows! Anyone ever see the one where they wanted to see if it was dangerous to be in the shower or on the telephone during an electrical storm? Where they actually build a miniture section of house and hit it with something like 700,000 volts??!!
Pretty impressive I must say!

A.D

I heard similar stories too... only it wasn't a 700 or something Volts DC rail, but he was standing on a bridge and it was a 15kV AC overhead line...

Burn(t) it's way down? That makes no sense to me. Since heat rises, the natural path for the fire to go would be UP, right? Is it possible that the fire really originated in the breakers and travelled up? The condition of the breakers would seem to say yes.

Don, (resqcapt19) any comments/opinions here?

edited to add question to Don

[This message has been edited by mxslick (edited 04-21-2006).]

"There's a show on Discovery or one of it's sister newtorks called "Mythbusters". In one show they wanted to see if the myth of a drunk (or lout as you Brits call them)peeing on a subway 3rd rail while standing in a water puddle no less would cause electrocution.
Conclusion is it can't because the "stream" is made up of disconnected drops. I guess the same could hold true for a fire hose."

We had a dog that discovered the hard way that YES You can get shocked by peeing on the wrong thing!

It turns out that when I wired up a temprary timer for controlling Xmas lights 10 years ago, I swapped the line and neutral. (Darn European color codes) Well Trevey went to do a bit of marking on the front bushes and let out a yelp.

He was OK but very confused. I immediately realized what happened and unplugged the timer. Trevey is now chasing squirrels in doggy heaven, but I will never forget that Blue is the Neutral from now on.

On the same subjet here is a house fire in the UK started by an electrical fault.

And the struggle the guy has had with his insurance company
http://www.directline2disaster.co.uk/

Had fraught dealings with the company named on that link 6 years ago with 2 motor insurance policies.
They didn't read my letters, they didn't action stuff in good time, and they made nasty threats about taking legal action when they were clearly in the wrong.

Just thought I'd take the opportunity to give them some publicity in repayment for all the angst they put me through: What goes round comes round.

Alan