ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Violation Photo Forum Hall Of Shame worthy violations at my apartment!

This apartment about a mile south of The University of Texas at Arlington wasn't the greatest, but it was the only one available near campus for a decent price that had an opening in August so I moved in. The place appeared nice for the price and was convenient.... but of course, three weeks later I find the dark side of this place.

When I first moved in I noticed that the wall unit HVAC's line cord had been spliced and that it was totally inoperable. I demanded that this be fixed along with getting a toilet that flushed. I should have ran, but I had nowhere to run to...all the other apartments were full. When I moved in, the A/C worked and the toilet valve was replaced but the nasty cord remained.

The circuit for my HVAC unit is a 240V 20A circuit and it was originally equipped with an LCDI as made evident by the fact that there was a copper braid surrounding the conductors and the words "FIRE SHIELD" on the outer jacket. The end spliced on was an old style non LCDI plug and I just guessed that the LCDI failed and was replaced with this bit of scrap lead and then forgotten. I was wrong though! What actually happened was some idiot had installed a NEMA 5-20 outlet in where there of course should have been a 6-20! I was amazed when I found this this morning after preparing the place for the maint guy to get here to replace my cord. The spliced end was a NEMA 6-20 plug....but that all changed with a twist of the "maintenance" guy's pliers!

So, I had 240VAC going to an outlet designed for 120VAC.... and then a butchered line cord to plug into it! You don't have to be a sparky, inspector or engineer to know that that's WRONG.

The maintenance guy dismissed my claims that the outlet in the wall was of the wrong type until, after about two minutes of trying to figure out how to plug in the new cord, he gave up and put a new one in after I showed him a picture of a 6-20 vs a 5-20 and told him to grab the 6-20. I offered him my multimeter to ensure the circuit was dead prior to the installation of the new outlet as a courtesy and to my surprise, he was dumbfounded as to how it operated. Once I showed him the mV symbol explained what it meant and told him why it was in mV instead of V (auto ranging was on) he went about installing my outlet. Surprisingly, he did an OK job. It does scare me that a maintenance guy working on electrical stuff does not have nor knows how to use a simple multimeter. The RadioShack 22-801 is probably the most user friendly meter I have ever used. It's hard to imagine anyone that couldn't understand it....heck, even my mom used it to check batteries!

I had to fight for three weeks to get my cord changed. Since I don't have a copy on hand, can someone tell me what sections of the NEC covers these violations?

- hardwareguy

The next violation deals with our construction crew that is doing a a fair job at best of replacing some termite infested, rotten walkway boards around here. This place has ineffective gutters so they get soaked.... real smooth move there. However, let's not talk about the construction of the walkway right now; lets talk about how they were powering their tools!

I had to pause and admire this bit of stupidity while on my lunch run. This cord was connected inside the compressor disco with ALLIGATOR CLAMPS! I didn't get too close to really get detail, I let the zoom on the camera take care of that.

You will note in the pic that not only are they using automotive clamps, the polarity is reversed, they are using ground as a neutral and the green grounding conductor in the cord is connected to nothing. The clamp attached to the breaker is insulated with good ol' blue painter's tape.They could have at least used duck tape! Hmm...anyone know what the dielectric strength of painters tape is? To add insult to injury, the cord is a 16AWG cord and it appears to be attached to the line side of the breaker. Not that it matters much, the breaker is a 30A unit.... I don't think the open air rating applies here. (beat you to the joke!)

There are a couple additional violations in the pic showing the overall scene with the compressors on the ground...spot them!

The apartment manager was extremely angry when she saw this, not just from a safety point of view, but the fact that these guys were stealing power from an occupied apartment. They were stealing quite a bit too... two small air compressors, a drill or two and a circular saw were running off of it. I didn't touch the cord to see if it was hot..... I think we know the answer to that!

The work the construction crew does is shoddy too. The old walkway uses Warren type trusses in it....the replacement is a ladder frame. It's sagging under its own weight. My friend states that the building inspector might be quite interested in hearing about that one.. I'm not a carpenter but I do know the difference between good construction and crap when I see it. I'd love to see one of those code compliance trucks roll up right about now and give this place a once over.

If I see that alligator clamp to socket adapter again and nobody is around, I WILL make it disappear. You'll find it in 6" pieces in the skip! It was not in use but I did see it on the sidewalk today.

- hardwareguy

The RadioShack 22-801 is probably the most user friendly meter I have ever used. It's hard to imagine anyone that couldn't understand it....heck, even my mom used it to check batteries!

- hardwareguy