ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Shutting off the electrician

An incident I remember particularly was at the LA Convention Center, in the parking structure, during the ElectricWest Show (before Joe's seminar).
A group passing by commented on the "weirdo" taking pictures of the lights (baaadly cord installed).
Maybe they'd had some kind of vaccination?

Try working on traffic lights. I can't drive anywhere on the weekends where I don't feel like I'm at work. Even if I get out of town I count the yellow gap and all red time on other localities lights just to compare. It will drive you nuts if you let it!

What's worse is that your condition is highly, highly contagious. The symptoms begin spreading to non-electricians upon exposure to the photos you've taken. Once the contagion has begun to germinate one is compelled to visually assess switches, service panels and wiring at every opportunity - even cords to seemingly benign household appliances in the hopes that all is well but suspicious that there will be some evidence of error or questionable workmanship that could be detected.

- .. this could be more serious than we thought!


Bill

Just came home from a week in an ocean front condo, that charges an arm and a leg and your firstborn. Guess who made the panel? (FP, loaded, with the red handled breakers) The electrical infrastructure of the building is shaky at best. With none code wiring and poor practice. I would have never noticed, except for what I have learned from this board! Sooo.. maybe it's not my fault?

count me in.

TW

Oh dear, Oh dear,
I now have to admit the following;

#1 going to the mall with the girlfriend, spending most of my time looking out light fixtures, receptacles, panels, fixed wiring tubing and almost every conceivable connection for any type of item as long as it is cabled !!!!

#2 going to The Big Box Store (B & Q over here) NOT in company uniform EVER, to pick up something that i should have bought from the suppliers in the week, trying not to pass comment on the weekend D.I.Yer (Destroy It Yourself or shall we Fxxk Ix up ourselves and then call a proffessional in Group)who will bye a 9500watt 230volt shower and then pick the cheapest cable, no GFCI, no protection for cable etc etc. i have to walk away.

#3 having my nieghbors asking me about how to wire up a light fixture in there resisdence, and me saying ` i wont tell you how to wire it because you are not qualified, but i will wire it for you, if your wiring is up to code and the fixture is built to code!!!
I have found out that they dont seam to ask anymore??? am i doing something wrong, i dont think so i am a proffesional eelctrical engineer and i dont like sloppy and or damgerous work!!

I think i also suffer from the same affliction as everybody else here, but do i care, naw not a bit.!!!

John H

oh yeah!, that automatic gag reflex gives me away every time........


gotta be an rx for this.....

it gets better Bill...

fess up, how many here have had thier other 1/2 say 'now cut that out'!or something similar within earshot of others?

usually old hens that think you've copped a cheap grope of the missus and turn thier noses up at you in disdain....

And what about us non-electricians?

Like Joe, I wander into washrooms in restaurants (some really nice ones) and am confronted with missing switches and the wires pouring out of the open device box.

Rusty fuse boxes in the bathroom, a gutted ceiling exhaust fan with the little disconnect (for unplugging when you're cleaning the fan) dangling all over the place.

One former turn-of-the-century speak-easy in Greenwich Village sat me and a friend at a table where the little lamps at the booths were all hooked together to extension cords draped all ovver the floor and into that was plugged one of these:

[img]http://images.lowes.com/product/032664/032664273100.jpg?wid=158&cvt=jpeg[/img]

and into that was screwed one of these:

[img]http://images.lowes.com/product/032664/032664270307.jpg?wid=158&cvt=jpeg[/img]

The two lamps were then plugged into the side outlets and the screwshell on the adapter was wide open to whatever. You get the idea.

One of the replacement "quickie" plugs on one of those little lamps had scorch marks on it also.

I saw this after I felt it with my (bare) knee. Pulling the entire clump up I show the waitress and she comes out with, "oh don't worry, our bartender's a fireman." LITERALLY that's what she said!!!

In retrospect I should have pulled that connection apart and taken the plugadapters with me. But then I would have gotten into a confrontation with the bunch in the next booth over because I turned off their little light and then they couldn't see what they were eating. Didn't want that. I ate my mashed potatoes instead....

There's one Chinese restaurant I go to regularly where I think they mounted the porcelain lampholder in the bathroom directly to the ceiling tile.

The molded plug on the rice cooker is held together with duct tape. I've been tempted to ask them if they want a real plug put on it...but I'm too chicken to ask.

Here's a few more gems:

In the motel I stayed in in San Diego, the circuit for the wall sockets was faulty -- the outlets kept losing power.

To add to this, the icebox and microwave oven were connected to a socket on the other side of the bureau by a 16-gauge two-wire cheap extension cord (with two cheater plugs for the three-pin plugs of the two appliances).

I had to go to Home Depot and buy one of those little screwplugs
[img]http://images.lowes.com/product/032664/032664116506.jpg?wid=59&cvt=jpeg[/img]
so I could plug the spouse's cellphone charger in the wall sconce to let it do its thing without beeps an hiccups. This cranks my collection of these things to FIVE!!

An open box with two wires dangling out of it on the same motel grounds (sticking out of a patch of dirt on a piece of plastic pipe).

The other night I was at the farewell party for a friend who's moving to Israel. This was being held in the painter's shop in SoHo of another friend of his.

The wall mounted lampholder in the bathroom had lost its pullchain (in the "on" position, unfortunately) and you had to twist and untwist the bulb to turn the light on or off. I offered to replace it!

A few months ago I stopped by this former antique store that was giving away all its remaining garbage. I took a bunch of drop cords out of a box. When I got home and popped open the brass lampholder, I pulled out a strip of crumbling masking tape wrapped around the interior mechanism in order to keep it from sliding out of the brass shell.

It's all Joe Tedesco's fault!!!

I REALLY REALLY gotta get myself a small digital camera -- I'm too lazy/busy to carry that big honkin' Minolta SLR 35mm around New York...sometimes you don't have the time to be messing with that thing when you go to the bathroom...

My little Instamatic knock-off will have to do for now.

Have I bored you all yet? hehehehehe

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 08-11-2003).]

This is how warped i am... I had back surgery on August 1st. My last words to my surgeon just before i went to sleep "Doc, dont yank on those surgical lights too hard, those things weigh a ton!"

I'm undergoing spine surgery and all i can think about is how the light is mounted. Hoping it was securely all-threaded to a steel bar joist above the drop ceiling. How's that for needing therapy!

[This message has been edited by arseegee (edited 08-11-2003).]