Showed up at a job to drop some pipe in a trench yesturday. So I set up, un-load all the material, lay out a cord to the spider box, and hop in the hole to cut off a stub-out to start my run. I pull the trigger on my saws-all and it kicks into over-drive turbo speed! Freaky fast! I say to myself, "Hey, thats not right..." So I go get my meter, and find that my cord is 240v! I go back to the spider box, and make sure I didn't accidently jamb it into the 30A outlet, which can happen easily if you have well worn plugs and outlets. Nope... I test the other outlets on the box. The 200/30 is only 120, and half of the 120's are 220v. The framers compressor goes (Fed from another box down the line) on and sounds like it's turbocharged, I then just un-plug the whole box. The whole job comes to a stop looking at me, so I tell 'em it'll be a few minutes I have to check something out. I then get the job Sup'er on my back asking why I shut off the power while I am checking the cords feeding the boxes. So I ask him if he noticed any tools getting damaged. He thinks a second, and then rifles off a list of drills, saws and other items over the course of three months when the project started. So I find it... The first cord cap had X and W reversed since day one.
One would figure that if someone uses the same tools everyday, that they would notice something odd over three months? Then again, that the ELECTRICIAN who wired that cord cap for site power would have checked his work? So now the company might get a sizable bill for the list of tools...
