ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area What do you think of this?

Paul - I've always thought that it's because electricity is a highly abstract application of physics, and many average everyday people simply do not deal well with abstracts. Sometimes you can 'splain & 'splain but it never seems to gel & make sense in their mind.

In checking out this guy's website, i don't get the feeling he's a rip-off guy, he just hasn't faced a large law suit yet.

Radar

I can't imagine how this guy could be sued any more than a guy who writes a bad DIY book, and there are plenty of those.
Of course in the US anybody can sue anybody for anything ... but this guy is in Canada.
In most places you have to have a license on the line to really have any skin in the game. An unlicensed hack doing unlicensed/unpermitted activity is actually in a lot less trouble than a licensed contractor, working with a permit, who just makes a mistake, even if that mistake is inspected and approved. (See the electrocution thread).
BTW that inspector and building department is protected by soverign immunity in Florida. I doubt suing them will go anywhere except to run up more huge legal bills for the taxpayers.

Regarding liability? I wonder if the DIY network got my message.
Here is a question that I posed to the DIY
network regarging replacing old light fixtures with new that require that they be installed to 90degC wire. This is my Email to them and the link at that time. I never received a reply to my question to date but have since noticed that the link and any references to light fixure replacement have disappeared.
Here's the link and question:
Re. "How to replace and old light fixture at:http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/diy_kits/article/0,2019,DIY_13787_2275068,00.html"
My question: Your description conveniently omits the fact that a good majority of "old fixtures" that people are replacing are either the old cloth covered wire or the 60 deg C rated TW wire. What have you done to address the instructions for the new light fixture that call for installation with 90 deg C wire and not the older 60 deg C as most people commonly have?
Also, because it is also not uncommon for the older light fixtures to get so hot that they degrade the insulation if the 60 deg C TW wire such that the insulation crumbles off when the old fixture is removed.
How woud you address this.
I agree that to address such issues would be opening up pandora's box, don't ask don't tell.
What would you be liable for should you mot address these issues?
Please advise

quote"Surely it is isn't that difficult to grasp the idea that (in a grounded system) the earth just happens to be a convenient path back to the source? "

It is my opinion that the earth is a rather inconvenient path back to the source. Given the relative high impedence of the earth, it takes a whole lot of electomotive force to get the electrons convinced to utilize earth as a "convenient path". At least this is how I grasp it.

A good friend of mine once installed an isolated-ground receptacle and created the "isolated ground" by simply driving a ground rod and taking the receptacle EGC to it.

To his credit, he even went as far as to create a controlled, intentional ground-fault to the rod, so as to ensure that it could sink enough current to trip the breaker. But he when I tried to explain what was wrong with the installation, he didn't seem to understand my problem.

Here's the kicker: In about three months, he will having finished all his schooling, and he'll be a licensed electrical engineer!

-John

[This message has been edited by BigJohn (edited 02-24-2006).]

Perhaps "convenient" wasn't quite the right word to use there.

My point was that many people seem to have the idea that "electricity will always try to get back to earth." They don't seem to grasp that the electricity will only flow back through the earth if and because the source is grounded. Take an isolated system, drive a ground rod, and connect that ground rod to any single point of the isolated system and all you've done is create a grounded system. That single ground connection by itself doesn't result in current flowing to earth.