"Breakers and panels need to be cleaned and oiled regularly"

Yup, that's what the rental company maintenance guy told the tenant who was complaining of power surges.

Our tenant, knowing better, left the fool at the panel ... RACED to the management firm ... and said "get a REAL sparky out there!"

We found virtually every screw, including those in the meter pan, to be less than finger tight. One meter clip had got hot enough to burn the plastic base, and the spring clip lost all temper.

This is not the first time I've encountered this nonsense. At a prior job, the maintenance guy had taken a Dremel to the HOT busses to 'clean' them. In the process, he ruined at least three contacts. Oops. Customer - a 24/7 operation - got to shut down while the panel was replaced.

Where do these idiots get their information?

That's classic. It made me think of changing the oil on a car: Remember to replace the breaker filters, too. The guy wanted to look competent and if someone didn't know much about electrical work, that might sound like an esoteric piece of information known only to those really experienced few.

I can say from experience it's mighty hard to know you're in over your head and be forced to look a customer in the face and say "I don't know." We've all run into folks who would sooner make up an answer than admit ignorance:

I work with a licensed journeyman who jumped into a conversation between myself and an engineer to "educate" me on how an isolated ground needed to be tied to its own seperate ground rod because the current was returning to earth (one of my favorite myths).

But! In all fairness to the guy who cleaned the bus bars, it seems like I've heard of sparkys gently sanding oxidized/painted bars to improve connection. As long as you weren't grinding off copper...? So, maybe he heard the same thing.

-John

In keeping with the oil theme, from a horse ranch where I was.

The old horse trader (cheaper than Jack Benny, and the Code Enforcement Officer's best customer) that owned the place had a loadcenter with all of the knockouts removed, outside on a pole, hanging from the straps on the service riser.
Years of weather, "horse pen dust" (manure) and acidic fragrance had done a number on it.
As he walked by at twilight, he saw some arcing from one of the breaker bus stabs.

He picked up a can of his favorite remedy, WD40, and sprayed it into the panel, hoping to improve the contact.

It improved the contact alright, well enough that the whole panel erupted into a fireball that lasted long enough for him to run for a hose bibb 50' away and turn on the hose.
He ran the hose on the panel long enough that it tripped the 100Amp Main breaker.

The fool, by no action of his own, miraculously was not hurt, other than some curly-qs on his hair and eyebrows.

The panel didn't fare so well. It was the blackest thing I've ever seen.

...oiled?

And when you service your truck, make sure to top-off your blinker fluid too.

Oh, I'm sure he was merely confusing the 3000A ACBs he routinely overhauls with 15A panel breakers

My favorite are people who think that a UPS means they don't need a generator.

My favorite elctrical myth. A handyman is a electrician too

I started out as a handyman, but I at least knew what the Code was, and how to follow it.

I think that the most use a lot of these "perfessionals" have for the Code is to block up the shorter leg on the card table.

What part of "uninterruptible" don't you understand?

my favorite was a local company claiming that "the national electric code requires your circuit breaker panel to be serviced by an electrician every five years" then quoted a section of the nec that had absolutely nothing to do with circuit breaker panels.

"Electricity always takes the path of least resistance". I'm a firm believer in Mr. Ohm and Mr. Kirchhoff. Trying to break Ohm's law smells bad.

How is this one? You should become an electrician, it is a really high paying job.

I saw a car once that had plenty of blinker fluid! The seal was apparently bad, and one of the rear tail lights was half-full of water.

How about the old favorite:

"If the circuit breaker (or GFI) keeps tripping, there's something wrong with it."

My favorite is people who think they need to "fix" the wiring by matching all wire colours when changing a light fixture and make switch loops into short circuits.

How about ground rods being required on parking lot light poles?

Earl:
How about the 3/4" x 10' rod....cadwelded to #4......and the poles are 12' high, 5" square.....fiberglass!!!

Rods were engineer's spec for job!

One I think we may have all heard.

The check's in the mail

My favorite:

"You don't need a permit for that."

" I am from the goverment, and am here to help you".

How bout "low voltage lights don't get as hot"

For that matter
"Low voltage is not regulated by the NEC"

One guy wanting to touch a glowing Nichrome wire: "But it's only 9V so I can touch it!"
(a 17-year-old in a physics class)

"low voltage lighting uses less electricity"

And "CFL's are good for the environment."

American electricity is safer than British electricity because it is only 110V which is non-fatal!

I think this comes from our 55v - 0v - 55V site transformers but it annoys me, a lot.

Its ok to have bare copper showing on that extension lead, its only 110V

Idiot: Can I have some fuses
Me: what size?
Idiot: 13A
Me: whats it for?
Idiot: table lamp
Me: 13A is too big, you need a 3A
Idiot: but the 13A ones are bigger and last longer!
Me: Get out (miffed expression pointing to the door!)

You just cant get it across to some people.

A 1500 watt 120 volt heater costs more to run than one of the same wattage at 240 volts. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard people say they don't like using portable space heaters because they cost more to run.

How about "low voltage fixtures don't use as much power as the 120V lights".

I hear that one all the time when I try to meet the Energy Codes when dealing with 'lighting designers'.


I guess watts get littler as the voltage goes down...

After a black out:

*Why don't we have power yet? did't POCO fix the problem?
** yes the problem is fixed, but since the problem was 4 blocks down and there are 300 houses before yours, it takes a while for electricity to get through to you. please Be patient.

Not necessarily an electrical myth, but how about "the check's in the mail"?

Not to be a nitpicker, but "the check's in the mail" isn't technically a myth, it's one of the "3 truths of the Universe".

1. The check's in the mail.
2. I promise I'll respect you in the morning.
3. We're from the government and we're here to HELP you.


But here's a great myth for you ... "It's always safe to touch the white wire".

BZZZTTTT!!!!!!!!!

Ah yes...... I still remember an excellent example of that one. The existing lighting in the hallway of an old house was two standard 240V pendants which had already been fitted with 11W compact fluoros. They wanted them replaced with two strip systems, each carrying three 50W low-voltage dichroic spots: "It will be cheaper to run."

Nothing would convince them otherwise.



Well, for a very long time over here white was the color for B phase!

Leaving a fluorescent tube running 24/24 is cheaper to run than turning it off when you leave the room.

A shock only kills you if it passes across your chest.

DC used to set houses on fire. That's why we got AC, because it switches itself off 50 times a minute.

There's a new sort of storage heater developed by NASA that uses much less electricity.

Per minute? I make that about 0.4Hz!

It actually turns off 100 times a second and 120 times a second in the Americas (twice per cycle). I guess we are more impatient.

Not a typo. We have a new Anglais bar owner here. My mate Phil calls him Methusela, as he reckons he must be 700 years old to have done all the amazing yarns he tells. According to M, it is 50 times a minute. Mind you, he also led a platoon of 70 British SAS squaddies in Vietnam, which must have been a bit of a surprise to Lyndon B. Johnson and PM Harold Wilson!

I caught that as well. It's amazing how many people don't stop to think that the number of zero-crossings per second is double the frequency.



Can you imagine the size of transformers you need for that?



Ah, he must be related to somebody I know. Got called to do his national service, you know. Except that by all accounts he was born in 1950 -- I guess he must have lied about his age.

We had one like that where I used to work. Depending on what day he told the stories, he was either an Army Ranger, Navy Seal, Special Forces, Green Beret, and served in either the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, CIA, or anything else that sounded impressive.

He also told stories of incidents on construction sites that weren't survivable after you thought about it for a few minutes, like the lead-lined door to an X-Ray Room falling on top of him during a hospital project.

Yep, compulsory national service ended in the U.K. around 1960, and I think the last intake was a year or more before that. His rifle must have been as tall as he was!

This same guy claims to have driven trucks for "over 25 years." When you deduct the number of years he claims to have spent doing other jobs since then, it works out that he must have started at about 14. Pretty impressive considering that you have to be 17 to even get a regular car license, and 21 for an HGV license!

Oh, and he's absolutely hopeless when it comes to electrical things as well. He really shouldn't be let loose near anything with wires.

One of the funniest things I've ever seen on TV, a few years ago there was a programme called The Red Green Show, there used to be a segment on there with a guy called Hap Shaughnessy, good lord were some of his stories tall!.

There is also something that I have seen engineers forget. There are no "zero crossings" in 3 phase (L/L).
When you use SSRs and other triac devices they will always be opening under load even when you are only using 2 phases and thinking it looks like single phase. The only way to get a zero crossing is to go line to neutral.

Ah, the Red Green Show. Harold got married again for us on the 300th show Saturday night (again). I enjoy these reruns and watch it more faithfully than anything else on TV. At times one half of one hour of TV watched during some low TV weeks.

Funny that my wife thinks I McGiver things when all I know, I learned from Uncle Red.

A zero crossing is the point where the instantaneous voltage is zero. Unless there is a DC component, you'll have zero crossings with any AC waveform. I don't understand why you say there are no zero crossings in 3 phase L/L.

Huh? Can you show us where the zero crossings are in this?




Must be just another electrical myth