I was in Baja Mexico at a high dollar tourist trap. I happened to look over the block wall at the pool equipment.
They had weathered THHN run through the bottom knockouts of the panel without even a bushing and were splayed across the ground to each motor. NO GROUNDS!! In La Paz on a busy commercial street near the waterfront a store had a receptacle screwed to the outside front wall about 4' high. No box, open conductors. Perfect kid killer!! I saw lots of water hose used as conduit too. I'm sure I can think of something hokier but these are a good start.

Panel cover off on a pole mounted unit smack in the middle of the local Ag fair (Ox pulls, two headed chickens) serving all the 'kiddie rides'

I actually took a pix, and sent it into the state office here

Their reply was thier juristiction ends at 'public buildings' and does not extent to 'public places'



~S~

Did not get to take a picture, but in Nassau, Bahamas I saw several meter cans serving single family houses that were made out of plywood. Not painted, not weather tight, just plywood with a meter base screwed inside, and a plywood cover with a hole cut in it for the meter to stick thru.

A large pop bottle, with the top cut off, upside-down on a service mast was pretty good.

My favorites were on TV shows from the 70's or early 80's. "Any Woman Can" and "You Can Do It" were both awesome.

One of them built a desk with two receptacles and showed how to make an extension cord with two male ends to energize them. They even warned that you need to be careful which end you unplug first.

Another good episode showed how to install a dishwasher and drill a hole in the counter-top to run the cord up to the counter plug.

It isn't just that the actors didn't know what they were doing. There had to be other people in the studio with them.

Off topic on electrical, but still with the TV shows, you must be careful when you cut a peep-hole in a door that the bar in the middle of the screen door does not cover the hole. Oh well, as she said "Anyone bad would open the screen door and you would be see them".

The one that sticks out in my mind most is from a service call about 20-years ago where I found a piece of RG6 coax cable feeding a duplex receptacle in a finished wall of the basement of a rental home.
I do have to give the person who did it credit for creativity though, because I would have never came up that idea in a million years.

My uncle bought an old house and barn and called me to rewire the barn. " Oh, I think the service drop across the driveway that feeds it needs replacing too" No kidding. The "service drop" was a piece of POTS wire, red and green for hot, black and yellow for grounded. Interior of the barn wired the same way. No boxes, just 2 wire receptacles screwed to the studs by the yoke. And not 1 thing had caught fire. Amazing.

I found this temp power pole in Tennessee. It was hot.

The service cable was 10-3 Romex. This was tapped off of the house next door.
I am guessing they don't have inspectors once you get out of town.

Recycled from a temp job site? I am surprised they even had a GEC wire.

They were building a series of "cabins". Each one supplied power to the next one as they moved along. I am guessing the power pole was only inspected on the first house.

Joe T., where are you???

Greg: I can't stop laughing!!

The paper cup is priceless!

Regarding the pictures ....

I'm working right acros the river from Tennessee, and a number of my 'skilled trades' co-workers make the commute daily. Their comments about the pics have been:

"So what's the problem?"

"Hey, that looks like my place." and ...

"I hope he used silicone on that cup."

That does it. I give up.

The "service drop" was a piece of POTS wire, red and green for hot, black and yellow for grounded. Interior of the barn wired the same way. No boxes,


now that truly takes brass ones...

~S~

John,


How about the pictures I sent under: "High Voltage on the Ground" listed under pictures to discuss here on the website? (At least I think it was there) Where I have pictures of the POCO leaving 12KV wires laying on the ground.

Greg,

I also sent it photos of receptacles cut into the tile backsplash. It too is also listed under "pictures to discuss" in this website. (I believe) There are so many crazy things out there that it would make you laugh, then cry. As long as no one gets hurt.

I think the worst thing I've ever seen was a dairy farmer west of here.
After us building and wiring his new dairy shed, the guy decided he wanted a workshop on the side of the shed.
He built the shed, and ran a 3 phase power cable from the Main switch-board panel (in an old worn out high pressure water hose).
From there, he installed a new panel, no bushings on where the "hose" entered the panel.
This thing was carrying a cable rated at 400V @ 20A/phase, a rather small cable by our standards, but the lack of supports along the run of this hose, meant that it became a "tripping hazard".
One of his workers tripped on it and it pulled two of the phases out of the panel terminations, he thought no more of it and tucked the cable back against the wall, where it was.
Later on that day, the local Auxillary Fire Brigade along with us and a couple of other brigades were putting out this new dairy shed.
It was found that the feed end of the "sub-main" had been landed straight onto the load side of the main-isolator, as in, it wasn't fused at all.

Once you get the polystyrene component of dairy shed walls burning, they are VERY hard to extinguish.

And they say, 'lectrical work is so simple??!!

Mike,

Haven't you heard of the 20 meter long fusable link? A movie set I worked on, used a new 100 foot roll of 14/3 SO cable with a 120 V 15 A female cord cap on one end and teminated the other end into the load side of a 200 A fused disconnect!

I was told this was the power to the "sound" system. Just because we were working in and around a 6 million gallon swimming pool set was no reason for safety to get in the way.

We only electrocuted the director once. And that was when the inside use only light ballast got rained on for 24 hours straight. Those bonding and grounding rules don't apply all the times, do they?

Reminds me of the guy who used plumbing 90's and tees because he wanted to do the underground himself. No fire
but a lot of extra diggin!

I did an inspection here in town. The highlights was the four panels tapped off the main lugs with no main so to kiill the power the 40 plus breakers had to be thrown. The service head outside a bedroom window that came out of old trailer. Then there was the "exterior" receptacle which was fed with romex in in a blue plastic box, just lying face up on the deck steps, no face plate, bottom recept face busted off exposing the contacts, and by the way, the recept had power and it was raining/snowing.

Another one was a well house that had a pump, controls, a light, switch, heater, receptacle, and a small panel. not a single item in the whole installation was wired to code, oversize breakers, lack of grounding, everything. If i recalled, the recept had reverse polarity Yet it worked, and no was was killed.

I had a friend who wired in his own washer and dryer. His girfriend went to used it and complained she was getting shocked. He with to pull them out to see what the problem was and could't because they were welded together.

I had a similar one... they used two pieces of POTS wire though, each with 3 conductors paralleled. No idea what it used to supply since it had been cut within 2" from the splice it came out of. Pulled out during the rewire of a friend's new place (sold as "completely rewired).

Today's find - a Frank Adams panel where a section of the deadfront was replaced with a piece of galvanized metal, with corrugated cardboard behind it as an insulator. In the same panel, there's a 3-phase 50A breaker feeding one 500w spotlight through 14-2 cloth romex. All in a place of assembly. I don't want to know how 5 MLO panels throughout the building are fed off one 400A breaker.
/mike

That's a blast from the past!! I have not seen a Frank Adams creation in +25 years. They used to be a good panel. (Without the cardboard insulator)

Someone on this site talked about the ceiling fans in a relatives mobile home being wired with thermostat wire.

I'd have to say that the worst one I've ever encountered was a basement that was finished by Harry Homeowner who wired the entire thing with lamp cord. No boxes at all, just nice little cutouts in the paneling with the devices screwed in place. Even though this looked to have been done in the late 1960's, he used two-wire receptacles. Frankly, I'm surprised that the place didn't burn to the ground.

This was before it became popular to use home inspectors, so the new owners were in for quite a shock when I had to give them the bad news.

Of course, the whole basement was fed from the oil burner circuit. That is the only reason that this issue even came to light. The service man for the furnace noticed several pieces of lamp cord leaving the disconnect switch and brought it to the homeowner's attention.

Ok .,

On European side not too long ago { it already posted in other electrician fourm } found total of 30 hidden junction boxes and quite few ring circuits { they are illegal in France } with 1.5mm { 16 awg } conductors with 32 amp breaker now that is way out of wack!!

On USA side .,

Got a farm house wired up with mixed bag of POTS and Zipcords and 4.0mm²(*12) for electric stove end up rewired the whole place.

Merci.
Marc

I didn't see this personally but my former employer came upon a mother in law unit in a back yard that was powered with a single strand of buried THHN. The gas pipe was used as a return path. The renter was having intermittent problems and called the POCO. They noticed and pulled the meter.

Best I can remember was a basement wired in 16ga orange extension cords, including the whirlpool (cause the big box guy said 'it's cheaper')

The HVAC tech using copper pipe for fuses on a rooftop HVAC unit.
The aluminum foil (4 wraps) around midget 10 amp, 600 volt cartridge fuses was cute.
The book of matches cleaverly holding a lighting contactor closed.
The HVAC disconnect (resi) secured to the house with a drainpipe strap right over the cover.

A lot of low budget TV movies were shot in Winnipeg in the last few years, and walking around downtown I have seen ground clamps from the gen sets hooked to sewer gate covers, fire hydrants, street sign poles and even to the hand hole bolt on lamp standards.

I didn't have a camera with me back then, (Do now) anyway I saw a transformer in the ceiling and I guess the place where you bolt a leg to the transformer was bad. So someone used a pair of "Vice-Grip" clamping pliers to hold the lug to the bolt on in the transformer. The pliers were rusted badly, but the transformer was still working.

A kitchen Range / Cooker circuit that had been converted to a feeder during a kitchen remodel with the neutral and one hot reversed. No separate equipment grounding conductor. Almost every metallic surface in the kitchen was hot at 120 volts to ground. It had been this way for ten years. Wife had been complaining the whole time that the stove did not work right. The clock and oven timer would not work; the two hundred forty volts across them had burned them up; and the oven took too long to bake anything. I told that lady that if I could bottle her luck we would all by filthy rich. What may have saved her life was that the plumbing was all plastic so there was no grounded conductive surface in the kitchen to finish the pathway back to the Main Bonding Jumper and thence to the transformer.

Where do I start? farms? fair? school? diyer? mechanic shops? city wiring? old people?

PA:
Pick one of the above...& jump reght in!

On some farms, I have seen thhn hanging on nails with flying splices leading to lampholders, disconnects rusted out, where all that is left is the guts, and still energized, indoor discharge lights wired with yellow extension cord and a mix of 4x4 and plastic boxes if I am lucky, panels with about a thousand tandems, all of different breaker brands, indoor panels outdoors, $.29 receptacles simply wrapped in tape (when I'm lucky), screwed through the yoke to something, "tamper proof" rusted recs. Seems like mexico to me. I will take some pics when I see more.

Generally the scariest wiring is found in churches.

It is installed by the faithful, typically.

And the results are miraculous: when no one has yet died.

-------

Anything installed by illegal immigrant 'experts'...

A Reno couple used such 'talent' on a pretty new home located 800 feet from the fire station. It burnt to the ground while they were in Vegas. Use your imagination! Yeah, the cause was an electrical fire.

Churches are cosistantly done well below par to be nice. And yet rarely do you hear them catching on fire. Devine intervention perhaps?

I agree that churches with all of that free volunteer labor from various 'experts' is pretty scary.

I saw a bumper sticker recently that may explain why they aren't all in blazes. It read simply:
Jesus was a Carpenter
God is an Electrician.

I have seen church kitchens wired with 1960s romex, 29c outlets, all on 2 breakers. 100A panel for the whole thing, two ranges. Lots of burned outlets.

Point well taken.

Churches, family farms, and fishermen fishing boats are the worse, hands down

PA,

Watch out for old people! Some of us guys here might fit into that category!

I have seen wiring done with zip cord, extension cord, RX, BX and THHN all in 1 room with no splice boxes, staples, nail plates, etc.

Had to open up walls, and rewire the whole room.

Sometimes I can see some hokiest electrical thing in some welding shops. Some of their electrical connections are not so good to see. If you can’t see some of electrical lines you may electrocuted.

well then there's those installs that accent certain codes

case in point, i get a call from a lady who says:

"Should my electrical panel have a waterfall comming out of it?"

to which it was found that, indeed there was a waterfall comming out the bottom of it, being that the 2.5" pvc that had been punched through the foundation was not sealed via 230.8

now i'm a believer....

~S~

Sparky
That happened on a job a while back. The owner called me
in a panic because water was shooting out of the main
service panel and some of it was making it's way into the bedroom. It turned out that the utility pulled their service entrance conductors and forgot to seal the conduit.
Excellent lesson learned and I didn't even have to pay for it!!!

I had one (1) each in the last 2 months.

Last one was 400 a, underground from a utility co. pad mount gushing into the CT cabinet. The POCO took responsibility & 'sealed' the 4" PVC. Strange thing is it only gusged into the 400 CT & not the other 800 CT; both in basement.

Other one was caused by the relocation of the OH pole that the UG was run to. POCO & County assumed responsibility & repaired/replaced.

You should see this one flea market in Ephrata. It makes Mexico look good!