submitted by Will, A.K.A. ElviscatX:

Pic 1: Bryant panel, notice that the proper feeders are disconnected and two diferent wires are connected, running through the DRYER VENT, story goes, meth heads get their power disconected by POCO, so they steal some wire from a nearby construction site, climb tree, and attach wires to neighbors drop, then run wires across roof, down the side of the building and in through the dryer vent. Fortunately the neighbor saw this and called the fire department.

Pic 2: Same wires cut off, entering via dryer vent on outside of house.

Pic 3: Old range cable, spliced to feed for the garage, note both the open, bare copper splice, and the PVC drain pipe used as a raceway.

Pic 4: outside of building, note that the water pipe is now ABS drain pipe, buried maybe a couple inches deep.

Pic 5: Entering the Garage, now in EMT, with ABS for couplings, note that this enters RIGHT at ground level.


Pic 6: Diferent pic, same feeder.

Pic 7: Same feeder, bad splice in flying box, notice the water damage on the roof.

Pic 8: And here's what it feeds.

Pic 9: General bad wiring, unsuported romex etc.

Pic 10: More plumbing pipe, attached to PE cell. No support of course.

Pic 11: Romex, run outside in wet location, to emt with no protection.

Pic 12: Fortunately cut drop, the triplex will soon have a nice new service, with a new 4-pack meter base, and four new panels (three living units + house panel.) I'll send in pictures of the re-done wiring.

(I may edit some of these, as I didn't take the pictures and I may have mis-recalled some things)
-Will

Thank you, Will - You've brightened my day considerably.

Nothing I have to do today will be nearly as nasty as having to clean up that mess.

The plumber will be busy, too, I think.

That whole thing made me dizzy!! Proof that Home Depot needs to place a checkpoint or barrier of some type between the plumbing dept and the electrical dept

Yeepers what a mess !

You may as well cut off the supply to those lethal non covered panels.

$10,000.00!!

Picture #12 is all you need to know about that job.

From your position in pic 12,
turn either left or right EXACTLY 90 degrees,stop, then proceed to run like he$$ as far away as you can.............

Crikey Will!,
What a beauty you've got on your hands there.
One little question for you fella's in the US, where a cable heads underground out of a building (or even into a building), is it required that a warning sign be fixed to the wall over where the cable exits the building?.
(Sorry I thought that black pipe was a power cable in black PVC}
Pic No 12 is a real worry, since when do PoCo's start connecting to lines mid-span?.

{BTW Will, not sure if it was you or Bill that numbered the photo's, but it sure makes for easier replies, without having to count the pics from the top. }

Looks to me like a plumber had a lot to do with that mess to begin with. More plumbing fittings used than anything else.

Trumpy, NO we are not required to place warning signs for cable exit locations. Something tells me that if we did, they still wouldn't be placed at that location!

Mid-span taps are done here all the time, but they are usually very short and are slack spans to avoid placing any tension on the main span. It's very common in dense urban areas.

[This message has been edited by EV607797 (edited 03-09-2007).]

EV,
I never knew that, over here any overhead service line has to be attached to a pole cross-arm, via an insulator.
At least if something does catch the service line, the insulator will usually break, but the insulator bracket will take the force and hold the service line screening to prevent the Phase wire of the service being torn out of the fuse-holder on the pole cross-arm.


[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 03-09-2007).]

Yup. In sections of Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx & Staten Island; that's also the case.

Manhattan is the only section of New York City where you won't find any overhead wires. By law.

Part of the reason why they're constantly ripping up streets to replace cables (and also why you get electrified manhole covers after snow-storms).

Mike,

Here in the US, most if not all small overhead drops don't have any isolating fuses. Does every residential service have individual fuses?

LarryC

Mike that IS a power cable!!! the conductors are run in black ABS, which is used over here for wase pipe.

-Will

edited to add: yup it was Bill who put the very helpful numbers in the photos

[This message has been edited by Elviscat (edited 03-09-2007).]

But Mr. Inspector, it works.

They call those mid-span taps "bridle's" over here (At least in LADWP territory, they have 'em all over in their older areas) So Cal Edison and SDG&E do as well, but not nearly as many as LA...

Larry, I believe in NZ they do fuse each resi service separately, likely to keep potential fault currents on the downlow (my guess at least )

Trumpy, that's not a midspan tap, if you look closely it's just one set of triplex guyed to another pole, this was done to allow the serice to clear the house, our local POCO does have midspan taps, but they're rare, and only in the older areas

-Will

No that's cool, it just looked a little wierd when I first looked at it.

Yes, Randy (Lostazhell), is correct we have always individually fused houses (and most other things here too).
The high fault currents caused by the Multiple Earthed Neutral system here require that an individual installation (where a fault has occured) be disconnected from the supply without affecting other consumers on the same lines.
One other very good reason for this fusing system is so that electricity companies can easily disconnect houses where the person in the house has defaulted on their electricity account, it means that you can pull the one pole fuse and be sure you've got the right house (sometimes).

Mike, This kinda has me thinking.. Do you folks have apartment buildings over there with actual "banks" of meters off of one service line? and how would those be fused? per unit or a set for the whole bank?

Gidday Randy,
Now I'll try and answer this the best I can, in that I haven't had a lot to do with apartment buildings as they are practically non-existant down in this part of the country.
However we do have what are known as "town-houses", which are like small 1-2 bedroom flats that are usually joined together and share a common roof.
From a distribution perspective, these would be fed from a distribution pillar box out on the street, each having thier own service line and this would be fused inside the pillar box.
The service line would then run underground and up to the metering enclosure in one of the outside walls of each individual unit.
The tails from the meters would then feed the switch-board panel inside the unit.

Randy,
Compare this thread.

Will,
Since it appears that the service neutral was disconnected with the phase conductors, and the bootleg connection had no neutral, what was carrying the neutral current? The entrance conduit? Or worse yet, the G.E.C.?
Someone would have to be on drugs to do something that stupid.

Bob

In Austria every house has individual fuses too, Apartment buildings are usually wired with on main fuses and individual fuses ahead of each meter. Depending on the age and setup of the building the meters are inside the apartments with the fuses grouped on each floor, in the stairway along with the fuses or in one bank in a utility room.