Customers in England can be just as un-knowledgeable as anywhere else. How about this explanaton I heard a while ago:

"Well, if I was in any doubt what fuse to use I'd always use the largest size I could find. It'd be safer that way because there's less chance of it blowing."

Interesting logic or what?!

oh yes!
by far and large , I am always amused at some of the theories that DYI'ers present to me when i'm called, when they would like me to hook up what they've done....

It would indeed be safer for the fuse!

What we all have to remember is that burning out a 20-cent fuse is no fun at all!

Much more interesting to see 50 yards of cable go up in smoke, and get to watch the fire dept. in action at the same time!

How about this one? (for real)
"The 15 amp circuit breaker tripped, so I put in a 30. The 30 tripped, and I don't know where to buy a 1 pole 40. Can you get me one?"
(From a factory maintenance man)

Hey electure , be nice to us factory manitenance guys! Some of look for the problem not just upsize the breaker. No kidding some of the guys I work around have been known to upsize motor heaters for the same reason.

Jeez, been a long day. Can't even spell maintenance electrician now I are one.

I bet you've all heard this one before:

"Well, that earth (ground) wire can't be that important. It works just fine without it."

Spkjpr,
I don't mean you good guys, for Pete's sake. There are lots of things I could learn from you, & I'm glad you're here. If you can hang with this group, you obviously aren't the maintenance guy that I'm scorning.
This guy had a dead short in the controls for the building's exterior lighting. He never thought to turn on the timer/photocell to check. All he knew was that the night lights were not working, and the breaker was always tripped when he came in to work in the morning.

Tt's OK electure. The guys I work with expect me to give them a hard time and I guess it kinda spills over. Dead short, wonder he couldn't find the problem from the massive burn spot and smoke trail.

This little old man yesterday wanted me to hook up his genny in his detacthed garage 250' away on it's improperly buried 12-2 rx.

Having to explain why this would not be good to such sorts gets old

Once ran into a chap who wanted to wire a 3kW portable heater to his 5A lighting circuit. He figured it would cost less to run on a 5A branch than on a 13A plug/30A ring circuit.

Almost told him he was right -- after all, as soon as the fuse vapozized it would be cooting nothing!

Another one is, the trouble with electricity is it almost always works.

Once had to do some work on a twin (duplex) outlet into which a lady had two small appiances connected - One was a TV; I forget what the other was.

After replacing the fitting, I plugged the items back in, using the nearest socket for each.

The lady was most insistent that I'd used the wrong socket for each item, and that they had to be plugged in the other way round.

(By the way, our duplexes only have one set of terminals, so there isn't even the possibility of one of the pair being remotely switched.)

Uhuh... Went to one farm recently to check on a faulting circuit...coudn't raise any worthwhile reading on the earth in the building I was in - whatever I probed.. Hmm

Looked around only to find that when the owner had extended his milking shed the prat had cut the e/c to the building's rod array "It was in the way..." What's worse is that he had moved the feed into the building and the armoured cable from the house was literally shoved into the old box - no back nut. What little "reading" I was getting was THE thread in contact with the rust on the enclosure!!

By far the most common thing I hear is "it was working ok at the other location" thats after customers relocate machinary into a new facility. You open the panel and you know very well the thing has not run for bloody years!!! Stitched again ...

Had that on a nearby house a while ago (there's a thread I mentioned it in somewhere, but might take some finding now).

The guy built a new brick shell around the outside of his pre-fab unit and did a lot of his own wiring changes inside. Then he asked me to go change the old panel with rewireable fuses for a modern MCB unit and RCD.

When I tested I couldn't get anything on the main earthing lead, traced it back to where it went through the original wall to the rod. At that point the owner said, "Oh yes, I remember now, I hacksawed that through because the cable and rod were in the way." He'd been running like that for several months.

I'm digressing somewhat now, but I went back there twice more. Can't remember which way round these incidents were now, but one was because the RCD kept tripping. Traced it to a neutral-earth short on the shower circuit and then discovered he'd wired from the pull switch to the shower in 2.5 cable. The connection at the switch had overheated and melted the insulation, resulting in the short.

The other incident was when he came to putting up the plasterboard on his newly installed roof joists. He'd left all the cables hanging under the new timbers and then went round notching the underside of the joists for them. The meter in this house was in a hallway closet about halfway back along the house, so the main incoming service cable actually ran about 20 ft. through the roof.

Yep, you know what's coming right? That was one that he tried to put into one of his notches and ended up sinking a plasterboard screw right into it. Told me the lights dimmed and there was "One hell of a bang!"

He couldn't have gotten closer to dead center if he tried, and the end of the screw was completely vaporized, as you'd expect. He's lucky that it was a concentric neutral cable.

Told him the bad news that he'd have to call the PoCo for that one. Cost him over £300 in the end!

i was working on a job a few years ago and saw for the first time these "knock on~" metal conduit boxes. I said to a worker from the agency who was with me " I cant believe that these comply with the regs" He said "What do you mean, they look ok to me" I replyed " you know -earth continuity, and all that". He said" of course its earthed, the box is screwed to the wall and the wall is connected to the floor and the building is stood on the earth you dick-head" "Oh right " I said, "I never thought of it that way!"
ps has anyone got comments on these boxes. Reg 543-03-06 seems to forbid it(blue regs book)


[This message has been edited by teach (edited 07-09-2004).]