Guys,
Here's a wee story for you that I relate to you on a personal basis.
OK, my sister gave me a call at work last week, she said that her Nite-store Heater wasn't working, it was cold when she got up that morning.
I then asked her if it was switched on, and yes it was.
I asked her to call an Electrician as I couldn't go running 140km away in a PoCo Truck, besides, it was outside my area.
Anyway, I got a phone call about 5-6 hours later, from my sister, (not that I wasn't expecting one!).
But she had had an Inspector around to have a look at the Ripple Relay that controls the Off-Peak supply.
While the Inspector was there, he said that the Main Earth of the house was not even connected.
He showed my sister (Sharon) what had happened to the ripple relay and also that the Earth of the house had not been connected for some time.
I asked Sharon who the original Electrician was and I gave him a call.
The guy told me this:
{We were waiting to see if anything came of it, we are so worked off of our feet we have to prioritise our work, I did see that wire hanging there though, and I was worried}.
That guy has a brand-new complaint against him with the EWRB.
But isn't this just stupid?.

Trumpy, I'm guessing the elecrician you're referring to is the electrician your sister called first, who then advised her to call the PoCo when the ripple relay was found to be faulty.

If that electrician noticed the suspect earth connection and did nothing about it, then that is breaking the Elecricity Act as well as the OSH Act.

It would have taken 30 seconds to check and re-connect the main earth ! 20 seconds if you already had your tool-belt on !

kiwi,
Got it in one!.
BTW, It wasn't me that complained to the EWRB about this, it was the Inspector that saw the wire disconnected when he looked at the Ripple relay.
What scares me the most is the fact that my sister has a 2 year old that likes playing around the outside of the house (as most kids do at that age) and if he'd grabbed that wire with a fault in the house wiring, we could be looking at a totally different scenario.

Which part of the earthing connection was actually disconnected then?

I seem to recall you saying that under the MEN system in NZ you have the neutral-earth bond between the busbars in the panel. Was this the lead down to the supplementary earth rod?

The disconnected main earth raises all sorts of horrible possibiliies. With a 2-year old on the property the danger is magnified.

It also makes you wonder how the earth stake connection could detach like that. Most likely it wasn't terminated properly during the original installation.

It seems to me Trumpy, that problems like this have become way more common after de-regulation. ( DE-REGULATION rant to follow: )

I think that the "de-regulation" of the industry has paved the way for 1st year apprentices to wire a new house and then have his work signed off by a guy in the office who has never been to the site.

De-regulation has removed an adherence to sound engineering principles and replaced it with "risk management".

This may sound a little communist but I don't believe electrical safety standards should be decided by the free market.

End of Rant.

Get the inspectors back!!

We used to look up to them as the Police for electrical work, When we had inspectors the standard of workmanship was a lot better because of the random checking of sockets, connections etc.

Especially on new jobs, when it was not OK the power was NOT connected up and no meter was hung and a second visit had to be arranged for with an additional charge.

COC's are fine but a lot of sparky's don't always use them.