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#49123 02/27/05 12:00 PM
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 169
R
Member
I have witnessed some weird things over the years. Some of the folks who installed/used the dangerous installations just don’t realize that they are lucky to be alive. What is the weiderest you have encountered?Here are a couple that stand out in my mind.
1. In Phoenix my co. was called to re-work some recessed fluorescents. The service dept got to the site and called me almost immediately. The fixtures were fed from an open JB with ONE wire. The KO on the fixtures was not removed, only partially bent open in order to allow the wire to enter. The neutral? was derived from the fixture contact with the grid and building steel. Further, the fixtures were 277V!
City inspector called=major rework in entire complex (3 buildings of 2 levels each).
2. Neighbor up the road asked me to look at his barn wiring. Seems that lights dimmed badly when he used electric chain saw. What I found: Zip cord tapped from 60A CB feeding grain bin motor. Zip fed 8-150 watt incandescents and a duplex and zip had been so hot that insulation crumbled when I touched it. Was rewired to code by licensed EC.
Rowdy

#49124 02/27/05 06:43 PM
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 7,520
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Just last weekend I changed a light fitting in a neighbor's house. The fitting which came down had three 60W lamps, and everything had been connected together using what looked like about #24 telephone wire. There was no ground on the metal casing either, and the plastic on the terminal block had melted to the extent that it had sealed over the access to the screw terminals. [Linked Image]

This is actually a house I wired start-to-finish about 4 years ago for the GC who lived there then. The present owners have also found a lot of other things he's managed to mess up along the way..... [Linked Image]

#49125 02/28/05 10:13 PM
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 2,233
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Member
How about this one. My foreman was changing over an old panel for a newer one. There were 2 old 12-3 RX wires in the panel. One of the 12-3's had the black wire and the red wire hooked up to breakers, On the second 12-3 the red and black conductor was not hooked up. So when my man reconnected it back up he thought that everything was dead on that cable, so he didn't hook up anything. He just safed off all three wires. Hooked up the first 12-3 cables red, black and white wire, turned on the breakers and blew up 4 TV's and a radio. Long story short. The first 12-3- only the red and black wire was being used and the white wire from the second cable was the neutral for the first cable! GO FIGURE!


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