ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Do It Yourself HomeOwners

Well we require conduit--boy you should see all the gem boxes and close radius and jake fittings in the walls--not to mention using green for hot and orange for neutral.

These are the same people that say they could do the electric if they didn't have to do the pipe bending part.

Had an instructor tell me this story. If you think about it, you will see that this could happen. His friend called him on the phone and told him that his shower head was shocking him. He said, "Go figure?" He "tools" down the street to check out the problem. He gets inside, and shortly after hears a loud, "Yow!" Friend replied, "My son must have adjusted the shower head." This instructor told me that he looked this house "from top to bottom", and could not find the problem. They went in the kitchen, and he noticed that there was a new dishwasher installed. "He made a mental note." They went into the back yard were he found that the owner had replaced part of his "metal" plumbing "service entrance" with PVC conduit (in his words, "It's cheaper you know.") On top of all that, the metal water pipe was not bonded to the electrical service equipment. They went back inside, and pulled out the dishwaher. He found that someone (the owner) had cut the equipment grounding conductor to the dishwasher, and that a bare spot on the ungrounded conductor was touching the metal frame of the dishwasher. The "hot" would only touch the frame during certain wash cycles, so the problem seemed to "come and go". You guessed it! The entire plumbing system of this house was being energized. The owner said, "That's why my sink shocked me the other day also." Do it yourselfers. Go figure?

HMEL 688

[This message has been edited by SlamTex (edited 04-17-2001).]

Speaking of dishwashers, went to a customer's home the other day to install some extra recept. and switches in her kitchen. I needed to come up to the counter on top of dishwasher. When I went to move it noticed it was hard-wired with lamp cord with the thumb switch attatched(diconnect?) and plugged to the fridge recept. She said she hardly ever used it(thank God) and a friend wired it. Yes, I did install new circuit for it.

hmmmmmm.
I doubt Mr. Webmaster could create a DYI slam section, there just isn't enough cyberspace!

Sparky,

We don't want to scare them all away, now do We?


Bill