ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion Sloppy

Sloppy, very sloppy poor substandard work.
Wires obviously cut to short hence all the wirenuts in piccie 8.

Non sheethed wires red,blue,white in pic 3.
conduit support strap very close to cables, could slip off and cut in cables.

Black coax type cables to close to mains wiring pic 6.

POCO meters not sealed.

Few more smoke alarms needed here, just in case.

Not very good at all.

Neat and workman like manner. YUCK WHAT A MESS

LOL, great, now I'm conspicuous with one of the moderators!!

My dislike of this practice comes from many experiences with improperly installed wirenuts in far too many cinema panels failing (or popping off while working in the panels), and several more where they've used them on the high-current wiring (>30 amps) to the lamp rectifiers, with phase loss and meltdowns resulting. It's especially aggravating when it would be less "hackish" to pull new wires to the projector itself. Most runs are 20 feet or less.

And yes, there are occasions where I work on subpanels live to do emergency breaker changeouts on the projection equipment. (Most subpanels are 120/208y 3ph.) This was common practice when I was employed with a big cinema service company. I generally power down but sometimes (as when one sub serves more than one projector system) a panel shutdown is not practical.

Most cinemas shut the breakers off each night, and the ones for the sound racks seem to fail often. (The ones handling the inrush of the power amps.)

As an interesting footnote, most Square D breakers give major headaches in this application. The instantainous trip setting doesn't like the inrush.

Sorry for the off-topic, but back to the issues here, my current work with high-end houses and screening rooms has shown that messes like these are all too common. A lot from harried EC's being pulled in too many directions at once by homeowners/GCs/designers who change thier minds as often as thier socks, and often unrealistic changes in move-in deadlines.

The last project I was on the changes and move-in date had things so backlogged, the occupants were living there for over two months(!) on temp power!! (Only 200 amps tied into thier 600amp main.)

Thou shall not allow plumbers to do electrical work.... "I have spoken..."

" Hey Moe, no wonder why these pipes don't work, they have wires in them " 3 Stooges - "This house sure gone crazy!"

Pic 3 - What's the wire diameter and Fuse rating of these Romexes in the left Pipe?

I have seen this kind of accumulation here in Germany too. There's a prescription about the down-rating of allowed current for bundles like that, and sometimes it's just ignored.

My List only goes up to 10 Cables, leaving 48% of the usual current allowed.

Table 310.15 in the NEC lists the following derating factors, based upon the number of current-carrying conductors:

4 to 6, 80%
7 to 9, 70%
10 to 20, 50%
21 to 30, 45%
31 to 40, 40%
41 & above, 35%



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 05-20-2006).]

Alan, those holes in the engeneered joists look like the factory pre-cuts. You can knock them out with a hammer, and, yes, they are that close to the edge. Besides that, WHAT A MESS!

"High Dollar," "Neighborhood," "Philly."

Pick two.

Remind me to stay away from that neighborhood.

Ian A.

[This message has been edited by Theelectrikid (edited 11-29-2006).]

That's rough. Sorry to bring this back from the dead.