ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades How (not?) to get site power...

The construction safety discussion reminded me of the ingenious way workers get temp power here. Older apartment buildings usually have a box of Diazed main fuses on each floor, in most cases 20 or 25A. Now if people do any work in the stairway, basement, attic, outside,... they usually don't bother looking for a receptacle. They just open the main fuse box and...



I guess Edison base threads aren't that tight you can't squeeze a 1.5mm2 stranded wire between fuse and fuse holder threads... ground? Why? It works well without!
Did I already mention those fuses are always _ahead_ of the meters? Oooops...

Ragnar,
That has to be the simplest Temporary I've seen in a while.
I once saw an Electrician cut the plug off of his extension cord, strip back the wires, attach the Earth and Neutral wires to the appropriate bars in the switchboard.
The seal was then broken and the phase wire shoved into the Line terminal of the Main meter.
He got some free power, until an Inspector dropped by to see what sort of metering equipment was needed for the building upgrade we were doing.
Oops!.

Sounds like a great idea! The marble guys who redid our main hallway thought they were even more ingenious. They had a short piece of 3x1.5mm2 cord with a Schuko trailing socket and 3 alligator clips. They simply clipped to the respective buses, hooking up their wires just protected by a 60A fuse... the old and simple style is at least 25A max.