ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades "House of Horrors" TV show

We found some absolute "shockers" in our own home in Ireland all of which were done by trades people who shouldn't have been anywhere near wiring!

Wonderful DIY jobs:

1) The bathroom mirror lights (apparently installed by a 1970s bathroom store) didn't even use choc-blocks but rather were directly connected to the fixed wiring by means of the "twisted cables under a bit of electrical tape burried in plaster" method.

2) The central heating timer which had a live casing as the contractor didn't bother connecting the earth and had pared a live cable back so far that it was in contact with the casing as well as the terminal.

3) The cooker hood (Extractor hood for US-english speakers) and a double socket outlet in surface-mounted crookedly on the wall in the living room were wired directly to the back of the oven!!!!!! Seems they didn't have a socket in that corner and wanted the TV there.

4) Someone, while doing building work, had severed the main earth connection to the distribution panel leaving the entire house ungrounded. It was a TT system too.

We'd actually never noticed this one! The Power company called out to install a new meter (night rate etc) and did an earth loop test, just to be 100% sure. It failed, they spotted the problem and put the whole house on a 30mA RCD installed directly after the meter and suggested we get a registered electrician out a.s.a.p.

The EC discovered that not only this but they'd actually cut the cables connecting the earth rods while laying a patio!

We ended up reviewing the entire installation, replacing and expanding the panel. Upgrading the service to 100A (from 63A) which wasn't a big deal as the service itself was 100A capable, it was just a matter of replacing the customer tails and the new panel.

The installation was also changed to T-N with the approval of the PoCo.

The original, non DIY, wiring in the house is actually pretty high spec. It's all well planned, easy to access i.e. cables either run through the attic space or in the service basement and are even in trays!

No room has fewer than 4 outlets, even the main bedrooms had 8 (4 x doubles).

All MK fittings

20A radials for sockets
10A radials for lights.

Proper RCD protection was installed from day one.

Just shows though, how a perfectly safe installation can be made very dangerous by idiots.

Of course there are many honest and nice contractors. But after having worked in the electrical trade myself and having had lots of work done at home I certainly won't trust ANY tradesmen unsupervised! First you never know what they're actually doing, second and more important, tradespeople have a strong tendency do do what they THINK the customer want's - which is sadly often the exact opposite of what the customer really wants.
I just remember an architect friend of my parents who was supposed to do the general plans on a basement remodel but ended up nearly being fired because he messed with the interior design, like specifying pink tile, pink walls and pink and green flourescent lighting...

when I worked for an EC, (many years ago) we had a Class B journeyman who was sent to wire an office in a goat barn.
(FYI: class b is romex/ residential wiring only) which should have been simple, but this guy was a lil off.........lol
well he was like 1/4 way thru the job, and got pulled off by the owner, seems that one of the goats was fond of him, and kept following him around, making goat noises, so he taped the goats mouth shut w/ electrical tape, he got sent home, and we had to finish the job. Personally I would have fired him.....

..., he just got baaaahhhed!

Kiwi,
That's it in a nutshell, mate.
I mean, surely, the competitor company is going to make the other company look bad.
That is very under-handed practice IMO.
Yeah,
I saw that episode on TV and I could not believe that that "incident" was actually televised.
Imagine how the guy that owned the company that employed the guy felt (assuming he wasn't a sole-trader) when he saw that on National TV, or indeed his family and friends.
I've always felt very uncomfortable with working inside other peoples houses, hence the reason for giving away Domestic Electrical work entirely.

We do not need idiots like this being put on TV, because essentially we ALL get tarred with the same brush by the viewing public.
And what parent would let thier child sign up as an apprentice in a trade like this, if the behaviour of that one guy on TV demonstrates the behaviour of the rest of us?.

Target has a LOT to answer for, no trade is perfect though, there are bad eggs in all of them.
I find it strange how they haven't had any builders on Target yet, or did I miss that one?.