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Joined: Dec 2009
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[Linked Image from electrical-photos.com]

This is the electrical equipment in the basement of an apartment building I actually used to live. It wasn't as bad when I lived there. The building has been sold and changed 3-4 times since then, and is currently unoccupied and condemned.

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Joined: Jul 2007
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Welcome to the forum! Thanks for the pics. Not much phases me much anymore. Onlt thing that amases me that its still works and no one hase been killed by it.


"Live Awesome!" - Kevin Carosa
Joined: Mar 2007
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The fact that it's condemned would suggest that the electrical is not the only thing that has been mutilated.

Joined: Dec 2009
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A lot of the buildings around here have been condemned, many due to design flaws rather than maintenance issues. Lack of adequate fire escape seems to be a common trend. We have way more apartment buildings than people to fill them, so any given street in our "sea of apartments" will have 2-3 condemned buildings.

The two just down the road from me are actually being renovated now, and the monster 18-unit one I've had my eyes on (biggest residential building in my small town) has been purchased, I have no idea what they plan to do with it.



When I lived in this building, my entire apartment, except for one outlet, was on a single fuse. All of the original wiring was knob&tube, but someone had redone the interior and spliced NM to it in the ceilings to drop to the receptacles. In order to achieve section 8 approval, outlets needed to be grounded, or at least pass testing with one of those three-LED plug-in testers, which someone discovered they could achieve by tying ground to neutral...

... well, whoever did the drops in my kitchen got hot and neutral reversed, so my microwave oven was "grounded" to hot... Imagine my surprise when I slid it across the counter to clean under it and it contacted the kitchen sink...

Joined: Dec 2001
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Now combine grounds tied to neutral with a California 4-way and a receptacle between one of the 3-ways and the 4-way and you have Germany's most dangerous wiring contraption ever (depending on the position of the 3-ways the ground is tied either to the hot or neutral). Side note. unfortunately this kind of grounding (without California switching of course) was up to code and very common until 1973 in the West and 1990 in Eastern Germany.

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Hasn't anyone noticed the fpe?

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Originally Posted by PAteenlectrician
Hasn't anyone noticed the fpe?


The FPE gear is fusible so the issues you are thinking of are not there.

Joined: Jan 2011
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I'm still wondering about quality issues.

Joined: Jul 2007
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In that set up, a FPE issue is least of it's problems


"Live Awesome!" - Kevin Carosa
Joined: Jan 2011
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A simple soloution would be a match. Salvage the copper, first!

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