ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area What's the hokiest electrical stuff you've seen?

The paper cup is priceless!

Regarding the pictures ....

I'm working right acros the river from Tennessee, and a number of my 'skilled trades' co-workers make the commute daily. Their comments about the pics have been:

"So what's the problem?"

"Hey, that looks like my place." and ...

"I hope he used silicone on that cup."

That does it. I give up.

The "service drop" was a piece of POTS wire, red and green for hot, black and yellow for grounded. Interior of the barn wired the same way. No boxes,


now that truly takes brass ones...

~S~

John,


How about the pictures I sent under: "High Voltage on the Ground" listed under pictures to discuss here on the website? (At least I think it was there) Where I have pictures of the POCO leaving 12KV wires laying on the ground.

Greg,

I also sent it photos of receptacles cut into the tile backsplash. It too is also listed under "pictures to discuss" in this website. (I believe) There are so many crazy things out there that it would make you laugh, then cry. As long as no one gets hurt.

I think the worst thing I've ever seen was a dairy farmer west of here.
After us building and wiring his new dairy shed, the guy decided he wanted a workshop on the side of the shed.
He built the shed, and ran a 3 phase power cable from the Main switch-board panel (in an old worn out high pressure water hose).
From there, he installed a new panel, no bushings on where the "hose" entered the panel.
This thing was carrying a cable rated at 400V @ 20A/phase, a rather small cable by our standards, but the lack of supports along the run of this hose, meant that it became a "tripping hazard".
One of his workers tripped on it and it pulled two of the phases out of the panel terminations, he thought no more of it and tucked the cable back against the wall, where it was.
Later on that day, the local Auxillary Fire Brigade along with us and a couple of other brigades were putting out this new dairy shed.
It was found that the feed end of the "sub-main" had been landed straight onto the load side of the main-isolator, as in, it wasn't fused at all.

Once you get the polystyrene component of dairy shed walls burning, they are VERY hard to extinguish.

And they say, 'lectrical work is so simple??!!

Mike,

Haven't you heard of the 20 meter long fusable link? A movie set I worked on, used a new 100 foot roll of 14/3 SO cable with a 120 V 15 A female cord cap on one end and teminated the other end into the load side of a 200 A fused disconnect!

I was told this was the power to the "sound" system. Just because we were working in and around a 6 million gallon swimming pool set was no reason for safety to get in the way.

We only electrocuted the director once. And that was when the inside use only light ballast got rained on for 24 hours straight. Those bonding and grounding rules don't apply all the times, do they?

Reminds me of the guy who used plumbing 90's and tees because he wanted to do the underground himself. No fire
but a lot of extra diggin!

I did an inspection here in town. The highlights was the four panels tapped off the main lugs with no main so to kiill the power the 40 plus breakers had to be thrown. The service head outside a bedroom window that came out of old trailer. Then there was the "exterior" receptacle which was fed with romex in in a blue plastic box, just lying face up on the deck steps, no face plate, bottom recept face busted off exposing the contacts, and by the way, the recept had power and it was raining/snowing.

Another one was a well house that had a pump, controls, a light, switch, heater, receptacle, and a small panel. not a single item in the whole installation was wired to code, oversize breakers, lack of grounding, everything. If i recalled, the recept had reverse polarity Yet it worked, and no was was killed.

I had a friend who wired in his own washer and dryer. His girfriend went to used it and complained she was getting shocked. He with to pull them out to see what the problem was and could't because they were welded together.

I had a similar one... they used two pieces of POTS wire though, each with 3 conductors paralleled. No idea what it used to supply since it had been cut within 2" from the splice it came out of. Pulled out during the rewire of a friend's new place (sold as "completely rewired).