Date : Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:35:27 +0100
From : robert@... (Rob)
Subject: Leccy @ Acorn World '09
On 05/09/2009, Rick Murray <rick@...> wrote:
> ...and it didn't want to trip when a dumbass electrician (have to be
> registered, haha, that doesn't help with stupidity) shorted out
> something in the loft. Everything briefly dimmed like a brownout, then a
> very white-faced bloke appeared, swearing in French, thinking it might
> be a good idea to NOT work on live circuits...
Having experienced the fireworks cutting through a live lighting cable
once while thinking that it was part of the circuit I had turned off,
I always switch off everything unless I'm sure of the wiring.
This didn't help one evening 20 years ago I was doing a rewire for a
friend, had everything turned off bar the cooker circuit, because it
had the old style switch with a socket on it, so I'd got a work lamp
plugged into that. I'd been working my way around the kitchen
removing the old sockets. Took this particular one off the wall, cut
the cable behind it, and BANG. Light went out.
Turned out that the socket had been wired into the cooker circuit (on
the non-switched side). I blew a 40A fuse, and melted great chunks
out of my best wire cutters... I'm just glad they were decently
insulated ones!
That house was a nightmare of bad DIY electrics ... there was a pair
of thin wires sticking out of a wall high up in one room with a tag on
them "for clock". Looked like the sort of thin stuff you use for
doorbells, and it was live! I took up the floorboards upstairs to
find where they were connected to, and found the upstairs ring main
cables, bared back and with this stuff twisted around them! Not even
any tape or anything over it .. All the previous owner, I should
say..
>
>
>> an RCD earlier on in the circuit will trip - even though the final
> > circuit is isolated.
Had that one with the joke sparkies we had here last year I mentioned earlier..
> :-) Our RCDs throw both because in French wiring there is no
> standardisation to which is the live and the neutral - indeed most of
> the non-earth-carrying plugs can be inserted either way up.
> Unearthed:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets#Type_C
> Earthed:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets#Type_E
Yuck.. but a fascinating read..
> Those daft regulations, whose idea were they? Surely to have them IN a
> cellar is no different than anywhere else, given that they would need to
> have access to read said meter?
lol. I had a flat in a converted house for a bit, where I had the
access to celler. In which were the gas and electric meters and
isolation switches for all three flats, plus an extra meter for the
common areas.
I was forever having to let meter readers in!! You'd think they could
do them all at the same time ...
(Mind you, it was useful when some idiots in one of the rooms above
had music playing very loud until 4am ... could pop down and switch
them off for a moment every now and again...)
> Legal: I wonder what the legal situation is if you, an unlicenced and
> unqualified person, goes in after and fixes all the things the
> registered electrician did incorrectly? All this guff with needed
> registered fitters - it's for insurance purposes, yes?
Dunno ... but you could always just record all the faults and report
them to whomever they are licenced by...
Rob