Couldnt help being reminded of this incident from my electricity board days when looking at these disaster threads.
There was a time when us contracting sparks were trained up to go up the poles and connect new services to houses. ie replace the old cables supplying individual properties with new ones.
It was a matter of connecting (live) a phase and neutral to the cable, verifying polarity at the main fuse and restoring power to the house. One particular well known incompetent so and so managed to connect 2 phases instead of phase/ neutral, didnt bother testing and just whacked the fuse back in.
415V across an entire domestic property didnt go down well. He blew up just about everything, TVs microwaves right down to the immersion heater element. It cost a fortune to put it all right. The annoying thing is that he always seemed to get away with these kind of catastrophic cock ups!
Plenty more horror stories - will post more as I recall!
There was a time when us contracting sparks were trained up to go up the poles and connect new services to houses. ie replace the old cables supplying individual properties with new ones.
It was a matter of connecting (live) a phase and neutral to the cable, verifying polarity at the main fuse and restoring power to the house. One particular well known incompetent so and so managed to connect 2 phases instead of phase/ neutral, didnt bother testing and just whacked the fuse back in.
415V across an entire domestic property didnt go down well. He blew up just about everything, TVs microwaves right down to the immersion heater element. It cost a fortune to put it all right. The annoying thing is that he always seemed to get away with these kind of catastrophic cock ups!
Plenty more horror stories - will post more as I recall!