overhead service renewals

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revjames

'funny' man™
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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!

 
Still happens had a job think it was last year contractors had put new overhead into a shop I was working on. Working on a light fitting got a belt off the neutral even with circuit off. what they had done was connect neutral and phase wrong way round in meter. I notice nowadays when siemens change meters customer signs a label on meter to say its been checked shame these contractors don't use a tester. My mate who used to work for edf who now works for a contractor always tests when he does an alteration shame some of the others don't.

Batty

 
I did something a bit naughty at the training centre once. We had an overhead line set up and sparks and jointers were practising connecting to the live overhead. The jointers were connecting large underground cables to the line so I found the dead end of their cble and put a nice big short. when they connected it up there was a bell that sounded when the RCD feeding the test rig was activated.

They got their own back on me and the last day I said my goodbyes and jumped in my van and started it. Strangely after a few moments the engine died. I tried it again and the same thing happened. I looked under the bonnet and there was a strange hiss coming from the exhaust manifold. I went round the back and a heatshrink shroud had been put over the exhaust. I calmly took out my knife and cut it. Bang! I underestimated the pressure and soot that had built up in the exhaust. My face and upper body was black and everyone was laughing! The offending jointers drove off and I never got a chance for revenge. Maybe you are on this forum - you know who you are!

 
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