News: 1611562505

No. I would not. Not after some of the experiences I've had.

AMEN to that. I may not be officially qualified, but I trust my own work on wiring a building (my home) a lot more as it may mean the life of me and mine.

If you actually know what you are doing, then yes, some people do not, but believe they do. I hope I am not one of them :p

I have done the electrics on my house, been thinking about getting it checked over at some point (to be certified). Its basic wiring, read up on the regulations to ensure its done as required etc.

Have had plumbers do work, god, I wish I hadn't, having to fix their mistakes, after calling them back multiple times, providing exact info, still not doing it correctly, using wrong fittings, putting in the wrong places, forgetting to put in outlets, breaking existing piping and refusing to fix it. Costing 5-6 times what it would have been if I had just done it myself.

The problem is, I trust myself more with electricity than water / sewage.

(overheard on a building site) When electricity leaks, it doesn't make as much mess as when water leaks.

electicity < water < gas

Speaking as a qualified (apprenticeship plus various City and Guilds) electrician, I must sadly agree (+1).

There are too many "one day course" and "I bought this neon screwdriver" electricians, who claim to be qualified.

Perhaps I'm just getting old and ranty - And don't get me started on the so-called professional bodies ...

Or those good ones who "zone out" once in a while. In our office, the sparky had wired up over 50 plugs in my area, but crossed live (phase?) and earth on one plug... Just happened to be the one where I touched the earthing prong (German socket with exposed earthing prongs, to well, you know, earth things, before the hit the current), very useful for earthing yourself when working on delicate electronics - assuming the pulg is properly wired!

You're spot on. I did an OND, HNC and Degree in electrical and electronics engineering.

I am more than capable of doing the odd bit of wiring, though were it something bigger like an full rewire, or when I had my garden and garden office wired in, just so that it could be certified for insurance purposes, I happily paid for someone else to do it.

One of the things that staggers me is how people who are not qualified a) fail to comprehend the potential (no pun intended) danger in mains electricity (UK here) and then failing that, "just have a go".

My ex-mother in law's partner called me once to say he was struggling to change a light. My heart fell when he uttered the words "there are just too many red wires up there". He'd taken out the entire ceiling rose without thinking to note where the wires went or to try to mark them in some way.

Luckily the outer sheath was grey for the loop and white for the switch so it was easy enough to troubleshoot visually but it beggars belief to me that having apparently looked at it, and having failed to understand what he was looking at, he proceeded to take it apart anyway and "just have a go and hope for the best" (I assume, anyway).

And don't get me started on things like instructables with Jacob's Ladders and Tesla Coils!

Yes, in my old office, the electrician had wired up one socket "wrong", phase to earth. That was literally hair-raising, when I touched Earth prong! I had a pain in my arm and shoulder for an hour or two afterwards, but was very lucky!

The techs in the production area wouldn't believe me, until they turned up with a multimeter. They promptly cut power to the wing and checked all the remaining sockets. From around 50 sockets in the area, the electrician had messed up on only one... But it only takes one to cause an accident.

Somehow, over 15 years in the building, nobody had ever stuck anything into that socket, until I did.

Anecdote time:

Needed an outside "commando" connector, but not the standard one, but a 32A (about twice the size of the connector you normally see on caravan sites, building sites, etc.).

I wasn't going to wire it in, but I found a guy online who agreed to it. I made sure he was qualified. I wanted a big huge waterproof box outside, wired into the house electrics, to power an electric kiln and/or car out in the garden, and I wasn't going to have some fly-by-night set light to my house.

He fitted it all, but my 32A commando cables hadn't arrived, all I had was a short extension lead on the end of a single commando connector. We plugged it in, it lit up, I plugged a lamp into it, it worked. As that was as far as I could test, I paid him.

When my cables arrived a few days later, I tried kitting up the electric kiln that my girlfriend had bought cheap from an old potter down in Somerset (a 300 mile round trip). Power light indicated, but it wouldn't do anything. Bugger. So I took it apart, tested everything I could find, even got the schematic from the creators (which wasn't easy given the age of it). Nothing. It was like there was no power inside the kiln but there was in the cable.

Frustrated, and working through my usual diagnosis process of "It CAN'T be that, but I've tried everything else", I started testing continuity of the cable, the commando plugs, and got back to the box on the way. Put the old extension lead back on it, the light on the lead lit up, and the lamp worked. Tested voltage on lamp... 22v. What? I'm expecting another 0 on that! Sod it. I had no choice. Cut the house power, took off the cover of the external box.

And discovered this:

Live in, to big turny switch. Good.

Big turny switch output to internal terminal. Good.

Internal terminal to live out. Good.

Neutral in, to big turny switch. Good.

Neutral out from internal terminal... no... hold on... what? The neutral doesn't join up with anything on the switch!

I presume he MEANT to install a small piece of cable between the switch and the terminal for it, but never did. So the cable was basically floating live, with no neutral to return. Apparently it was just enough to illuminate power lights on the lead, the lamp I used to test, and on the kiln, but not enough to power anything.

Double-checked bloody everything - most especially the earth - and wired it as it should be with the right grade cable.

Went back to kiln... turned on first time. Worked flawlessly for years.

Just because you hire the experts does not mean you get a good job done.

A dangerous practice you occasionally see is a 5-pin three-phase socket that lacks the neutral because whoever wired it assumed the load was always a delta-connected one. Then someone plugs in a star-connected load that has some imbalance and one leg get most of the 400V and the others tens of volts, with predictable damage following.

If the socket has a neutral pin it must be wired up, no matter what the original plans for it are. If you don't need the neutral use a 4-pin socket (L1/L2/L3 & E) and that way no one can plug in something that needs the neutral.

A bit related. The fan in the bathroom failed, and in investigating I discovered that the original installers used delta 3-phase cable - 3 phases and earth - to wire it. So they used brown as the live but grey for the neutral and black for the switched live! Not very professional since there is proper 4-wire with brown, blue, earth & the 4th (red?) available.

I suppose, since I'm not a 'qualified elecrician' that I shouldn't have been working on the bathroom circuit. Naughty boy!

" ... brown as the live but grey for the neutral and black for the switched live ... "

In the UK at least, there is nothing wrong with this, assuming that the grey wire had a blue sleeve on it. Black is a "live" phase colour. Standard four core flex usually has brown, blue, green/yellow and black cores.

Presumably the protective earth wire had green/yellow identification or sleeving.

I suppose, since I'm not a 'qualified elecrician' that I shouldn't have been working on the bathroom circuit. Naughty boy!

I really don't understand what "special risk" is associated with bathrooms, kitchens and the big outside if there are consumer unit RCDs.

According to [1]this table , there were just seven deaths registered in 2017 in England where the underlying cause was exposure to electric current at home.

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/adhocs/009176numberofdeathswheretheunderlyingcausewasexposuretoelectriccurrentbysexandfiveyearagegroupengland2001to2017/deathsbyagegroupsexicd10w86w87england20012017.xls

Speaking as a qualified electrician and electrical inspector, I can confirm your findings. I have seen red three-phase sockets without neutral, without protective earth, and just plain wired incorrectly.

A common abuse of 60309 connectors is using a "red" (or "yellow") connector on 230 V to prevent unauthorised equipment being plugged in. Generally these applications use arbitrary pins on the connector, often L1, L2 and L3 (see icon).

Tip: If you are in the UK and need a 230 V socket that can't have anything unexpected plugged in, use something like the MK ones with the 'T' shaped earth pin.

"Tip: If you are in the UK and need a 230 V socket that can't have anything unexpected plugged in, use something like the MK ones with the 'T' shaped earth pin."

What you usually want to ensure is that you don't want whatever you plugged in to get unplugged and by the time the cleaner's discovered your incompatible socket it's too late. The better version would be to ensure the cleaners are equipped with the T plug so that nothing important gets plugged into the sockets they want.

On the topic of cleaner-mediated outages there was a report the other day that in the US a cleaner unplugged one of the ultra-low temperature freezers with sever thousand Pfizer doses in it.

Just because you hire the experts does not mean you get a good job done.

or

Just because you hire the Professionals does not mean you get a good job done.

Just because they're paid to do it doesn't mean they ARE good!

In my flat a decade ago the suppliers put a new supply in, and neglected to put the earth link in from the supply head to the three flats' consumer points.

The USA has quite a strange set of "standard" voltages. While its mentions 110V the spec is actually 120V and most homes have a "split phase" supply that is 120-0-120V so you can wire in both 120V or 240V loads depending on how much power you need, etc. And of course you get all sorts of risks as the article describes, made worse by the relatively small differences in the plug/socket types used.

But wait, it gets better! For 3-phase you can have 120V to neutral giving you 208V phase-phase, or you can have 277V to neutral giving you 480V phase to phase. Or potentially your 120-0-120 is ones side of a 138V/240V set from a "high-leg delta" 3-phase transformer connection.

Here in the UK/EU it is simpler, with a nominal 230V single phase to neutral, and 400V 3-phase (also 230V L-N) being fairly universal and almost always using the colour coded "commando" plugs and sockets (blue=230V, red=400V). the exception being building sites where the supply is usually 110V on a yellow connector but as 55-0-55V split-phase for safety, a bit like the USA system except it is unheard of to have loads taking a a half feed of 55V. The centre tap is there just for a safety earth point.

"While its mentions 110V the spec is actually 120V... Here in the UK/EU it is simpler, with a nominal 230V"

To be fair, that nominal 230V is only because the UK already used 240V while most of the EU used 220V, so they just split the difference and called it close enough. I assume the US has a similar reason related to their federal system for having the nominal differ from the spec.

The voltage was unified to 230/400V in most EU countries, those using 220/380 moved to 230/400. My UPS in the basement, that closer to the line ingress, usually reports around 230V, although many people still talk about "the 220".

I fell foul of this predisposition of Americans to connect across phases. I was in a hurry (never buy in haste) to procure 2 x 5KVA UPSs. My eyes looked at the options and saw 110V and 2xx volt. So being in the UK I ordered the NOT 110V versions. To my horror when they arrived the connectors were "funny" and as I unboxed one I became horribly aware that the 2xxV was 208V.

The messages from the dealer "special order" and "6 week delay" started echoing around my brain, as did the realisation that I'd have to explain this to my boss. It took over a year to convince the dealer to accept them as a return.

When working in Brazil about 25 years ago I had a flat which had quite a lot of two pin sockets. They were identical in appearance but some had Dymo labels with 220V and others with 110V. Some sockets had no Dymo label. I did not use those.

I used to have a lease on a premises in Central London where I shared power lines with several other offices. When I set up the office with the UPS etc I hired an electrician to check all the wiring and remove any unused cabling. I pointed out to him the cabling which I knew was mine and that which I knew was other companies. What I failed to comprehend was that his way of testing was pretty much limited to "cut it and see" (©1990 British Telecom onwards), so when he asked me "Does your cabling look like this?" I replied "Yes". Second later there was a flash, a scream and the power went off in my neighbours office. Asking the electrician what he had done, "You said that cable looked like yours, so I cut it as I didn't think it was in use." not bothering to check that it actually was mine or if it was live.

He did get paid for the day at least.

an amatuer built the ark.

An amateur also built (and crewed) the Teignmouth Electron. It did not end well.

Edited to add - I tried to find a link to the amateur who wanted to sail around Britain, and spent three days circumnavigating the Isle of Sheppey before he was rescued. Anyone?

My point is, not all amateurs are at the same skill level. Rather like professionals, really.

"Teignmouth Electron" ... the boat survived, the error was in between the rudder and the chair, not in the boat design

To be fair, Titanic being sailed at speed through fog wasn't the shipbuilders mistake and building the arc did have the highest level of guidance possible.

Except there was no ark. Tall tale to frighten the children.

...or the remnants of a truly epic story about surviving the flooding of the black sea.. re-told and re-told over the ages...

My own experience of something similar is much more mundane. Lent a USB charging cable to someone at an outdoor event who neglected to tell me they had dropped it in a puddle. Next thing I know the USB socket on my phone is borked! :(

Spent the next seven years using only wireless charging and Bluetooth or FTP file transfers until I eventually got a new phone last month.

WTF? You can now get electrictity over FTP?

Parsing error.

Only if you pay extra for a wet loop.

Foiled Twisted Pair. Yes, the electricity is standard PoE.

Not sure how you connect it to a phone though.

Some years back I was IS manager for a company running an AS/400 for ERP, etc. By the time I left we'd converted most people over to PCs running terminal emulation or the screen-scraped GUI but initially they mostly had 5250 terminals. They were fairly robust but we had one start smoking first thing on a Monday morning,

No problem, get a spare one out, swap them over, the second one starts emitting smoke as well! Everywhere else in the office was fine but obviously I wasn't going to risk a third dead terminal so called the site electrician. When he'd finally tracked the wiring he found that socket was wired to a different circuit to the others and a fault meant it was running across two phases not 1 phase and neutral. It was a lucky escape, if the terminal had been left on when the user left on the Friday it could have had all weekend to smoulder away.

Pull the other one it has bells on!

Back in the early 90s I was a teenage PABX installer, travelling all over the country

I was assigned an important job - cabling up the new offices of the company which sold the systems and provided all our work. At the time BT would inspect your installation* and if it didn't meet their standards, refuse to connect the external lines. One key regulation was keeping telephone cables at least 50mm from electrical ones and up and off false ceilings.

Off I went to the job, fairly easy as it was a modern office with false ceilings. Careful, neat runs of telephone cables in said ceiling. Ran out of day and didn't have time to strap them up off the ceiling, No problem, I was to return in a few days and could finish.

Oh the naivety of youth! Upon return I opened the ceilings to find the unholiest rat's nest of electrical cables known to mankind. Literally every tile had a mass of crossing and twisted cables heaped upon it. And of course, all on top of my lovely cables. I was sure disaster would strike and we'd fail the inspection.

Shouldn't have wasted an ounce of nervous energy - this was BT in the 90s. The nice BT man came along, glanced at the PABX fixed to the wall and signed it off. Inspect the cabling properly? Open a ceiling tile for a cursory glance? No way - he was off down the cafe.

Not long after, BT inspections were ended and a BSI standards self sign-off was introduced, but of course I kept to my high installation standards*

* for ancient historians, known as a "PCI" (pre-connection inspection)

**Of course I didn't

...because in his whole career he had never installed XYZ that was anything other...

I've heard the same moronic excuse, in different variations, too many times. My remedy has been to slap them the respective standard in the face, or, alternatively, ask them to tell me which standard it is.