Some electrical laughs

Aaron Clarke

Well-Known Member
Ran across this in my duties as the "house electrician" for my theatre. Thought its bring some head scratching and shaking.

This was in our basement of our main building. Based on history my guess was this was disconnected about 8-10 years ago following a bathroom addition.

It was connect and live, wired as a 220 line. The black and green cut off was inside the flex conduit. The entire 25' run attached to and wrapped around the copper water pipes. I seriously am unsure how no one was electrocuted. Sadly, not the worst electrical issue I've found in this place that treasures it's volunteer helpers.

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Speaking from a Canadian perspective of someone who used to be a "construction maintenance electrician"...

Any connections like this, INCLUDING dead ones, MUST be in a proper enclosure (ie box with cover) and accessible. OR completely removed.
 
Speaking from a Canadian perspective of someone who used to be a "construction maintenance electrician"...

Any connections like this, INCLUDING dead ones, MUST be in a proper enclosure (ie box with cover) and accessible. OR completely removed.
But.... what if you just wrap it in a bunch of e-tape?
 
But.... what if you just wrap it in a bunch of e-tape?
Yeah, if e-tape is good enough for Pacific Gas and Electric it's good enough for us!

PG&E's maintenance practices are being blamed in a lawsuit for starting at least 2 of the northern California wildfires last year.
 
So I wish (sort of) that I had photos, but I've found MUCH worse, and found similar to this a shocking (pun intended) number of times.
And yes had the "is this live?" *touches with tester and it shorts out sending a shower of sparks* "yup!" moment at least a dozen times.

I also noticed that only ONE hot was maretted... TWO OF THOSE WIRES ARE HOT! *backs away*

Still not as bad as the time I was deleting old wires in a reno... Part way through my supervisor flips on some of the breakers without telling me... Put a NASTY hole in my sidecutters. Well that pair doubles as 14AWG strippers now.
 
I was cutting brown 18-2 zip cord in a crawl space under a HOW social hall stage will installing new audio, with my 2 kids 5 and 10 along for the ride. Zzzzzzzzzst! Poof! Smoke! Sound effect! Some helpful volunteer of a prior generation had apparently wired convenience outlets (yes, with ground pins) using Zip cord.

Never assume the last person who touched it had any sense of how to do things safely.
 
I was cutting brown 18-2 zip cord in a crawl space under a HOW social hall stage will installing new audio, with my 2 kids 5 and 10 along for the ride. Zzzzzzzzzst! Poof! Smoke! Sound effect! Some helpful volunteer of a prior generation had apparently wired convenience outlets (yes, with ground pins) using Zip cord.

Never assume the last person who touched it had any sense of how to do things safely.
@Ben Stiegler Clearly your "helpful volunteer" hadn't read the current edition of the HOW International Electrical Code or they'd have known the HOW (to do it) code requires a minimum of 14/3 HPN in such applications.
(HPN, the higher temperature-rated neoprene jacketed Zip cord with a green insulted designated bonding conductor molded in the space between its other two conductors. [think electric kettles, toasters and frying pans, et al.] )
@ship @Dionysus @Jay Ashworth Care to comment?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
I was cutting brown 18-2 zip cord in a crawl space under a HOW social hall stage will installing new audio, with my 2 kids 5 and 10 along for the ride. Zzzzzzzzzst! Poof! Smoke! Sound effect! Some helpful volunteer of a prior generation had apparently wired convenience outlets (yes, with ground pins) using Zip cord.

Never assume the last person who touched it had any sense of how to do things safely.

Pull a few hundred feet of zip cord from the ceilings of the dressing rooms last year. The business manager and I have a little code that when I'm somewhere working on something completely unrelated and find another "what were you thinking" situation I just text her with "found another miracle". It's a miracle that someone hasn't been injured or the building hasn't had major damage with the stuff we find.
 
@Ben Stiegler Clearly your "helpful volunteer" hadn't read the current edition of the HOW International Electrical Code or they'd have known the HOW (to do it) code requires a minimum of 14/3 HPN in such applications.
(HPN, the higher temperature-rated neoprene jacketed Zip cord with a green insulted designated bonding conductor molded in the space between its other two conductors. [think electric kettles, toasters and frying pans, et al.] )
@ship @Dionysus @Jay Ashworth Care to comment?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
No.
 
I moved a ceiling tile at Temple only to have a coil of romex jump out at me. As I jumped off the ladder, the bare ends of the romex took a big chunk out of one of the ladder steps... Apparently someone had removed it from a troffer; it still had the romex clamp on the end, with the stripped individual live conductors waving in the air. I also found two live cut romex ends elsewhere in that meeting room...
 
I moved a ceiling tile at Temple only to have a coil of romex jump out at me. As I jumped off the ladder, the bare ends of the romex took a big chunk out of one of the ladder steps... Apparently someone had removed it from a troffer; it still had the romex clamp on the end, with the stripped individual live conductors waving in the air. I also found two live cut romex ends elsewhere in that meeting room...

You found the Express train to the Hereafter. Good thing you didn't have a ticket!
 
I moved a ceiling tile at Temple only to have a coil of romex jump out at me. As I jumped off the ladder, the bare ends of the romex took a big chunk out of one of the ladder steps... Apparently someone had removed it from a troffer; it still had the romex clamp on the end, with the stripped individual live conductors waving in the air. I also found two live cut romex ends elsewhere in that meeting room...
think of all the $$ you could have saved on arc welding that day ...
 
I moved a ceiling tile at Temple only to have a coil of romex jump out at me. As I jumped off the ladder, the bare ends of the romex took a big chunk out of one of the ladder steps... Apparently someone had removed it from a troffer; it still had the romex clamp on the end, with the stripped individual live conductors waving in the air. I also found two live cut romex ends elsewhere in that meeting room...
My record is 3 panels on two floors to drop all the wires in a strip fluorescent. It was legal for the code when it was installed, too! (This is also how the rehearsal room ended up switching the staircase fixtures until I sorted it out.)
 
The worst for me was the great hundreds of feet of direct-buried romex event of 2004. After about five years the ground moisture worked its way into the conductors and seemingly on the same Tuesday, nothing worked...

The person who designed and executed this install still worked at the place and claimed that he was directed by the president of the company to use romex and not UW.

So, we dug it all up, something like 850' or so, and put in the req for adequate UW to re-do the work. to make a long story slightly shorter, eventually the entire maintenance department was going to walk out if they didn't install UW on this site.

Grudgingly the bean counters parted with their precious coins and we did a good, workman-like, install.

Then I moved on to brighter horizons...
 

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