dandy deal;.

[sberry]

Recently ended up at an acquaintances place and he says, keep getting shocks from metal in the house and some arcing at a panel in the garage about a hundred feet away. He was pretty much a dipstick grandson that inherit this place so I figure maybe he isn't the one that get killed so I peek. Seems the old guy did his own, looks like a bowl of spaghetti in a blender, romex hanging everywhere and he had "put in a breaker panel" some years back.
Well among other things he uses the old fuse panel in the garage, feeds 2 conductors thru an old water pipe and jumps a wire to it for the 3rd using it as a neutral. Dipstick was trying to force rubber in the joint at the sub, he hard piped all the way, loose connector causing the arc. ha
For convenience the old guy had ran a 12/2 between to feed a light from the house.
Well, this house needs it all and dipstick isn't a guy I wanna work for, broke **** type too boot and I knoww,,,,,,, but I disable the light circuit, twist the 12's together and connect from neutral bar to N bar, The house looked fairly nice but the wiring should have been condemned and I admit here to doing that but wont elsewhere,,, ok,,, I didn't really wire it that way but should have,,, ha This place been giving shocks for years, I might have tossed a 30A fuse in the trash while I was at it. What a deal.
Funny thing was,,,, "didn't hardly make any spar at the panel when we using the arc welder" hahaha,,, which they wonder why wasn't working,,,, maybe about 50A too low was the reason. Some people shouldn't be allowed near tools or have them on their persons.

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Old farmers tended to jury rig stuff to the n'th degree. Terrible how dangerous stuff is sometimes. Everything I do, I try to think, "what will someone encounter or do or think, after I'm gone" which is why I try to keep everyone that might ever come near this place, safe.

It costs more upfront, but I feel safer and can sleep at night (if the old cat will let me).

Charles

 

[Aceman]

Yeah, that kind of stuff gets a little old.

I had a good one a couple weeks ago. Single wide trailer with porch addition added off the back that lost power. This should be good, I thought. They're never done right. Get a look at the addition, it has one recep as well as a 2 gang switchbox for a light inside as well as one outside. Should be simple?

I open the switchbox in the addition that's right up against the exterior wall of the trailer expecting to see a Romex jumping from this switchbox to the switchbox that's right behind it in the trailer. Nope. But, I can see a black and red THHN leaving the top of the switchbox. I pull the 1/4" wood paneling off the wall and can see those THHN's going to the outside light. No box. That light happens to be a regular keyless porcelain fixture with a trouble light metal protective guard clamped around the lamp installed.....outside.

What...the...****...? Decide to open the recep box...whalaaa...one romex and one UF cable in the box, both broken off at the receps backstabs. Classic. The UF cable was still hot, just broken loose from the recep. Grounds were cut off flush too boot! Start shutting off breakers(none were labeled), it's still not dead? Shut ALL the breakers off, STILL NOT DEAD? What....the....****! Somebody fed this piece of **** from another panel, it must be the meter pedestal that feeds the whole trailer....

Find the pedestal in the backyard corner, behind a 10x10 cactus patch! Who the **** grows cactus?!?! For ****'s sake! I can see the UF cable coming out of the ground free air with a cord end on it plugged right into a receptacle. Unplug the cable, close up all the boxes in the addition, and tell them I'm not fixing it unless we gut the WHOLE thing....

On the bright side, at least these kinds of calls are usually few and far between. Sheesh. Somebodies brother-in-law, the do-it-all hack is going to kill somebody!

 

[sberry]

These forums are good, one thing about most people that come to them to ask know they don't know and although not every answer is,,, well,,, they usually get cleaned up in the end.


Find the pedestal in the backyard corner, behind a 10x10 cactus patch! Who the **** grows cactus?!?! For ****'s sake! I can see the UF cable coming out of the ground free air with a cord end on it plugged right into a receptacle. Unplug the cable, close up all the boxes in the addition, and tell them I'm not fixing it unless we gut the WHOLE thing.... I

I like that,,, probably should have cut off the end, ha. No loss to them, they didn't have it working when you got there. Some of its pure genius, scary to think they let these people own and drive a car too. Their cars are in the same shape too but sharing the road with you.

 

[bczygan]

I don't get it.....I feed all my outbuildings with UF (Underground Feeder)........it's a long extension cord partially buried where the dogs have dug holes and thrown dirt over them!