- Joined
- 11 Jan 2004
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- Country
....when you are fault-finding!
I went to a job today. "Kitchen power off".
Just went off, said the customer. Looked at the board. It looked like a RF on a B32.
Right away, I smelt a rat. You don't get complete power loss on part of a ring without more than one break.
So I go round looking at sockets in the kitchen. Nothing. Look in the adjacent dining room, built and wired up in 2007 by a 5-day wonder and notified to the council. What's more, the council came round to inspect and gave it their blessing!
There is a break in the live at one socket. Lo and behold, the dead sockets are back on.
So I break that socket again and do a quick test for voltage: one leg live, the other dead...
Next I go round and check Zs at all the kitchen & dining sockets. I started at the one nearest the kitchen and worked my way roud the rooms clockwise. The nearest socket was 1.04. This gradually increased until I was in the kitchen, furthest from that first socket cable-wise. The last socket read 2.18.
Ze was 0.2 btw.
Next I opened up the CU to check the RF tails for continuity.
L-L = 15.06 Ohms
N-N and E-E both >1999 Ohms.
While I was there I noticed an external circuit put in at the same time, a piece of 1.5 SWA with a B32 on the end of it. It was not terminated with a gland nor were the cores correctly identified and it was not cleated up.
Needless to say there was no paperwork or labels affixed to the board.
I referred the customer to the council, suggesting they complain about the boy wonder AND their own inspector, who passed this sorry collection of cables.
I went to a job today. "Kitchen power off".
Just went off, said the customer. Looked at the board. It looked like a RF on a B32.
Right away, I smelt a rat. You don't get complete power loss on part of a ring without more than one break.
So I go round looking at sockets in the kitchen. Nothing. Look in the adjacent dining room, built and wired up in 2007 by a 5-day wonder and notified to the council. What's more, the council came round to inspect and gave it their blessing!
There is a break in the live at one socket. Lo and behold, the dead sockets are back on.
So I break that socket again and do a quick test for voltage: one leg live, the other dead...
Next I go round and check Zs at all the kitchen & dining sockets. I started at the one nearest the kitchen and worked my way roud the rooms clockwise. The nearest socket was 1.04. This gradually increased until I was in the kitchen, furthest from that first socket cable-wise. The last socket read 2.18.
Ze was 0.2 btw.
Next I opened up the CU to check the RF tails for continuity.
L-L = 15.06 Ohms
N-N and E-E both >1999 Ohms.
While I was there I noticed an external circuit put in at the same time, a piece of 1.5 SWA with a B32 on the end of it. It was not terminated with a gland nor were the cores correctly identified and it was not cleated up.
Needless to say there was no paperwork or labels affixed to the board.
I referred the customer to the council, suggesting they complain about the boy wonder AND their own inspector, who passed this sorry collection of cables.
