Dodgy trade pictures for your amusement! - 1 Million Views!

[Darkwood]

Right ... Just been nudged to set this up by Paul.M and sounds a good idea following recent threads I've done in the Arms..

Rules....No Offensive material... edit if required before posting as this is the public arena.
Anything to do with the trade or in and around it ...H&S pic's welcome.



I've posted this a few times and this is at a mates house following a kitchen refirb several yrs ago. mg_smile:

 

[Rpa07]

There should now be a button for ‘I feel your pain’!

 

[Wilko]

Showrooms are often terrible, was called out one day to lights tripping MCB, one of the staff had removed a mirror light and had made the wiring safe by taping the L and N wires together.

This was how they wired a load of Click plugs.
View attachment 41619

That did make me laugh . Perhaps with the Clicks wired that way it was better the whole lot tripped anyway

 

[pirate]

I may need a tin hat, but...
with small cable sizes it might be ok to put 2 into one wago slot, but why do it?
If you haven't any 4-ways...actually 5 - ways, don't think they do 4-way, why not just fly-lead a 3-way and another 3-way together?
Works for me...

 

[DPG]

It's only ok if the connector being used is designed for it

 

[pirate]

I might daisy-chain 2 wagos...but any more and it's just silly.
I was fitting an outside floodlight the other day and used 3-way wagos, cos you never know when you might like to fit another one, but sometimes it seems that every penny is a prisoner...I hate that!
OK, if you are building 100,000 cars a year, every £ makes a difference, but with the prices nowadays, why not just add £100 to each one? Nobody buys them, they lease them, so the extra cost is negligible. It seems it's ok to use a cheap choc-block if it will never be disturbed, but honestly, for a few pence more...
Oh, I'm just tired...ignore me!

 

[Ib≤In≤Iz]

Another bodge found a while back now. Switch being used to isolate 7.5kw shower

 

[Wilko]

I know it's not the worst thing, but I don't get why some folk will add sleeving like that. It costs nothing and they've had to cut a new bit, so why not the whole thing ?

 

[Wilko]

I know it's a small thing, but I don't get why some folk will add sleeving like that. It costs nothing and they've had to cut a new bit, so why not the whole thing?

 

[dksanders]

Called out to a restaurant as the kitchen was tripping out. This is the DB which feeds the restaurant, a sub main to the kitchen and also flats above.

Apart from being horribly imbalanced, not the tidiest of jobs, no grommet strip where the cable go through the case, but on the face of it it looks reasonable, all the socket circuits are RCBO protected etc. until I noticed that the white RCBO earth leads were tucked behind the other wires and not connected to anything so they won't operate as quickly as designed or in the case of an earth fault if the neutral was also lost.

I'm going back to put a new sub main into the kitchen (the existing 63A one is over loaded and tripping the MCB) but I'm dreading doing IR testing on the RCBO protected circuits for when I connect those earth leads as I'm sure there's going to be lots of faults and that's probably why the 'electrician' left them disconnected.

 

[dksanders]

Oh well. at least it was sleeved......

 

[pirate]

this one wasn't...

However, you can see I have looked out a grommet to cure the lack of one. The double socket this was connected to was held on by the usual two 3.5.. screws , one short one and one very long one, the latter to drag the squinty-fixed back box from the depths of the wall...and of course there was no earth to the front plate.
Can someone advise me on the likely age of this wiring with its multiple earth wires, 3 per cable? Or is it my eyesight...

 

[Rpa07]

That’s a nice colour wall! Anyone we know, VIPoo by any chance?

this one wasn't...
View attachment 41785
However, you can see I have looked out a grommet to cure the lack of one. The double socket this was connected to was held on by the usual two 3.5.. screws , one short one and one very long one, the latter to drag the squinty-fixed back box from the depths of the wall...and of course there was no earth to the front plate.
Can someone advise me on the likely age of this wiring with its multiple earth wires, 3 per cable? Or is it my eyesight...

 

[littlespark]

Can someone advise me on the likely age of this wiring with its multiple earth wires, 3 per cable? Or is it my eyesight...

1960's at a guess. They were onto solid core 2.5 by the 70's

 

[pirate]

Lol! Rpa07...the same VIP as I'm mounting the telly for, but well spotted!
She's in Rome for a few days so I'm taking today off, mainly because I don't like to be drilling, raggling and hammering etc on a Sunday as it would annoy the neighbours.

Thanks, littlespark, I'll note that...1960's...so, not as old as I am!
Wearing better, though...

 

[SparkyChick]

Here's a nice reminder of why you should always try and isolate fuses before pulling them

Thankfully I noticed the second red dot was missing and the screw was loose.

Oh... and it's also a timely reminder about why you should keep a few bits of junk you remove from old installations. Replaced this and a 15A carrier serving a 30A circuit with some spares from an old board I'd removed from a customer property

 

[Rpa07]

And charged them handsomely we trust @SparkyChick, hmmm?

Here's a nice reminder of why you should always try and isolate fuses before pulling them

View attachment 41819

Thankfully I noticed the second red dot was missing and the screw was loose.

Oh... and it's also a timely reminder about why you should keep a few bits of junk you remove from old installations. Replaced this and a 15A carrier serving a 30A circuit with some spares from an old board I'd removed from a customer property

Very hard to know when to stop collecting for ‘when I need one’ - until then I’ll keep collecting!

 

[dksanders]

And charged them handsomely we trust @SparkyChick, hmmm?

Very hard to know when to stop collecting for ‘when I need one’ - until then I’ll keep collecting!

I use the 4 year rule, if i've not touched/used in in the last 4 years, then I never will and out it goes, usually to a free cycle group or charity.

 

[SparkyChick]

And charged them handsomely we trust @SparkyChick, hmmm?

Very hard to know when to stop collecting for ‘when I need one’ - until then I’ll keep collecting!

It started as a call out for an existing customer because they lost power to the cooker. I think what happened was a bad neutral connection in the cooker switch resulted in surges or something that had slowly cooked the fuse wire causing it to fail. Quick re-termination of that and change the fuse carriers and the job has yielded contact details for another family member with an electrical fault, a request for a quote to replace that old fuse box which carries with it the need to do something about other parts of the installation (like replace an elderly VOELCB) and the possibility of another checking out the British Legion in Newport. All in all quite a productive call out

 

[dksanders]

Attended a rented house today where they'd had half the lights not working for the last few weeks, ever since the new shower had been installed over the bath.......

 

[pirate]

Oops! Nice wall light!
Nice pic, SparkyChic! I love pulling fuses...only thing I can pull these days...

 

[Wilko]

View attachment 41833
Attended a rented house today where they'd had half the lights not working for the last few weeks, ever since the new shower had been installed over the bath.......

Metal light fitting just in the right place to grab to steady yourself too .

 

[123]

How not to connect a socket....

 

[ipf]

How not to connect a socket....

View attachment 41835

.....and how not to wire..... wonder where that extra live comes from....or goes to?

 

[telectrix]

silly bugger. it's a RCD test socket.plug in a vacuum cleaner.. RCD trips. all good.

 

[pirate]

Maybe it's because i wear an eye-patch, but something doesn't look quite right...
being colour-blind in my good eye doesn't help!
Maybe that's why my RCDs trip all the time...

 

[pirate]

Oddly, I never had a problem with the old colours, but the new harmonised ones are so difficult for me...
Never mind, I was able to use up a couple of metres of the old stuff when fixing that bl**dy TV on the wall...I mean, who's going to see it anyway, buried under an inch of plaster?
My wife said the same when I had a bit of an unfortunate accident..
"No-ones's going to see it under an inch of plaster! LOL!"

Cruel, I thought...

 

[pirate]

I mean, honestly...why bother?

 

[pirate]

This is more like it...

That cable top right just came up for a breath of air...
then disappeared into the concrete "conduit"to the left

 

[pirate]

Which then runs straight as a die along the wall...

the neat concrete haunching bottom right protects the water supply pipe

 

[pirate]

Anyway, yesterday something tripped the RCD, apropos of f**k all, as we say in Glasgow...
long story short, assuming it was the kettle, notorious here in Spain, but having no luck with that, unplugged everything else in turn. Turned out to be the microwave oven, which, when plugged in, but not switched on, tripped the RCD sometimes almost immediately, sometimes after a few minutes...oddly even when switched off, if I opened the door the turntable was turning...
Binned the microwave, connected the other stuff, all was well. Plugged the microwave into a separate circuit, and it tripped the RCD again, so really binned it for good, and bought a new one. Unfortunately, in finally pulling out the mains plug, the socket fell out of the wall...
The sockets are very flimsy, and screw into a very flimsy plastic back-box which is secured in the wall by being coated with plaster, squished in, the excess plaster wiped out, and left to dry.

The grey plastic box had just cracked round the screws.

 

[pirate]

The new box is very flexible and the knockouts virtually shatter when you squeeze them with your thumb...quick visit to A&E to get the plastic shards out of my eye...and back to work.

 

[pirate]

The other components are equally rubbish.

You can see that the two earth springy things slide through the top and bottom holes of the plastic socket-front

 

[pirate]

A wee single screw holds everything together. I fitted the new box without plaster. The terminals are odd...each cable has two, so you loop in and out (no space for squeezing an extra in!) and when you tighten the screw, it clamps both wires at the same time, a square washer thingy clamping the bare ends...I quite like that, actually.
Finally, you assemble the components, click them into a metal frame that screws onto the back box, and snap on the outer cover.

The combined socket and switch on the left are much older and far better made. The rocker switch is for under-cupboard lighting, not for the socket...and, oddly, it isn't just tee'd off the back of the socket, but is actually wired into the separate lighting circuit...bet they don't bother nowadays.
Just to complete the picture, this circuit was wired as you see in blue, brown and green/yellow singles in conduit. The other socket circuit is wired in singles too, black, blue and yellow, where black is live, obviously...and all the sockets have the live on the left pin...not that it matters as you can put the plugs in upside down if you want.
Ah, that's the rain off! Bye for now!

 

[alexander jackson]

I know a 'Spark' who would find fault with every install on these pages untill you saw the work he produced and yes....it could all be his.

 

[pirate]

Here's a nice example of vertical protective haunching...feeding the white connection box at left which feeds the lamp-post...

 

[123]

A lovely little shower installation

 

[Ib≤In≤Iz]

Scary

 

[pirate]

That looks good! It's an instantaneous shower, so feeding the T&E down the hole for the cold water supply will keep the cable cool, in case it might be undersized...
That JB lid looks like it isn't fitting well...maybe ditch those bare earth wires and connect to the cold water feed?
The final pic...I've guessed that one too! The cover isn't on yet! Plenty copper on show, so when it burns out you can just snip the charred stuff off and re-connect without having to strip any more insulation off....or am I missing something?

 

[pirate]

That looks good! It's an instantaneous shower, so feeding the T&E down the hole for the cold water supply will keep the cable cool, in case it might be undersized...
That JB lid looks like it isn't fitting well...maybe ditch those bare earth wires and connect to the cold water feed?
The final pic...I've guessed that one too! The cover isn't on yet! Plenty copper on show, so when it burns out you can just snip the charred stuff off and re-connect without having to strip any more insulation off....or am I missing something?

 

[123]

Got it pretty much bang on. The CPC was up in the attic, must have been Class 2 shower