Never Assume its dead !!!!

nickblake · Mar 2, 2012

Nice little job consumer unit upgrade and kitchen referb , scottish power had been in to remove the ECO 7 meters etc so whats left is the old board for the storage heaters and main CDU the lady customer told me that scottish power said she could remove the old storage heater board as it was now dead , yep sure enough tails removed so no problem .... wrong ! one thing ive always taught young and old in the trade never assume its dead always test so meter remove all the fuse carriers and test each circuit one by one and guess what yep one was live !!! install was about 25 years old located the live wire to the main CDU and went round the house checking no sockets in one section of the cottage which then made me think no they haven't ... oh yes they had ... one leg of the ring main went to the storage heater board out going of the fuse ,so when the eco 7 had switched off it was supplying all the storage heaters back through the fuses and buss bar so pointless having eco 7 on that one , heaters were permernantly on !! never blew a fuse i never saw the fuses as they had been removed but if they had the incorrect fuse wire in could well have been a disaster 8 storage heaters all running off a 2.5mm twe .previouse house holder just had storage heating and it was costing £400.00 a month , new owner removed the storage heaters as they had no controll of the heat comming out of them , im not supprised
So moral of the tail is even if its got no tails / supply Test it it may be live

Guest111 · Mar 2, 2012

Yes had 1 like that in liverpool years ago bar being ripped out,removed service fuses cut tails and removed 3 phase db everything dead .following day as lads were ripping out I went to remove a controller for an a/c unit as I wanted it for something else,went to cut cables big bang and blue flash,1 ruined pair of cutters and much swearing later and after tracing cable it was wired into the chippy next door.

RWJ · Mar 2, 2012

We have it all the time on local hotels a ring that isn't a ring it's wired from two db's....sometime they're not even near each other.
Others it's because they've cut in to the supply from the room above / below and joined it to the ring in the room they're working on.

Seen that one a few times!!
The last time I found one I blow a hole in my combi cutters....£25 out of pocket!