- Reaction score
- 3,010
What's your record, today i found five, yes five, lighting circuits in one MCB. Can I have a winner?
-*-
Emergency call, lights are out accross the practice.
Eleven rooms/areas, twenty seven strip lights.
Eight hours later, two fittings changed. One fitting was the fault the other would have been next months.
"Eight hours to find a faulty fitting" I hear you deride.
Well the thiñg is the five circuits had been rewired by an alarm company and in their wisdom they omitted any switches having all five switched via a one gang key switch at the front door. I could describe the lash up but trust me it was laughable.
The CU was like a lasses suitcase with wires bursting out at the seams.
The lives had been chocked up behing the mass of spaghetti, the earths and neutrals were all over the place, so it took me nearly two hours just to pull all the circuits out in order to test.
IR LN-E showed nothing of significance so...
RCD tested fine, then....
...One at a time they went back in the MCB until ping, faulty circuit found and only seven lights on it, the most of all the circuits.
Then onto disconnecting them one at a time,
First fitting = all good.
Second fitting = burnt out terminals on the ballast, bingo, but no supprisingly fault still pressent.
Third to sixth = all good.
Seventh = visually not too bad but faulty.
Went to the wholesalers and got two new fittings and fitted them.
This is by far the longest it's took me to chase down a dodgy fitting.
Anyone think they'd have done it quicker? If so how?
-*-
Emergency call, lights are out accross the practice.
Eleven rooms/areas, twenty seven strip lights.
Eight hours later, two fittings changed. One fitting was the fault the other would have been next months.
"Eight hours to find a faulty fitting" I hear you deride.
Well the thiñg is the five circuits had been rewired by an alarm company and in their wisdom they omitted any switches having all five switched via a one gang key switch at the front door. I could describe the lash up but trust me it was laughable.
The CU was like a lasses suitcase with wires bursting out at the seams.
The lives had been chocked up behing the mass of spaghetti, the earths and neutrals were all over the place, so it took me nearly two hours just to pull all the circuits out in order to test.
IR LN-E showed nothing of significance so...
RCD tested fine, then....
...One at a time they went back in the MCB until ping, faulty circuit found and only seven lights on it, the most of all the circuits.
Then onto disconnecting them one at a time,
First fitting = all good.
Second fitting = burnt out terminals on the ballast, bingo, but no supprisingly fault still pressent.
Third to sixth = all good.
Seventh = visually not too bad but faulty.
Went to the wholesalers and got two new fittings and fitted them.
This is by far the longest it's took me to chase down a dodgy fitting.
Anyone think they'd have done it quicker? If so how?
.
