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Shocking...


MarkW
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One of our staff bought a house a few months ago, and today I took my kids round to see his cats, rabbits, tropical fish and other assorted wildlife. Whilst we were there his wife casually mentioned that they keep getting tingling sensations through metal light switches and other electrical appliances. A quick nose in their distribution board revealed no network-supplied earth (as I expected given that they are in the middle of nowhere), and after a brief poke around outside I located their earth spike:


 

IMG_1808.JPG.9330257306e932bc416a72a9edfcad3a.JPG

 


I'm not sure that chives are supposed to be part of the earthing arrangements (I can't find any published impedance values for culinary herbs in my On-site Guide) so I'll be popping back later today with an earth strap and my tester to reconnect their earth and see what measured impedance values we get.

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Guest Richzx6r
:shock: how can people sign that off as safe in any way, I think they need to get on to whoever they bought the house from and at least give them a grilling but I'd be wanting some compensation for the potential danger, could quite easily have started a fire or worse
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:shock: how can people sign that off as safe in any way, I think they need to get on to whoever they bought the house from and at least give them a grilling but I'd be wanting some compensation for the potential danger, could quite easily have started a fire or worse

 

The electrics in our house are always a source of amusement, I replaced the kitchen after discovering a false wall had been put up and every socket in the kitchen was run from 1 socket behind the wall, it came to light as I was getting same mild shocks from our microwave, investigating further I discovered with washer, dryer and microwave on voltage to micro was below 180v and plug tester reveled no earth to half the sockets.

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There are soooooo many sparktards out there it's unreal.


The previous owners of my place took just about everything with them including light fixtures and switches. They did replace some with ultra cheap Wilko specials but the rest they just left the wires poking out of the wall.


Plus extra bonus, they removed a garden "feature" and left the wires sticking up in the middle of the lawn. When I got round to sorting it, I found the wire lashed in the back of a socket in the conservatory and instead of using armoured cable, they'd threaded 1.5mm T&E through some garden hose and buried it less than an inch in the lawn.

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There are soooooo many sparktards out there it's unreal.


The previous owners of my place took just about everything with them including light fixtures and switches. They did replace some with ultra cheap Wilko specials but the rest they just left the wires poking out of the wall.


Plus extra bonus, they removed a garden "feature" and left the wires sticking up in the middle of the lawn. When I got round to sorting it, I found the wire lashed in the back of a socket in the conservatory and instead of using armoured cable, they'd threaded 1.5mm T&E through some garden hose and buried it less than an inch in the lawn.

 

One of my mates bought his house because the garage was perfect for turning into a recording studio, being right at the bottom of the garden with loads of lights and sockets. The bloke who built it didn't get planning permission, and in anticipation of being told to take it down didn't bother going to the trouble and expense of burying the supply cable. Consequently there's a length of SWA running across his lawn that he has to try to push the mover under when he cuts the grass. There's not enough slack in it to be able to bury it properly...


:shock:

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Are you qualified to be working on someone else electrics? If not and something goes wrong in the future it might come back to you. Better to get a proper electrician to give it a once over.

 

Just deny all knowledge. :-)

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Are you qualified to be working on someone else electrics? If not and something goes wrong in the future it might come back to you. Better to get a proper electrician to give it a once over.

 

No less qualified than the last person to work on them! :wink:


I think the C&G Inspection & Testing certificate probably covers screwing the earthing connector back onto the spike and checking the fault loop impedance, but just in case I balls it up I'll ask our recruitment consultant to keep an eye out for a new lab scientist.


:thumb:

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There are soooooo many sparktards out there it's unreal.


The previous owners of my place took just about everything with them including light fixtures and switches. They did replace some with ultra cheap Wilko specials but the rest they just left the wires poking out of the wall.


Plus extra bonus, they removed a garden "feature" and left the wires sticking up in the middle of the lawn. When I got round to sorting it, I found the wire lashed in the back of a socket in the conservatory and instead of using armoured cable, they'd threaded 1.5mm T&E through some garden hose and buried it less than an inch in the lawn.

 

One of my mates bought his house because the garage was perfect for turning into a recording studio, being right at the bottom of the garden with loads of lights and sockets. The bloke who built it didn't get planning permission, and in anticipation of being told to take it down didn't bother going to the trouble and expense of burying the supply cable. Consequently there's a length of SWA running across his lawn that he has to try to push the mover under when he cuts the grass. There's not enough slack in it to be able to bury it properly...


:shock:

 

Buy a few meters to extend the far end get a resin jointing kit they are very straight forward, then bury the thing properly.

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Guest Richzx6r

What a complete bellend: how the hell have I managed to post this in Forum Help instead of General? :lol:


If someone more competent could move it... :oops:

 

Sorted.

 

Or did you mean shorted

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Now this won't be of any interest to most of you, but for any sparks on here who might be curious...


I popped back round to this house after work to look at their earthing issue. Zs at DB (with the earth rod still disconnected) was 3.17 ohms, so they are clearly getting some earthing from the bonded gas and water pipes, or given that it's an old 19th century school house that has been split into two semis possibly some dodgy wiring shared with next door. I reconnected the rusty old 6 mm earthing conductor to the rusty old earth rod and the Zs came down fractionally to 3.08 ohms. So now it's a property that's earthed almost entirely through the service pipes (which isn't allowed) that looks superficially like a TT system. :roll:


Time didn't allow this evening, but at the weekend I'm going to replace the rusty old earth rod with a shiny new one and run a new 16 mm earthing cable to the board. Before I connect it to the MET I'll measure Ze to see what we get just from the new spike without any earthing from the service pipes.


:thumb:

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What is the soil like where the electrode is?

Years ago during building a new factory had difficulty in getting a good reading on the earth electrodes as the soil was very Sandy after a couple of feet. Ended up having to put an earth mat in.

If after you are still getting a poor reading with the new electrode try watering the area. If the reading improves you may have to look at longer or multiple earth rods.

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What is the soil like where the electrode is?

Years ago during building a new factory had difficulty in getting a good reading on the earth electrodes as the soil was very Sandy after a couple of feet. Ended up having to put an earth mat in.

If after you are still getting a poor reading with the new electrode try watering the area. If the reading improves you may have to look at longer or multiple earth rods.

 

I'm not sure what the soil is like to be honest: there's quite a well established garden with various fruit trees, so hopefully it's not just builders rubble!


I've got two 5/8" rods with a coupler, which will get me down to around 8 feet. Would that be better than sticking two in at 4 feet and connecting them do you reckon? I guess it's really going to depend on the nature of the underlying soil...

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Are you qualified to be working on someone else electrics? If not and something goes wrong in the future it might come back to you. Better to get a proper electrician to give it a once over.

 

I'm an electrician


:thumb:

 

:thumb:

 


Yeh his last bodge ... I mean job went fine

 

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