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Forum Index : Other Stuff : Really bad backyard electrical...
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Grogster Admin Group  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9306 |
Hi all.  Came across this video tonight: Backyard electrical nightmare... Some scary stuff here. WARNING! Contains offensive language - and rightly so.... Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Boppa Guru  Joined: 08/11/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 814 |
Dave Savery, I watched that one just a couple of weeks ago if that... Yeah it was definitely worthy of the occasional F bomb, whoever did that wasn't a sparky... I been watching a few and there's some shoddy work out there, SparkyNinja and CJR are also good |
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| BenandAmber Guru Joined: 16/02/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 961 |
I just do not put anything outside unless it's in conduit the only exception is low voltage lighting be warned i am good parrot but Dumber than a box of rocks |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9306 |
Completely agree. Power is silent, invisible - and deadly. If you do a bit of home plumbing and get it wrong, things will get wet. If you do a bit of home electrical and get it wrong, thing can go on fire or people can get killed. Many DIY'ers don't understand that, and it's a mentality of: 'Well, its working, so what's your problem?' Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Boppa Guru Joined: 08/11/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 814 |
Yep, all too common that... When I was a teenager, one of our gang nearly got killed using a welder at his dads farm... His dad made his own extension cords and just 'wired em up til they worked' He plugged in several cords to get the welder to the water tank stand (gravity fed to the house) and plugged it in, grabbed the handle- and woke up lying in the garden bed... It was one of the REALLY old transarcs, with the rubber wheels and the metal case- had a big plastic/bakelite handle you cranked to adjust the current... The metal handle that you pulled it around with was the problem... One cord had an active neutral transposition- not dangerous in itself and 'works' fine Another had a neutral/earth transposition... (again 'works' fine in an old house with fuses and no earth leakage HA- I did say I was in my teens...) But we need more length so we plug the two cords into each other.. Oh oh, jongo, danger island.... We now have the active on the bloody earth pin- on a welder with a bare metal handle and sits on rubber wheels.... Greg was lucky to be alive, especially as he was only wearing thongs and the ground around the tank was damp (it pumped bore water via a southern cross and any excess just spilled out the overflow...) VERY lucky |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9306 |
Wow.......  Very lucky indeed. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Boppa Guru Joined: 08/11/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 814 |
Another one I saw was a portaflood that had been screwed to a carport bargeboard to light up the back yard, had a 'standard' hpm/clipsal style INTERIOR switch on the back wall with a interior standoff box- out in the open- not under the carport or anything!! Worse it was wired with the grey/grey with black strip SPEAKER wire!!! Directly from the HWS power box, to the switch to the portaflood... (the 150w portaflood was understandably rather dull for some reason...) How it didn't electrocute someone or burn the house down...  |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9306 |
Crikey! Not even an IP rated outdoor switch? Double-crikey.....and no earth circuit if it was speaker wire then.... EDIT: Reminds me of the scary lamp that I came across. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Boppa Guru Joined: 08/11/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 814 |
Nope, just the standard interior single gang switch- badly uv damaged to boot (it had turned a distinct yellow colour, and the plastic was crumbly to the touch) Oh and to add insult to injury, the light grade speaker wire (the stuff you get with a basic radio cassette back in the day- that thin grey figure 8 stuff)was attached with what looked like carpet staples- which had cut deeply into the plastic insulation... These old style ones  on the back wall- totally exposed... eta- and being hooked to the HWS, it means it was probably a minimum 20A supply breaker- or more likely a fuse in an old weatherboard place like that- certainly no earthleakage breaker, being on the HWS- if it even had one fitted at all (I remember that lamp- another scary one...) |
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| davef Guru Joined: 14/05/2006 Location: New ZealandPosts: 499 |
How about an extension cord with plugs on BOTH ends! The guy handed it to me to get some 220V outside. I didn't mince words .... |
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| Boppa Guru Joined: 08/11/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 814 |
Suicide cords... Have seen quite a few (including one made by an electrical engineer, that nearly killed his kid with it) It's just as easy to do it right ('changeover switch') than to make up some dangerous bit of kit that will likely end up with you in jail for manslaughter if things go wrong....  eta, relatively common a few years back was to have a cord with 'piggyback' plugs at both ends and unconnected extension cord sockets to cover the 'live pins'- so you always had the 'plug' at the right end... sighs Was one of the reasons you can't easily buy them anymore... |
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