Two electrical installation call outs today but I'm always surprised to find poor workmanship in many of the jobs I attend, I shouldn't be but disappointingly I am. The first call out came after a customer reported a socket sparking and tripping the fuse in the newly installed consumer unit after the lady of the house went to plug in her hairdryer. The installation had been signed off as safe and an EICR issued just three weeks earlier: thing is the socket plates had not been touched since it was decorated some 5 weeks earlier (tell by the paint around the socket plates).
There were two other sockets in the room: all had loose cables waving around in the pattress box (back box) and one also had been used as a feed to another socket (no spur switch fitted) and which also had twisted and taped live cores in the back. Made me wonder precisely what the electrician had looked at or even tested in order to sign the installation off.
The second installation was instigated by a customer who wanted a new bulkhead light installed in his laundry cupboard. The existing light hadn't worked for several years. On inspection I found cables had become loose in the back of the old light fitting, but that was hardly surprising given the appalling original installation (see for yourself in the video). He told me he believes the original work was carried out approximately 20yrs earlier by a local builder: obviously not an electrician in sight of that job.
I wish people would leave this sort of thing alone unless they genuinely know what they're doing. As for contracted builders, it is illegal to carry out any eletrical work unless the person so doing is a competent person vis: qualified and insured electrician.
'Bodgers' kill and injure people and here in the UK we have plenty of them that's for sure.
#builder #bodger #electrics #dangerous #builder #building #wiring #socket #light #install #residential wiring #safety inspection #eicr
