Electric help needed

[waynev]

I don't do much electrical work nowadays but still keep my state Master Electrician license current. But when I did, I never gave much thought to the shoes I wore, so the comment that "electicians wear rubber soled shoes" surprised me. I hardly ever bother to turn a breaker off. Instead, I (and almost every other electrician I know) just intentionally shorts the circuit since you can spend a lot of time determining which breaker controls the circuit you want to work on. Touching something with the back of your hand to test for voltage is not too smart. Just stick an old screwdriver in there (you could ruin a good one if it is hot) and short it out first.

This has got to be the worst advice I've ever seen. DO NOT SHORT THE CIRCUIT!!! Have you ever heard of a Federal Pacific breaker not tripping? If you cannot find the circuit, turn off the main breaker. You are guaranteed to have the power off to the circuit you are working with. Also, be careful with the white wire. Depending on how it 's connected, it may be the "hot" to the switch. If you need any help or advice, PM me.

[rdcrags]

Just stick an old screwdriver in there (you could ruin a good one if it is hot) and short it out first.

Not an electrician. I slap the screw driver across the wires quickly as the last thing before cutting or touching a bare end of either wire, after throwing the breaker. If not sure of the circuit, close all breakers; you may guess wrong. I have a partly burned thru screw driver from the 1950s. Oh yeah, about 5 years ago, I bought a cheap circuit tester, but I still do the screw driver thingee just in case. I do 220v, too.

[RPBrown]

Be smart and go buy a cheap volt meter and check for power.

As one that works around it all day every day, it will give you that warm tingly feeling all over (unwanted of course).

I have a perminant wedding ring from shorting out against the casing of a unit about 30 years ago.

[rdcrags]

My favorite true electrical story: The appliance store had delivered a new stacked washer/dryer to our new townhouse. After sliding the unit in place and plugging it in, one of the men grabbed the flexible vent hose and reached up to the aluminum vent pipe to slide it on. The other guy said "Wait a sec, touched the vent pipe with his tester and said "Hmmm, haven't had one of these in a couple of years." Someone had driven a nail through a hot wire into the vent pipe, lighting it up. They ripped off some sheetrock (drywall to you Northerners) and found the errant nail.

No one commented on my wisecrack about frenchmen. How about this: "Seen on e-Bay: '50,000 used rifles from France. Never fired. Dropped once.' "

[jimlongley]

My favorite true electrical story: The appliance store had delivered a new stacked washer/dryer to our new townhouse. After sliding the unit in place and plugging it in, one of the men grabbed the flexible vent hose and reached up to the aluminum vent pipe to slide it on. The other guy said "Wait a sec, touched the vent pipe with his tester and said "Hmmm, haven't had one of these in a couple of years." Someone had driven a nail through a hot wire into the vent pipe, lighting it up. They ripped off some sheetrock (drywall to you Northerners) and found the errant nail.

No one commented on my wisecrack about frenchmen. How about this: "Seen on e-Bay: '50,000 used rifles from France. Never fired. Dropped once.' "

I hate to tell you how many times, as a telephone repairman, I have seen something similar.

Had a lady who complained that the light in her utility room, which was rarely turned on because the ambient light from the kitchen provided enough to see by, flickered every time the phone rang. The Romex from the light switch had a clumsily installed staple holding it in place. The staple had been driven through the jacket and had penetrated the insulation of the hot side as well as the ring side of the telephone line, which had been run immediately adjacent.

When the phone rang, 96v 20Hz was just enough to make some entertaining effects with the incandescant light bulb. They didn't want me to tear up the sheetrock (and we called it that up north too) until I showed HIM on my meter that there was a dead short between the hot side of the switch and the phone line. When I tore open the wall, there was the staple, just a couple of inches below the switch.

I didn't repair the electric wire, just pulled the staple and left the wall open and told them to call an electrician, s they complained to the phone company that I had: A) damaged the wall; and B) not fixed the electric wire. The phone company, for once, took my side and told them to call an electrician, and sue their builder.

I have multiple other tales of similar situations.

[ninemm]

I don't do much electrical work nowadays but still keep my state Master Electrician license current. But when I did, I never gave much thought to the shoes I wore, so the comment that "electicians wear rubber soled shoes" surprised me. I hardly ever bother to turn a breaker off. Instead, I (and almost every other electrician I know) just intentionally shorts the circuit since you can spend a lot of time determining which breaker controls the circuit you want to work on. Touching something with the back of your hand to test for voltage is not too smart. Just stick an old screwdriver in there (you could ruin a good one if it is hot) and short it out first.

This has got to be the worst advice I've ever seen. DO NOT SHORT THE CIRCUIT!!! Have you ever heard of a Federal Pacific breaker not tripping? If you cannot find the circuit, turn off the main breaker. You are guaranteed to have the power off to the circuit you are working with. Also, be careful with the white wire. Depending on how it 's connected, it may be the "hot" to the switch. If you need any help or advice, PM me.

The failure mode for Federal Pacific breakers is that some fail to trip on overload (125% - 200% of rating). I've run across thousands of them over the years and have never experienced one that fails to open up when the circuit is short-circuited. I know of many instances of people receiving an electric shock after they've supposedly tripped the breaker and used a meter (or touch voltage detector) and "knew" the power was off. Normally, I just work it hot (without gloves) because I know what I'm doing. But there are times when I know I can't work it hot (metal box, crowded box, etc.). You can't trust panel labeling anyway. I know lots of fellow electricians and don't know any who do it any differently than what I have described. Even after I've shorted something out, I still don't just willy-nilly go grabbing bare wires. I still work it like it is hot. Have you ever heard of a shared neutral?

[ninemm]

... The Romex from the light switch had a clumsily installed staple holding it in place. The staple had been driven through the jacket and had penetrated the insulation of the hot side as well as the ring side of the telephone line, which had been run immediately adjacent.

I have seen this many times as well as overdriving the staple. The sad part is that, no matter how many times you tell a helper not to get carried away hammering in the staple, it still happens. I've even heard some electricians claim that the staple has to be very snug to keep the cable from pulling out of a box if someone trips on the wire in the attic. This is ridiculous. The purpose of the staple is to secure the cable in the wall cavity for the drywall installation step of construction. Heck, for wires that are fished into a box after the drywall is installed, no staple is required. What does that say about the purpose of the staple? When I checked the work of a helper or apprentice and I noticed a staple that looked like it was driven in too far, I would remove it (with diagonal pliers) and check to see if the cable sheath (outer covering of NM (or Romex) cable) retained a mark. If it did, the staple was driven in too far.

[dicion]

I've run across thousands of them over the years and have never experienced one that fails to open up when the circuit is short-circuited.

I have. Direct short for 10 seconds on a 20A Breaker before I pulled the wires apart. Didn't pop.

Breakers were very old looking, and more than likely Caked full of gunk due to the environment they're currently in.

They're still there, still being used to this day.

[waynev]

I don't do much electrical work nowadays but still keep my state Master Electrician license current. But when I did, I never gave much thought to the shoes I wore, so the comment that "electicians wear rubber soled shoes" surprised me. I hardly ever bother to turn a breaker off. Instead, I (and almost every other electrician I know) just intentionally shorts the circuit since you can spend a lot of time determining which breaker controls the circuit you want to work on. Touching something with the back of your hand to test for voltage is not too smart. Just stick an old screwdriver in there (you could ruin a good one if it is hot) and short it out first.

This has got to be the worst advice I've ever seen. DO NOT SHORT THE CIRCUIT!!! Have you ever heard of a Federal Pacific breaker not tripping? If you cannot find the circuit, turn off the main breaker. You are guaranteed to have the power off to the circuit you are working with. Also, be careful with the white wire. Depending on how it 's connected, it may be the "hot" to the switch. If you need any help or advice, PM me.

The failure mode for Federal Pacific breakers is that some fail to trip on overload (125% - 200% of rating). I've run across thousands of them over the years and have never experienced one that fails to open up when the circuit is short-circuited. I know of many instances of people receiving an electric shock after they've supposedly tripped the breaker and used a meter (or touch voltage detector) and "knew" the power was off. Normally, I just work it hot (without gloves) because I know what I'm doing. But there are times when I know I can't work it hot (metal box, crowded box, etc.). You can't trust panel labeling anyway. I know lots of fellow electricians and don't know any who do it any differently than what I have described. Even after I've shorted something out, I still don't just willy-nilly go grabbing bare wires. I still work it like it is hot. Have you ever heard of a shared neutral?

Yeah, I've heard of shared neutrals. They'll bite you just as bad (if not worse) than a hot. Maybe that's why the codebook specifies a common-trip breaker for shared neutrals? The reason I said be careful of the white wire is that many times the homerun is brought to the fixture first, then branches out from there. Since most of the people doing rough-ins are not code experts, they don't color the white wire feeding a switch to a different color like the book tells us to. Instead of shorting the circuit, how aboout using a circuit tracer? Working a circuit hot is not the way I choose to do it, but if you feel comfortable, go for it. There are times that I have no choice, but if I do have a choice, the panel is getting shut down. If I have to work it hot, I'm wearing my gloves. Of course, commercial is different than residential. Companies tend to get angry if you shut down their data center to change a plug or work in the panel. In a residential application, I can't think of any good reason not to kill the panel. I just think it irresponsible to tell somebody that is not an electrician to short a circuit. It's a good way for a novice to electrocute themself.

[VoiceofReason]

OK Jim, you had to tell the telephone story so now I have to do this.

A woman called in a case of trouble that “when the phone rings my dog cuts up a real fuss”. No one believed her but someone still had to go check it. When the repairman got to her house, he got a ring back and sure enough he could hear the dog in the back yard yelping yapping and carrying on.

He went to the back yard and opened the protector. The lady had a “party line” which rings to ground. The installer had been lazy and instead of placing a ground rod, or running a ground wire to the power ground, he had grounded the protector to a metal clothes line pole anchored in concrete.

She had metal clothes lines and the dog was chained to the line with a metal chain. Every time the phone rang the dog got zapped with 90 volts 20 cycles.
There is not enough current to injure him but I guess he really hated incoming calls.

Was told this first hand by the repairman.

[lonewolf]

Another "shocking" tale: I was working on cleaning some excess paint on explosion-resistant light covers in an escape trunk from the aft engine room of a destroyer (we were underway at the time). Scraping paint with a flat head screwdriver. Ship rolled, my sweaty hand slipped off the handle onto the shaft, I was hanging onto the handrail with the other hand (I was about 10 feet off the deck below). Broke the bulb, scredriver into socket, shocked from right hand to left, right through the heart. Ship rolled the other way and gravity pulled me loose. I didn't fall. I did experience weird palpitations from my heart. They pulled me off duty the rest of the day and checked my heart regularly.

Live circuit+sweat+rolling ship+elevated+ship floating in gojillions of tons of salt water=fried lonewolf

There---I told the tale.

Perhaps all this should go in the "Never Again" area?