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| Subject - Ever get blamed ....? | |
| kbsparky |
Sometimes, we electricians get blamed for things that are clearly not our fault. Guilt by association, it would seem. Case in point: Today, we were installing a new underground feeder conduit and cables for a mobile home. The service pedestal was 20 feet away from the home (well within the 30 foot limit), and we had to hand-dig a trench from there to the underside of the unit. The service pedestal consisted of a double-gang meter box, with 2 disconnect boxes located on the back side of the meters. While we were thus engaged in said installation, the lady from the house next door peered out at us and wanted to know if we had shut off her power!  Of course we had not, since the unit we were working on was red-tagged at the meter (meaning the power was off) and we had not even touched her disconnect box. It was even tied shut with some sort of steel tie wire, and we had to cut that off of the hasp just to even open it to check to see if the breaker had tripped, or at least there was power present.  No sooner had we determined that her power was out, than the guy from across the street came over and wanted to know why we had shut off his power!!  By now, it was apparent that there was an outage in the area, since several others nearby had reported their power was out. I suppose that since we were there with our work van in plain sight, obviously it was our fault!!  So here we were, guilty by association, since the power failed while we were connecting up an empty new home in the park. Didn't matter that even if we wanted to short out the whole place, we couldn't with the service being disconnected to the panel we were working on. We left soon after that, and found a utility company truck across the road at a nearby power sub-station. He reported a locked-out circuit, and was getting ready to check out a reported fire on a power company pole about 2 miles away. At least we know for sure this time, it wasn't our fault  Or is it  -Ken |
| Wirenutz | Ken, our entire trade has been held hostage by the fire service , whom have traditionally blamed it on 'lectrical with nothing more than a smoking cellar hole, and even less forensics ~W~ |
| Electricman | I personally know the feeling, A few years ago the company that I work for was contracted to wire a bar area that was added in a pizza shop, the place was a mess , all wired in romex by I dunno who(we did the job with mc) but a mess in general. So we finish up and about a month later the place burns long story short the fire started in the ductwork in the kitchen, but the original report (a volunteer fireman on the scene stated electrical fire) So at the fire investigation everyone was looking at us, man did I feel uncomfortable being introduced as the electrician that did the wiring. One thing though all the inspectors, fire and insurance,were saying to me dont worry you had nothing to do with this. The owner was there and was so bold to ask his insurance investigator if he wasnt sure that we didnt start the fire His insurance guy told him there is no way. He said look at the wiring methods they used(what was left of it) they used alot safer method than what the original electrician did. And all though we were cleared as having no fault something like that sticks with ya. On a more humorous note the other day My partner and I were helping to set and install some rooftop HVAC units when we heard a loud crack outside. Power to this strip mall was temporaraly out of service and one of the shop owners walked up to us and said in a very thick foreign accent "WHAT NO POWER" Guilty cause I am wearing a toolbelt perhaps............ 
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| Wirenutz | well Electricman, i was a FF and saw quite a few wild quesses by the white hats. the thing is, even if some posess an educated level of forensic ability they are either not given the time or expense to impliment it, save for maybe what would be considered criminal. on a grander scale, we saw the advent of 210.12 born of stats claiming bedroom fires were the numero uno concern, without any in depth anylisis didn't we? those full page pix of FF's holding sooty children sold a lot of afci's right? now who the heck would dare question that, even though the most flegling FF knows smoking in bed is the major cause... so....seen any ads or stats on how many little girls have been saved ? {insert sound of night crickets} quote: my company is named after my town, so in an outage i've recieved a few calls over the years, mistaking me for the serving utility, and balming me for it i'll admit to having some fun with the less than sanguine sorts, interjecting 'welllllll, yanno that last check from you came mighty slow"just to wind them up ~W~ |
| mahlere | My personal favorite. I had wired a small apartment a few years back. After the walls were finished and the devices were in, I got a call from the building owner. There was a fire and I had better contact my insurance company. Rush over to the building, fire department is still there, local chief shows me the wall that the fire started in. I had an outlet right where it started. Must be electrical, started in that outlet. So I take the chief to the electrical panel and show him that none of the circuits are tied in yet. There was no power to that outlet at any time. Turns out, earlier that day, there was a company removing linoleum tile. They were using a torch to heat the tile. One of the heated pieces of tile had gotten under the sheetrock and smoldered all day until it actually caught on fire. Unfortunately, by this time, the local FD had already convicted us and everyone thought it was an electrical fire. what can you do? |
| philgritsr2 | electricians sure do whine alot dont they |
| kbsparky | quote: You might be confusing complaining with observation here. Are you an electrician?
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| stedder | go on a plumbers site if you wanna see whining!! Or CArpENteRS even better, the only guys that don't whine are the guys that pump out sewers They lick'er ha ha ha ha ha get it whine (wine) liquor (lick'er) ha ha ha, oh never mind. Yea who do you think you are? Anyway?? 
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| Afterhrs | We call ourselves " SPARKY " and then we act SHOCKED when the fire dept. blames us. Talk about subliminal!  Regards, Jerry  |
| eric240v | I did something once, I made the mistake of calling to have the underground utilities located. The gas company came out made their mark. I went 5 feet perpendicular to their mark.....down goes the post hole digger. About 18 inches down. WHoooooooosshhhh! 1-1/4" yellow gas line severed clean. Weeeeeooooooowwwwweeeeeoooooo. Here come the cops, here come the fire trucks here come the ambulance. The apartment complex adjacent was evacuated. And who do you suppose everyone was looking at? ME! How much farther from the located line should I have been?! Both the fire department AND the Gas company wanted to backcharge my company. I took pictures, contested it and everyone relented. I can't count how many times I've had somebody come up to me and tell me that their internet connection is down "what did you do!?" Or our light just went out "what did you do!?" One time I had an office worker come in......"my power just blew out, I lost everything on my computer!" There was a big "pop!" You must have done something!!!" I poked around for a moment and found a paperclip welded across the hot and neutral of a vertically mounted plug. I had to laugh. (Remember that next time you install your plugs with the ground down) That office worker was embarrassed and apologtic as they should have been. |
| stedder | I think it was last year sometime, or maybe a year before, the whole north east went out, remember? Well I happened to be working on some switching (the customer watching closely) when ... huh I go down to check the panel (the light dosen't work in the cellar) but I figured it was on the same ckt. Everythings good but still no lights, the neighbor calls "what'd your electrician do?" Actually my customer used to be an old tradesman himself and just laughed to find out his neighbor was out too realizing it wasn't me. Then after we all knew what it was man did I hear it from him, "boy when you do something you sure go all the way." Oh well |