Not such a bright spark award

Hello everyone.  Thought I would let you know how I am doing on the job front.  Well I was brought in for a little chat the other week to be told that I did not make the short list for the interview.  The reason was that I did not fill out one or two sides of A4 telling the college about myself. I figured it was not necessary as the people looking at my application know me.  I have now discovered, to my cost, that further education does not work like this!

So it is back to the drawing board for me then!

See you….

Hi All,

As well as being a little contractor, part time teacher, small time author, good father and husband ………in my spare time I also help people out where I can. My local Royal British Legion asked me to fit a new time clock for their old central heating system after having a few problems.  I nipped round yesterday…..

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Hi all,

This is another one that raised my eye brows recently!

You know the score, learn as a youngster, try and pick up vital experience from your peers and then you stumble upon this gem.

Now not being en expert in forensics or anything I believe the victim removed those three very clean un-burnt pin covers. This exposed all three phases in this board.  To put it simply there are under those covers 400V between each pin AND 230V between each pin and earth or neutral. It is upon these exposed pins that you would fit a circuit breaker to supply and protect a circuit.

If you do a little maths now that means there are 9 possible permutations of shock or explosion that can occur from messing here with the board turned on, which is exactly what this victim did!  The client later told  me that TWO main fuses were blown in this episode, so our electrician shorted out two of the pins. Remember that when this happens, the next fuse back in the circuit is the suppliers MAIN fuse!

The final part of my detective work is to figure out the nice red phase covers.  Well, obviously he removed the covers while live.  He then committed the act, had a “brown moment” and promptly refitted the covers!!!! 

The moral of this story is simple. Do not fool about with what you do not understand.  No one got hurt here apart from the pride of the person attempting the work.  The next person to mess with what he does not fully understand may not be so lucky…

I work part time as a teacher at my local college.  The college is connected to a charitable trust with a house in Wales that is rented out by the owners, a Christian charity trust, to less well off folks.

Every year various teachers have to go down with crowds of kids to fix the place up.  There were no electrical kids this year as apparently there has never been a desire for the youngsters to go down with their tutor (nothing to do with me, I’m new!) Therefore I was on my own.

This years projects among many was to fix up the bathroom, which involved re-wiring a badly wired shower and fitting a fan. I was working in a back kitchen area putting a missing 10mm² earth to an oil pipe. It was a little dark down in the corner so I had the lights on. continue

So, to set the scene for you, I was working away in town on some brand new apartments.  The client calls me up to an 8th floor pad telling me that the cleaners can’t clean because the hoover is tripping the flat power.  Up I go, thinking of faulty hoovers…. continue

As I go on my lifetime electrical safari, I usually have some sort of camera with me…. this is a job i was called out to a while back.  It had many niggling problems, generally revolving around shoddy installation. continue

I thought that would get you interested!  i have been doing a little work at a customers house and came accross this little gem when he ripped down the hall ceiling…. continue