Would you have found this "fault" quicker?

[ProDave]

A case of never believe what the customer says.

The reported fault was "half the electrics in the house are not working" I was expecting a split board fault.  But when  I got there the actual issue was 1 socket and 1 light not working.  The light was a dud lamp FFS.   So that just left 1 socket not working.

Old house wired in red / black.  Unscrew dead socket, a single brown / blue t&e feeds it which goes down under the floor, laminate and tiled floor no hope of lifting floor boards.

The other side of the wall from this socket is a shiny new kitchen. Brown / blue wiring in the kitchen so thinking it must be spurred from a socket in there.  Every socket off, no spur feed.  Thinking must be a hidden junction box and beginning to fret about the lack of access to under the floor.

Testing shows in fact N and E connected back to CU just not L which is why I was thinking cable fallen out of terminal in accessory or JB. 

Then the Eureka moment.  The house is heated by storage heaters, but hold on no storage heater in the living room.  Sure enough another quick test shows this socket to be connected to the "living room" mcb on the off peak CU.  

The original storage heater point was the other side of the room and it had been extended from there to the present socket hence the brown / blue, probably done as part of the kitchen refit.

So it can't have ever worked properly, so why wait and then  call someone else out to say it has "stopped working"?

Took me 45 minutes to find and correct. It would probably have been less had I not been distracted by the new kitchen and thinking it must be associated with that.

 

[phil d]

I remember getting called out to a job once, " the switch in the hall has stopped working" was the message over the phone. I arrived and before doing anything I asked if anything had been done? "no" the client insisted, "absolutely not". I then noticed some new brass switches, there was also some old scruffy looking plastic accessories, obviously, someone had been changing stuff, so, once again I asked the question, and once again I received an emphatic NO!

I decided to remove the offending switch and lo and behold there it was, wrongly wired, it could never have worked like that, yet the client insisted nobody had touched anything! Why oh why can't people just be honest with you, after all, the longer you spend on site the bigger the bill.

 

[Evans Electric]

Why oh why can't people just be honest with you, after all, the longer you spend on site the bigger the bill.

This happens a lot  , I don't understand it either . :C   Just tell the guy.

Took me 45 minutes to find and correct. It would probably have been less had I not been distracted by the new kitchen and thinking it must be associated with that.

I think we'd all be the same ...totally throw  by  the comment ... "  Its stopped working "    

A Sparky's mind begins  analysing  on the way to the job .......  its tripped out ,  the RCD has tripped ,  theres a loose connection ,  the socket is faulty ,  someone has been messing elsewhere ,  theres a  JB  somewhere ,   its spurred off a socket and dropped out ,     DIY work  has cut the cable ...etc etc       All based on the fact that it was working fine until now . :C

Consider the alternative :      

It only works after midnight  and stops working at 0700 hrs    .........Helloooooo!!     Now we know the answer without  even attending site!! 

 

[phil d]

The way I change people's minds is mentioning the cost, I had one years ago, the guy was adamant he'd done nothing yet some of his lights were not working, I just knew he'd done something. Anyway I'm asking him for about the fourth time if he's done anything, no, he hasn't, he then asks me how much it's going to cost, then I had him, " well, after call out it's £35 an hour, now given that you've done nothing then it's likely to be something major, we could be looking at floorboards up upstairs, adding new cable etc, I could be here hours, it could well end up several hundred pounds". Guy thinks for a moment, then " well, I did change a couple of ceiling fittings" he then points out the ones he's changed and bingo, I find a loose neutral at the first attempt. To be honest I'd have taken these fittings down first anyway, I'm too experienced to go headlong into ripping boards up, but I wanted the guy to admit to what he'd done. Fault fixed and I've been on site for just under an hour, so his bill is about £50, and he's quite happy with this. I then go on to explain to him that I wasn't asking if he'd done any work so I could have a go at him, merely so I could find the fault easier, thereby saving my time and his money. Plus I was able to show him where he'd gone wrong so he wouldn't make the same mistake next time, honestly, some people.lol

 

[ProDave]

The original garbled description of the fault was something about half the house getting power (which is why I was expecting a split board problem) I wonder if she was trying to say it was only getting power half the time?

It was compounded by the fact the home owner was not in, it was her daughter there to let me in, who knew nothing, not even what the fault was supposed to be.

On the subject of recent work, I spent well over an hour once to determine the lighting fault was in the kitchen ceiling (flat roof)  only THEN did they tell me the flat roof was replaced last week...... 

 

[phil d]

The original garbled description of the fault was something about half the house getting power (which is why I was expecting a split board problem) I wonder if she was trying to say it was only getting power half the time?

It was compounded by the fact the home owner was not in, it was her daughter there to let me in, who knew nothing, not even what the fault was supposed to be.

On the subject of recent work, I spent well over an hour once to determine the lighting fault was in the kitchen ceiling (flat roof)  only THEN did they tell me the flat roof was replaced last week...... 

See what I mean, talk about half a story. kitchen lights reminds me of one a couple of years ago, a mate's daughter had bought a house, it was one of those terraced jobs with a single story extension comprising kitchen and bathroom. They'd been in about a month and some of the downlights in the kitchen weren't working, of course they'd replaced the lamps, they still didn't work, oh and overnight there'd been another development, it had snowed heavily and there were little round patches on the flat roof that had no snow on them, could this be significant?

I popped round, they're only down the road, I went into the back bedroom and looked out, sure enough, there were about a dozen clear patches in the snow-covered roof, odd!

I went into the kitchen and the patches coincided with the working downlights, I removed a faulty one and noticed that not only was the wiring melted, but the insulation was packed tightly around the fitting, it was the same with them all, cue a bit of reworking, and replace the lights with LED ones. and people wonder why there are fires.

 

[ProDave]

And on the subject of "bad fault description" a rental property the agent called me to "no hot water",  Knowing it was all electric I suspected immersion heater. So I set off on the 80 mile round trip, spare immersion, spanner, hose etc.

When I get there the tenant lets me in and shows me to the bathroom where she demonstrates that when you turn on the hot taps, no water at all comes out.  Hot water was working fine in the kitchen.

Now when I get a "no hot water" fault I have to ask the insulting silly question, do you actually get cold water out of all of the hot taps?

Yes overheating downlights.  The variation on that is "can you come and put the lights back up"  The plasterboard has scorched and crumbled  so much there is nothing for the fitting to clip into.

 

[phil d]

And on the subject of "bad fault description" a rental property the agent called me to "no hot water",  Knowing it was all electric I suspected immersion heater. So I set off on the 80 mile round trip, spare immersion, spanner, hose etc.

When I get there the tenant lets me in and shows me to the bathroom where she demonstrates that when you turn on the hot taps, no water at all comes out.  Hot water was working fine in the kitchen.

Now when I get a "no hot water" fault I have to ask the insulting silly question, do you actually get cold water out of all of the hot taps?

Yes overheating downlights.  The variation on that is "can you come and put the lights back up"  The plasterboard has scorched and crumbled  so much there is nothing for the fitting to clip into.

I had one today, daughter in law rings me up, "I've broken the plug on my fairy lights, do you have a spare one?" it wasn't a plug, it was a power supply, "well it has 3 pins and goes in a socket, so it's a plug" came the reply when I tried to explain what she actually needed. 

 

[ProDave]

Did I tell you about the loft conversion.  The plans showed a cupboard containing a "boiler" so I wired for that.  When it arrived, the "boiler" was a direct unvented hot water cylinder with 2 immersion heaters, one intended for off peak.

 

[Andy™]

Did I tell you about the loft conversion.  The plans showed a cupboard containing a "boiler" so I wired for that.  When it arrived, the "boiler" was a direct unvented hot water cylinder with 2 immersion heaters, one intended for off peak.

i had the almost opposite once,

supposed to be electric water heaters in each room. each room had a radial installed for this

came to 2nd fix and now there is 1 heater in a cupboard (with no supply as it was never going to be there), and multiple radials to no where...

 

[phil d]

i had the almost opposite once,

supposed to be electric water heaters in each room. each room had a radial installed for this

came to 2nd fix and now there is 1 heater in a cupboard (with no supply as it was never going to be there), and multiple radials to no where...

Sounds like the house me and my mate George have just finished, it was only a 3 bed semi and it took us almost a year! Each time we went back something had changed, so we'd have to alter the wiring, then it would change again. The best one was the downlights in the bedroom, I marked the ceiling with a chalk line and before making any holes I consulted the client, "yes, perfect" ,lights get fitted, great, then he decides he's having built in wardrobes, massive things, instead of making them a couple of inches narrower he pulls out the lights! the wardrobes are dead in the centre of the holes where the fittings go. There was a stud wall built in the hall, we told him it would make the hall too narrow, but oh no he did it, on one side there was a 4 gang switch and a twin socket, on the other a 2 gang and a twin socket, about 3 weeks after it's been second fixed he asks us if we can  just push the wall back about 4 feet! floors are laid, walls plastered everything's lovely, and he moves the wall, thank god for MF connectors, because there's one hell of a junction box, not my preferred option, but otherwise it meant ripping floors up and walls out to replace cables.

He's got a 12 way board installed, 2 ovens, 1 electric shower, an electric hob,(induction) then he starts going on about adding more High load equipment he was only on a 60 amp service and even with diversity he was sailing pretty close. In the end, I told him if he wanted to add any more then he'd need a bigger service installed and it was about 5 grand, that stopped him.

 

[Sidney]

I got called to an 'urgent' fault on one of our customers remote sites, a four hour round trip for me. On monthly maintenance  the FLM engineer had noticed both external lamps not work, both run off their own PIRs. He'd checked all lamps and the MCB was still on.

I arrived on site, noticed on the first PIR the LEDs are cycling as they should, one of those that looks like a Cylon form Battlestar Galactica. I dug my ladders out the back of the van and adjusted the day/night setting, hey presto the lamp comes on. So I adjust back to the night setting.

On the second lamp same again with the LEDs, and same diagnosis.

Apparently he had just waved his hand in front of it, as the lamps didn't come on he assumed they were goosed, didn't even register in his brain that it being daylight thy might not come on...

At least I got five hours overtime out of it...

 

[Andy™]

Sounds like the house me and my mate George have just finished, it was only a 3 bed semi and it took us almost a year! Each time we went back something had changed, so we'd have to alter the wiring, then it would change again.

that sounds exactly like a job at the moment. keeps changing things. wire some rooms, go back a few days later and doorways have been moved so light switches & sockets are just hanging in the air. kitchen plan changed 4 times. utility room got moved from one side to the other etc

 

[phil d]

that sounds exactly like a job at the moment. keeps changing things. wire some rooms, go back a few days later and doorways have been moved so light switches & sockets are just hanging in the air. kitchen plan changed 4 times. utility room got moved from one side to the other etc

I wonder if they watch too many programmes like changing rooms etc, I did 2 bathrooms in this house, 1 had a shower tray corner type. he's a big bloke and I told him a 700X900 cubicle was too small, but he wanted it so it went in. Everything fitted, all tiled and finally they move in, then he asks if I could just replace it with a bigger one! Told him I was too busy and he'd have to get someone else.