some things

lchmb

scare you in every profession...

STEVEusaPA

Holy crap! I wonder how many more like that...or even worse

BobC

Imagine some kid sleeping in a room with this kind of stupidity

Bob

Jamie Hall

You have got to be kidding...

Steamhead

All together now..............

Abracadabra

A shame he didn't run the ground wire

Gordy

lchmb said:

scare you in every profession...

Saw that one. Is it genius, ingenuity, lack of funds,or..........

SWEI

Abracadabra said:

A shame he didn't run the ground wire

Doesn't the drywall screw take care of that?

JUGHNE

I pulled this meter 2 years ago to tidy up the bottom connections. Yes, this is hot.....I would not put the meter back in until the top drop connections were cut. There was enough extra wire to pull down to get things to normal. This was installed in the 70's, just waiting for some action.
There was a long list of other issues but this was the most obvious.

KC_Jones

Been helping a friend do some remodeling on his split foyer built in the 70's. Doing some electrical changes new lights, switches etc. Every single wire nut I remove literally falls off in my hand and the wires aren't twisted together...at all. I had one that fell off without even touching it, just pulling the switch out of the box made the nut fall off.

JUGHNE

There were Angels watching over that meter socket for almost 30 years, there was a small fraction of an inch of clearance between one of the hots and neutral. It was one of those things that just take your breath away when you open some boxes up.

As far as loose wirenuts, one of the features of copper is that a loose connection may micro weld the copper together to make a good connection until disturbed.

If that meter socket were disturbed there would have been a major welding event......a really good connection would have been made.........usually until the overhead aluminum triplex burns and drops. By then the side of the house is on fire from the steel EMT burning thru and being red hot.
Some primary transformer fuses have 120 second heat up time before they open, they are not quick to react, this avoids nuisance power outages.

JUGHNE

Erin, by moving my comment to this new category, you have confirmed what the good Sisters in my grade school silently thought but were too polite to say, that this is where I would end up eventually .

Some time back I threw out a term called "The Wailing Wall".
How about a category entitled:
"The Wailing Wall for homeowners Flung into Heating Hell because they accepted the Low Bid".

Seriously, if there was a way for unsuspecting home owners to just review some results of Low Bid Bargains or unknowing contractor installations. It is all here on the wall, but would require days of reading, which most people don't have the time.
Maybe something like "Need a new Boiler? Read these excerpts first....Pictures of: Do not do This."......copper steam piping....bad headers.....not enough risers.....reduced risers....bad venting.....etc. etc.

Just a thought.

KC_Jones

A piece of 12 GA wire going across the 2 buss bars inside the breaker panel (100 amp service) makes a cool welding event AND seems to vaporize copper as well. It will also make your friend disappear up the basement steps. I've done a few bonehead things in my day, but that "accident of stupidity" was top 3 for sure. If I saw that in a meter socket....I would have backed away very slowly and hoped the wind didn't blow the wrong way. Scary stuff.

Erin Holohan Haskell

@JUGHNE - Haha! Nothing personal. Just thought this shocking (!) post belonged in a category of its own. I like your title, but we've got to keep it short and sweet. Let's see how this category develops. It may have us all hiding under the bed!

KC_Jones

It could also make for some good comic relief. @Steamhead will probably get a lot of use out of his favorite phrase.

ChrisJ

This is one of the reasons I went through most of the electrical stuff in my house right after we bought it.

Actually, it took a few months and what triggered it was I measured 105V at a window air conditioner and panicked and started pulling stuff apart to find where my voltage drop was, and just checked everything I could easily get to.

Turned out, I had like 108V at my panel so I emailed the electric company basically saying WTF?!? and included a picture of my Fluke 179 showing it. They never replied, but within a few months there was a new transformer on the pole right outside our house feeding me and our two neighbors. We were previously fed from a transformer down the road that had a whole string of houses on it.

Was kind of annoyed they never replied to me though. I guess the problem being rectified was the important part.

STEVEusaPA

ChrisJ said:

Turned out, I had like 108V at my panel so I emailed the electric company basically saying WTF?!? and included a picture of my Fluke 179 showing it. They never replied, but within a few months there was a new transformer on the pole right outside our house feeding me and our two neighbors. We were previously fed from a transformer down the road that had a whole string of houses on it.

Was kind of annoyed they never replied to me though. I guess the problem being rectified was the important part.

They never respond, I guess for liability reasons. Had a furnace blow out 2 primary controls (should've checked after the first one). When I checked the incoming voltage, had 142 on each leg. Confirmed with 2 different meters, showed it to the owner.
Called the utility company. The owner called back at the end of the day and said the utility company came out and said nothing was wrong.
I went back and checked the incoming voltage...what do you know, 112 volts...hmmmmm

hvacfreak2

I had a digital well pressure switch that had a voltage protection feature to protect the well pump. One day I didn't have water so I went to the basement and the thing was in alarm , the code was over voltage. I went out to the truck and grabbed a meter , measured 278 volts at the switch ( 178 to neutral both phases ). I confirmed with a different Fluke 87 after convincing myself that I wasn't at work ( I do commercial hvac controls ). I called the power company and they told me that I was not qualified to state an official voltage reading. So they sent a guy out to check the problem , he used my meter as it was 10 times better than the one he had. He made a phone call and they sent 2 bucket trucks and a transformer. They worked into the night on a Saturday changing it out. All because of that pressure switch , crazy.

ChrisJ

hvacfreak2 said:

I had a digital well pressure switch that had a voltage protection feature to protect the well pump. One day I didn't have water so I went to the basement and the thing was in alarm , the code was over voltage. I went out to the truck and grabbed a meter , measured 278 volts at the switch ( 178 to neutral both phases ). I confirmed with a different Fluke 87 after convincing myself that I wasn't at work ( I do commercial hvac controls ). I called the power company and they told me that I was not qualified to state an official voltage reading. So they sent a guy out to check the problem , he used my meter as it was 10 times better than the one he had. He made a phone call and they sent 2 bucket trucks and a transformer. They worked into the night on a Saturday changing it out. All because of that pressure switch , crazy.

I'm sure without that pressure switch there would've been complains very soon after. 120V devices don't like running on 170V RMS.

I'd say 128-130 is the absolute maximum and 110 is the lowest I like to see.

The monitor top was engineered to run on a 100-130V range according to GE documents. I'd bet most things are similar even today.

Dean_7

Just a homeowner but whoever did that meter box probably wired my house. I wish I had taken pictures of the things we found when rewiring the house. As Steamhead says, can"t fix stupid.