Is my electrician dangerous? Please read

Point out your concerns to the inspector. He has the final word. Either
it's acceptable or it's not. Why all this tap dancing? If it fails, call
the GC and tell him it failed, and why, and to send a different electrician
to fix it. Maybe it will pass, and you're jousting with windmills.

Steve

Posted by Don Klipstein on June 10, 2008, 1:39 am

>> OK. My electrician has 1 feed for one of my bedrooms and a couple plugs in

>> hallway. The feed coming from my basement to my 2nd story has a short.

>> They

>> think the drywall or siding guys screwed into the wire. The circuit was

>> tripping so what he did was tied the neutral white wire into the breaker

>> and

>> then tied the black into the neutral bar of my panel. All works

>> plugs/lights

>> work. I caught this before and asked why he put the black on the neutral

>> bar

>> and the neutral wire on the breaker. He said he had a short somewhere and

>> did that to find where the problem is.

>> So when I was at work I was told by my contractor that the electrical was

>> fixed up and ready for final inspection. Curious as I am, I decided to

>> take

>> the cover off of my panel and found that he didn't make the change but

>> that

>> he put black tape over the neutral wire and back into the circuit breaker

>> and left the black on the neutral bar.

>> I called my contractor (not the electrician) and told him what he did and

>> said that there was no way that this would pass inspection. Am I wrong? Is

>> this a fix that would pass inspection? Is this a common thing for

>> electricians to do? This to me seems like a lazy fix, but am not sure if

>> this presents a hazard.

>> Like I said everything works in my hallway and bedroom so I am thinking he

>> reversed his wiring to make things work. So what it appears to me is that

>> the black wire is hitting the ground wire form when someone screwed the

>> drywall or siding.

>> Please offer me some advice and please let me know what I should say to

>> the

>> electrician when I question him on it. I know he will say hey don't worry

>> it

>> is safe, but I need to know if it is not safe and if it is not safe why it

>> isn't safe to do this. That way he will not jerk me around and it would

>> appear like I know what I am talking about.

>> I am almost thinking about telling my general contractor that he will not

>> get paid for my reno until this electrical situation is fixed properly and

>> I

>> am thinking about getting another electrician to make the fix because I

>> don't think I can trust this electrician.

>> Any and all advice is welcome

>> Thanks in Advance

>Point out your concerns to the inspector. He has the final word. Either

>it's acceptable or it's not. Why all this tap dancing? If it fails, call

>the GC and tell him it failed, and why, and to send a different electrician

>to fix it. Maybe it will pass, and you're jousting with windmills.

Point this out to the inspector. I have a strong impression that making
switches end up in the grounded conductor and having any outlets get
hot-neutral reverses is against code.

Point this out to the inspector - I have heard of inspectors not looking
at everything.

- Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

Posted by Doug Miller on June 10, 2008, 7:24 am

wrote:

>> OK. My electrician has 1 feed for one of my bedrooms and a couple plugs in

>> hallway. The feed coming from my basement to my 2nd story has a short. They

>> think the drywall or siding guys screwed into the wire. The circuit was

>> tripping so what he did was tied the neutral white wire into the breaker and

>> then tied the black into the neutral bar of my panel. All works plugs/lights

>> work. I caught this before and asked why he put the black on the neutral bar

>> and the neutral wire on the breaker. He said he had a short somewhere and

>> did that to find where the problem is.

[snippo]

>Point out your concerns to the inspector. He has the final word. Either

>it's acceptable or it's not. Why all this tap dancing? If it fails, call

>the GC and tell him it failed, and why, and to send a different electrician

>to fix it. Maybe it will pass, and you're jousting with windmills.

If it passes, then the inspector isn't any more competent than the
electrician. There are multiple Code violations here:
a) at least one place where the cable isn't adequately protected against nail
or screw penetration
b) damaged cable as a result of a)
c) neutral conductor now connected to something grounded as a result of b)
d) use of black wire for neutral
e) use of white wire for hot
f) hot and neutral reversed at EVERY receptacle on the circuit
g) EVERY switch on the circuit in the neutral conductor instead of the hot

Posted by Norminn on June 10, 2008, 5:24 pm

Doug Miller wrote:

>>>OK. My electrician has 1 feed for one of my bedrooms and a couple plugs in

>>>hallway. The feed coming from my basement to my 2nd story has a short. They

>>>think the drywall or siding guys screwed into the wire. The circuit was

>>>tripping so what he did was tied the neutral white wire into the breaker and

>>>then tied the black into the neutral bar of my panel. All works plugs/lights

>>>work. I caught this before and asked why he put the black on the neutral bar

>>>and the neutral wire on the breaker. He said he had a short somewhere and

>>>did that to find where the problem is.

>>>

>[snippo]

>>Point out your concerns to the inspector. He has the final word. Either

>>it's acceptable or it's not. Why all this tap dancing? If it fails, call

>>the GC and tell him it failed, and why, and to send a different electrician

>>to fix it. Maybe it will pass, and you're jousting with windmills.

>If it passes, then the inspector isn't any more competent than the

>electrician. There are multiple Code violations here:

>a) at least one place where the cable isn't adequately protected against nail

>or screw penetration

>b) damaged cable as a result of a)

>c) neutral conductor now connected to something grounded as a result of b)

>d) use of black wire for neutral

>e) use of white wire for hot

>f) hot and neutral reversed at EVERY receptacle on the circuit

>g) EVERY switch on the circuit in the neutral conductor instead of the hot

Most of this thread is stuff I don't understand - which is neutral,
ground, etc. Last summer, the upstairs
neighbor in our condo was remodeling. He put in new flooring. We had
three electrical outages in part
of our unit, the third being the final one because resetting the breaker
didn't work the last time. At the
moment the power went out the first time, hubby and I were sitting in
our dining room and heard the
hammer hit the floor upstairs right above us at the moment the power
went out. The last time it went out, I went
upstairs right away to talk to the idiot doing the work. He explained
what and where he was working,
which helped greatly when the electrician arrived.

Bottom line, the electrician said the conduit between our units was too
close to the flooring above - it should
have been deeper in the rafter space. He also said that he had no doubt
the nails had penetrated the conduit
because the guy used a power nailer (which he had denied). The
electrician knew precisely what do do,
based on where we told him the damage had occurred. Just to prove the
line that he believed was damaged
was actually the one, he switched two connections at the main panel.
That didn't work, so he started pulling
the bad wire out - it had burnt through entirely and had numerous nicks
in the insulation from nail penetrations.
I was amazed that the electrician was able to feed new wire through the
conduits as far as he was able to - I had
pictured someone tearing all my ceilings open to fix the problem.

So, in the situation with a contractor and a sub, I certainly would put
my concerns in writing to the contractor and
ask him to correct the problem to code, with a different electrician if
need be. Whoever hired the electrician should
be the person dealing with him. A chat with the contractor is proof of
nothing if the situation goes bad; a nice, busi-
ness-like letter is better.

Posted by Phisherman on June 10, 2008, 8:35 am

On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:44:43 GMT, "Doobielicious"

>OK. My electrician has 1 feed for one of my bedrooms and a couple plugs in

>hallway. The feed coming from my basement to my 2nd story has a short. They

<snip>

You can label a wire on both ends using a tag or paint to make it
another color. In other words you can put black tape on both ends of
a white wire to use it as a hot wire. Any experienced electrician
should know what it takes to pass inspection. Personally, I don't
give a rat's ass about a government inspection, but I do care about
safety.

Page 6 of 8 < 1 2 3 > last >>

Similar Threads	Posted
read sms	January 16, 2007, 7:57 am
must read !!	January 17, 2007, 5:55 pm
Did you read about that?	May 5, 2007, 9:24 pm
PITY NOONE WILL READ THIS :-(	October 10, 2005, 10:52 am
PITY NOONE WILL READ THIS :-(	October 10, 2005, 10:53 am
CO detectors read "10"	February 7, 2006, 7:48 pm
ac woes, again..read other one first	July 30, 2006, 7:00 pm
Lfy need to know more read the message	March 3, 2007, 9:43 pm
Read and Be Warned...	May 10, 2007, 9:32 am
Excuse me!! will you read???	July 24, 2007, 5:40 am

XML Sitemap