A
AMC
Hey
Changed a consumer unit yesterday, was an old rewirable, upgraded and installed earthing as there was none. Had just finished carrying out all my testing after the installation when the customer came home and decided he was going to change his single sockets over to doubles. When I was doing my dead testing I inspected the wiring of the sockets, and to be honest, i am surprised the house hadnt already burnt down! He had moved some of the sockets previously and decided to wire them back in, he decided to twist the exposed copper (T&E stranded) into balls then take maybe two strands of the ball and terminate into terminals, leaving about 30-50mm of copper hanging out of the terminals, so when he pushed the sockets back on the walls obviously he was getting neutral/earth faults but with no RCD this never appeared to be a problem to him. I rectified these as they were extremely dangerous and informed him. Yesterday when he decided to change the single sockets for doubles he did the same thing. I had finished my testing and I was filling out the results in the kitchen when one of the RCD's kept tripping out. I had told him the 'wiring' he had done previously was extremely dangerous but his response was 'to be honest i dont care, I wont deal with authority, I'll do what i want, ' The 'its my house' attitude. SO he carried on attempting to wire the sockets in the manner he was and kept tripping out the RCD when he re-energised the circuit.
My problem is now the certification, or if he burns the place down its going to come back on me!. I am Part P. I obviously have the problem of issuing a certificate for the board change knowing he has interfered dangerously with the wiring. Where do I stand on any of this? Ive not had to deal with a situation like this before, generally I have found people that want to do small electrial works round the house have a basic idea of the dangers of electricity. This guy was an arrogant fool and will not be told anything he doesnt want to hear, nor believe you when you try to explain the dangers, he thinks its all a big joke. Any advice appreciated, I am really panicking about this now! I know many of you will probably say I should have probably handled the situation very differently at the time. But he was a very bulshy know it all guy, and i'm a girl, I didnt fancy having a fight with him in his house alone :S
Changed a consumer unit yesterday, was an old rewirable, upgraded and installed earthing as there was none. Had just finished carrying out all my testing after the installation when the customer came home and decided he was going to change his single sockets over to doubles. When I was doing my dead testing I inspected the wiring of the sockets, and to be honest, i am surprised the house hadnt already burnt down! He had moved some of the sockets previously and decided to wire them back in, he decided to twist the exposed copper (T&E stranded) into balls then take maybe two strands of the ball and terminate into terminals, leaving about 30-50mm of copper hanging out of the terminals, so when he pushed the sockets back on the walls obviously he was getting neutral/earth faults but with no RCD this never appeared to be a problem to him. I rectified these as they were extremely dangerous and informed him. Yesterday when he decided to change the single sockets for doubles he did the same thing. I had finished my testing and I was filling out the results in the kitchen when one of the RCD's kept tripping out. I had told him the 'wiring' he had done previously was extremely dangerous but his response was 'to be honest i dont care, I wont deal with authority, I'll do what i want, ' The 'its my house' attitude. SO he carried on attempting to wire the sockets in the manner he was and kept tripping out the RCD when he re-energised the circuit.
My problem is now the certification, or if he burns the place down its going to come back on me!. I am Part P. I obviously have the problem of issuing a certificate for the board change knowing he has interfered dangerously with the wiring. Where do I stand on any of this? Ive not had to deal with a situation like this before, generally I have found people that want to do small electrial works round the house have a basic idea of the dangers of electricity. This guy was an arrogant fool and will not be told anything he doesnt want to hear, nor believe you when you try to explain the dangers, he thinks its all a big joke. Any advice appreciated, I am really panicking about this now! I know many of you will probably say I should have probably handled the situation very differently at the time. But he was a very bulshy know it all guy, and i'm a girl, I didnt fancy having a fight with him in his house alone :S