bad cooker wiring!

[schmeagle]

Hi all, not that long ago I was laying a laminate floor for my sis in her new house. When we got to pulling the cooker out I noticed, by looking behind the cooker that the cable feeding the power was not clipped in to the cable grip. In fact it was hanging freely out the side lol. That part was not funny admittedly, but the best is still to come. When I then went to remove the power supply I noticed the neautral conductor was in the Line and the Line was in the neutral. I then asked who wired it up and it was my brother in law. He wanted to save twenty quid lol.

So can any one shed some light for him to say how dangerous his act was and what could have happened?

 

[Chud]

Well if the cooker was not on a double pole switch then turning it off at the switch would result in the live cable remaining live and the neutral being switched.
As to the consequences - well a shock from 240V 13A can be fatal so god knows what a cooker feed at 30A would do...

 

[IJWS15]

If he had decided to change an element himself, to save another £20, and had not turned it off at the wall switch (or if only single pole even if he had) the element he was changing would be live because the switches on the cooker itself will only switch live and not neutral.

Potentially fatal shock.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

a shock from 240V 13A can be fatal so god knows what a cooker feed at 30A would do...

Exactly the same - there wouldn't be any more current passing through you from a cooker circuit than there would from a socket circuit via a 13A fused plug.

 

[skenk]

But there would be less resistance on a bigger cable, and a bigger surface area to accidentally touch so the shock would be worse

Or am i talking rubbish?

 

[RF Lighting]

I'm afraid you're talking rubbish.

The few milliohms difference between a 2.5mm² and a 6.0mm² conductor will make no difference to the severity of the shock.

The resistance of a human will limit the shock to milliohms, far less than even a small copper conductor would deliver.

 

[skenk]

Fair enough. I always thought the prospect of getting zapped from say a 'tail was scarier than say a lighting circuit but I suppose the greater danger of a fatter cable is the higher rating of the protective device.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

The amount of current needed to kill you is way less than the tripping point of a B6, so a lighting circuit will do just fine.

What's more dangerous about large cables and large protective devices is the arc you'll get if you create a PE or PN fault.