It's been a strange week for...

[securespark]

It's been a strange week so far for finding things in odd places:


Earth wire connected to a meter...

Shower switches inside the cubicle...

Plastic flower pots over SELV downlighters...

Cat pee inside sockets...(ecuse this one, it's only VGA...)

 

[kkynaston]

Is that a meter bypass?

Seen a few of those, mainly in Stafford

 

[RF Lighting]

Looks like it, even though it appears to still be in credit.

Not a very safe way of doing it

 

[GaryMo]

Some good pictures.
Love the bypass and flower pots though would have expected to see signs of melting. How long had they been there?

 

[Adam_151]

It doesn't work as well as you might imagine if you think about it quickly...

The current coil/shunt in the meters are obviously going to be very low reistance anyway, so a bit of 10mm² copper across the meter doesn't reduce it anywhere near as far as zero (like some non electricial folk hope for")

 

[plugwash]

OTOH not reducing it as far as zero probablly makes it much less likely to get detected........

The metering position has always seemed to me to be a rather stupid place to steal leccy from anyway since it regularlly gets looked at by the meter readers (maybe less so if there is a key meter)

To the sparkies here: if you find leccy stealing setups do you report them?

 

[GaryMo]

To the sparkies here: if you find leccy stealing setups do you report them?

I wouldn't report a customer. What's the point? No personal gain only the loss of a customer and anybody else through word of mouth from him/her.

 

[tchandlerk]

Maybe you can add my pic of the water heater the council shouldnt have put above my bath because its only IPX1

http://www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=904087#904087

 

[Click-Sure]

Seen more sophisricated stealing setups than that, nobody has ever told me about having to report anybody. Agree with GaryMo

 

[securespark]

To the sparkies here: if you find leccy stealing setups do you report them?

Yes, however, UU don't want to know.

I rang once, explaining the situation. "We have to send someone out", said the girl, "Give me a time when they will be in otherwise we will have to charge them for the visit".

"Well," I said, "Let me just ring them up and tell them you're coming to look at their dodgy meter & when will they be in?"


EDIT: A better piccy of the cat socket...

 

[Deleted member 54734]

It doesn't work as well as you might imagine if you think about it quickly...

The current coil/shunt in the meters are obviously going to be very low reistance anyway, so a bit of 10mm² copper across the meter doesn't reduce it anywhere near as far as zero (like some non electricial folk hope for")

People tend to do it when the meter as run out of credit usually with a bit of coax.

Can't really tell from that pic but I would have thought the figures on the meter were the debt that was adding up not how much credit is left.

Their will be someone round once the computer in the office flags up they haven't used their key for a bit, and if they do use their key now they'll have to pay the debt off first before the meter will go back into credit.
Chances are the meter will report it's been interfered with anyway.

Had a nice job on wednesday where the cutout that had gone up due to interference and left a hole in the wall, they had then bridged where the fuse should have been with a bit of wire.
Had to stay on site to make sure no one touched it until mains came
Forgot my phone to take the pics.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I wouldn't report a customer. What's the point?

Err - how about your civic duty to report a crime?

And how abut your professional duty not to conspire by omission with your client to commit criminal acts?

No personal gain only the loss of a customer and anybody else through word of mouth from him/her.

Well - as you're obviously proud to receive endorsements from criminals, and see nothing wrong with accepting money that they have stolen I can see why you would fear the loss of business from other criminals.

 

[GaryMo]

Well - as you're obviously proud to receive endorsements from criminals, and see nothing wrong with accepting money that they have stolen I can see why you would fear the loss of business from other criminals.

Slightly over the top and nowhere did I say I was proud of anything.
Anyway, I really couldn't care less what you think so moan away.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Slightly over the top and nowhere did I say I was proud of anything.

Oh well - the fact that you are ashamed of your attitude is a start.

Anyway, I really couldn't care less what you think so moan away.

It's plain from your attitude that you won't carry out either your civic or professional responsibility to report crimes for your own selfish financial reasons that you couldn't care less what anybody thinks.

 

[sparkybird]

yes, me too.

First off had some DIY links between peak and off peak fuseboards - luckily, since they forgot about the earth, it was done so badly that they didn't work (although lots of nice melted connector blocks)

Then ring circuit, each end terminated into two different 32A mcb's - one on RCD and one not (neutrals also matching!). Was actually called out for something else but had a funnny feeling about the fuseboard so decided to make some extra checks...

Finally oven not working as flex for it had been 'extended' by twisting together the stranded conductors and wrapping in masking tape - all nice and burnt to a crisp.

Hope next week is better!