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Getting lit up

AJinNZ | Posted in General Discussion on October 27, 2004 12:49pm

Was working on a bathroom remodel last week.

 

Sparky was due at some stage in the day, but no idea when. I needed to keep going so I usually disconnect the plugs/sockets etc and tape up the wires. ( carefully I might add ). The sparky then does his thing and all be good.

 

This day I didnt have any electrical tape on me. So I one by one cut the wires so no bare metal was showing and separated each one so it couldnt touch anything else.

 

Well………………..I wasnt my usual cautious self about electricity and while cutting an earth wire something musta touched something else cos I got bit.

It wasnt a “ZAP………….$#@!&&!!”    that hurt kinda bite, but a “NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN     ZAP!!!” sorta bite.

Yowch. Not something I am in any hurry to repeat. Certainly wakes a fella up in a hurry.

 

Everything, 100% of it, depends on how you look at it.

DW

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Replies

  1. User avater
    JeffBuck | Oct 28, 2004 04:55am | #1

    I still have the same wire strippers ..

    same pair I used one day to cut off a wire ...

    asked Dad ... "this dead"?

    "Yeah ... that whole side of the place is dead" ...

    cut .... bang/flash!

    "Ooooouuucch!"

    him in the other room ... "I mighta missed one" ...

    have a nice little bite taken outta those cutters. They were brand new too ....

    not sure what combination lead to such a pop ... but it was loud and bright!

    never had one quite like that ...

    Jeff

    1. Piffin | Oct 28, 2004 05:01am | #2

      I've lost count how many like that I did before buying a little tester.

      Once cut, good idea to have wire nuts on hand to secure the ends 

       

      Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!

    2. User avater
      Gunner | Oct 28, 2004 05:23am | #5

      "asked Dad ... "this dead"? "   I ALWAYS  answer that question with. "Should be,but I'm not sure." Even if the whole place is dead. Ya never know.Who Dares Wins.

    3. CAGIV | Oct 28, 2004 07:30am | #7

      My uncle did that to me once...

      "this dead?"

      "yep"

      ZAP followed by some not so family friendly words...

  2. pm22 | Oct 28, 2004 05:05am | #3

    Don't know much about Kiwi land but usually there is something known as a breaker panel or a fuse box. What you do is switch off the breaker for the bathroom [it should be labeled right?] or pull the relevant fuse. This should prevent most of these problems.

    Note: if there is a multiwire circuit involved, there may still be current flowing on the neutral.

    ~Peter

    Free the political prisoner Martha Stewart.

    1. User avater
      JeffBuck | Oct 28, 2004 05:19am | #4

      why go running all the way down to the basement when ya can just tap the two wires together?

      first ya gotta run down ... then ya gotta walk all the way back up ....

      Jeff

    2. AJinNZ | Oct 28, 2004 11:19am | #8

      Well, believe it or not we do actually have fuseboards here. With fuses. Even got the new fangly ones with pop out buttons on 'em that ya can push back in without having to fiddle with those teeny lil wire thingies.

      However, the fuseboard usually has things marked as "water heater", "Plugs", "Lights".......etc. Trying to pull the one to the bathroom only means I would hafta use trial and error. In the process I would end up killing half the house, computers, clocks alarm systems.........Thats the reason I dont do it. A sparky can hit the right one every time.

      This was the first time I had cut the wires one by one. Not in a hurry to do it again. Was talking to a sparky the other day. he said a good zap makes him puke, his boss goes all trembly and hyper on it for a while. Either way, not funny.

      Reminds me of my old boss. When he was a youngster he was working in a factory installing a wall or something. Was belting nice big nails in to attach new framing to old. He was hauling back to take another swing at a nail when he saw smoke coming out from where it was being driven. Decided not to go for another hit. Turns out that the nail point had pierced the insulation on a HUGE fat main cable and was a poofteenth away from a massive zap.  

      Everything, 100% of it, depends on how you look at it.

      DW

  3. hacknhope | Oct 28, 2004 06:25am | #6

    Use to have photos.  Husband and wife pair of losers (us) were drilling computer cable holes around the house.  He was upstairs, I down, when he drilled right into a live circuit that had no business being where it was.  Seriously, who would bury a romex cable under a 1/4 inch of plaster along the top of the baseboard?

    Imagine visible electricity coming out of a hole in the wall like a cartoon Martian's ray gun.  You know that sound I heard.  "WHOMP!" beep, whirrrr, as the power drops to the whole street, then electronics come back on line.  Next was the soud of hubby giving the kid next door a new vocabulary lesson, then total silence.  Crap, now I have to go upstairs and find either a dead husband or a very very angry one. 

    No fire.  No injury.  Called a real electrician on emergency basis to assess and fix.  Drill bit had a big glob of copper welded onto it. 

    While the section of wall was opened up we could see that the cable guy had recently missed the same circuit by the width of a hair - his coax cable was actually touching the romex - and he had drilled his hole while on a tall ladder. 

    We're pretty phobic now, and what a good thing that is.  We have a wide and varied collection of circuit testers and you can hear us compulsively chirp-chirping our way around the house, testing everything 16 times in a row.  When doing any simple stuff requiring we throw a breaker, we use cellphones to call the bedroom from the breaker panel, and we each keep a circuit tester on a string around our neck.  We're still too stupid to live long, but this might delay the inevitable.

  4. User avater
    BossHog | Oct 28, 2004 04:03pm | #9

    A couple of years ago, someone gave me a Fluke brand tester - One of those you hold next to a wire, and it lights up when the circuit is live.

    Man, I sure like that thing. It's save me a TON of headaches trying to find out if something is dead or not.

    Two things I've learned though. There was one circuit I just couldn't seem to kill up in my attic. Every time I tested it, it checked out as live. Then it was back down through the house to the basement, turn off another breaker, and back up to the attic to see if it was dead.

    What I eventually figured out was that my right arm was alongside a live section of romex every time I reached up to check the circuit. And that was enough to set the tester off. I had no idea that could happen.

    .

    My next lesson was on an outside receptacle on the south side of the house. I turned off the breaker, then went outside to install it. I check the wire with my Fluke tester, then got out my linesman's pliers and cut the wire off.

    After a loud POP and some smoke I figured out maybe the wire hadn't actually been dead.

    Turns out the little light in the tester isn't bright enough to be seen in the sunlight.

    The proof of liberal virtue is generousity with other people's money [George Will]

    1. mikerooney | Oct 28, 2004 04:08pm | #10

      I plug a radio into the circuit, turn it up loud, go downstairs, and keep hitting breakers 'til the radio quits.Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel within us.  - Eric Hoffer

      1. User avater
        PaulBinCT | Oct 28, 2004 04:20pm | #11

        When I was remodeling the lobby of my business, I had someone turn off "all" the breakers to the lobby... I say "all" because apparently "all" didn't include the one that fed the BX I sliced through with a Sawzall...

        "today boys and girls we will be demonstrating arc welding"...

        My all time favorite elec story...

        Close friend is a paralegal in Boston at a small, mainly family firm.  Two of the partners are father and son... The father's nick name has now become "sparky"...for reasons to follow.

        One day the phone system is acting up, which apparently happened with some regularity due to a bad connection.  Sparky becomes exasperated and summons all the secretaries, etc to the utility closet so he can show them all what to do if it happens again.  The dialog apparently went something like this...

        "OK...gather around, I want you all to see how this is done" he says as he brandishes a pair of scissors. (A believer in "the right tool for the right job, apparently")  The ladies gather around dutifully...

        "OK... can everyone see?  Watch closely, pay attention now" he leans towards the phone system with the scissors....

        "Now, this is how you... "

        bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappppppppppppppp

        Sparky falls over clutching the scissors as sparks erupt from the phone system enclosure (my friend swears his hair was standing on end)...

        The whole phone system for the building was blown out.

        When we chat we still start chuckling and saying "OK- can everyone see? Watch closely now... bbbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzaaaaaaaapppppppppppppppppppppp"

        Edited 10/28/2004 9:29 am ET by PaulB

      2. User avater
        BossHog | Oct 28, 2004 04:30pm | #12

        A radio wouldn't have worked in either of these cases, as there were no outlets on the circuits yet.

        I only mentioned the 2 scenarios because I learned something each time.My reality check bounced!

  5. ClaysWorld | Oct 28, 2004 06:49pm | #13

    Or maybe it was natures way of trying to tell you that the circuit has an energized ground/defective.

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