Tightness, misplaced confidence and stupidity can have near fatal consequences.
I think it is fair to say my next door neighbour has a reputation of having very deep pockets and very short arms. Which means he tackles many DIY jobs that he does not have the skill set to deliver on.
Potentially Fatal Horror 1:He roped me in to sort out the plumbing side of his central heating system where he was getting an overheating fault. The boiler's manual showed the flow direction feed and return pipes and from this I could see that the pump was pumping in the wrong direction. It was apparently installed by his lads friend, who knows nothing about plumbing.
This cured the overheat problem, but highlighted a new problem with the boiler not igniting when the cover is on. Last week I took the advice on here and told him to get a gas fitter out to service the boiler and check the setup.
However, today it was still not igniting and they had no hot water. When he was demonstrating the problem, I said, I could smell gas, he said that's because it is not lighting, no, I can smell gas, he repeated that's because the boiler is not lighting. No, you have no windows or door open and it has a sealed flue, you have a flue leak and you must not use the boiler under any circumstances. I explained to him a gas fitter at this point would be putting tape on the boiler and the on-off switch banning its use. A leaking flue could be pumping carbon-monoxide into the room with the consequences that the first you and your wife will know about it is when you are knocking on the pearly gates.
I was worried as I don't think he understood the potentially fatal consequences of the situation.
Anyway, while I was there he got hold of a friend who is a registered gas fitter, who is going to service and fix the boiler next Friday. I told him to make sure he knows that you can smell gas in the room when it doesn't ignite.
Almost Fatal Horror 2:I told him to use his immersion heater, he said, I can't it keeps blowing fuses, I've replaced the immersion heater 3 times in the last 3 months, it works for about a week then keeps blowing fuses. As he had installed it I told him I would check the wiring.
As soon as I saw the cable, I knew things were very wrong. 6A non-heat proof cable had been used from the switch to the immersion heater. When I told him that's the wrong cable, he said, the man at our local hardware shop told him it would be okay, when he replaced the cable and the fused switch, along with a broken immersion heater.
Right, we will go and get the right cable now or I won't touch it. When I undid the screws on the switch to install the new cable, the full horror of the situation became apparent. A combination of the terminal screws holding the insulation rather than the copper wire and an underrated cable meant there had been a small fire in the switch. I was a bit shocked at that point as this is now in my top three electrical horror discoveries. The insulation around the neutral cable was burnt about 25mm along its length and had partially melted the internal switch plastic and the live was burnt about 10mm along its length.
When I told him he was one fuse not blowing away from losing his house in a fire and when the fire brigade report highlighted the incorrect undersized cable, there would have been no insurance payout, if you were lucky, or burnt to death during the night where the immersion heater was 24 hours a day. He went very quiet and very white.
So one new switch and correct cable later the immersion heater is now wired and working correctly.
I've also told him to get a carbon monoxide detector and place it in their utility room, to make sure there is still not a problem after the boiler has been serviced. This has so far fallen on deaf ears, but I will have a word with his wife in the next few days as she is somewhat more sensible and was very, very shocked when she saw the remains of the switch and cable, with her husband stuttering with an explanation on why it was everybodies fault but his.
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Topic: Tightness, confidence and stupidity (Read 1081 times)