pictures taken while visiting various sites

**murdock** · 24-Nov-07, 11:13 PM

no enclosure on the isolator

**murdock** · 24-Nov-07, 11:20 PM

the person didnt even know this ballast was burning in the roof i found it while attending to another problem.

**murdock** · 24-Nov-07, 11:41 PM

this could be your ceiling...no cover on the junction box twin + earth connected straight in the top of the box...the people who do this work call themselves electricians...i can see why i am out priced on all the jobs i quote for because i sure as heck could not live with myself if this was the kind of work i was offering but again i will say...the customer wants the cheapest quote this is what you get...i just hope for your sake your house doesnt catch on fire because you and your kids could be in the house sleeping at the time...at least you wont have to worry because the insurance will more than likely just pay out...not do an investigation to determine whether or not it was caused by faulty wiring...you would need to be careful because they to will get wise one of these days at the rate buildings are burning down...as you know if you have an accident and your tyres on your vehicle are smooth or your vehicle is unroadworthy they will not pay out for the repairs to be done...i am sure they are going to get wise when it comes to pay outs for illegal wiring which causes your house to burn down.

**murdock** · 24-Nov-07, 11:49 PM

to the man on the street you wont even see a problem here...the 30 amp circuit breaker has been bypassed and it is now tripping a 50 amp circuit breaker upstream...by the way this DB is in the frail care centre of the old age home.

**murdock** · 24-Nov-07, 11:54 PM

this person smelt something burning...i found this behind the washing machine...the fire had already started.

**murdock** · 25-Nov-07, 12:00 AM

i took this image while doing a routine check at a customers premises note the temperature 102 degrees

**Leecatt** · 22-Jul-08, 07:39 PM

Already your insurance will not pay out if the work done was not covered by a certificate and it causes a fire, there is no doubt about that, read the fine print in your policy.
Lee

**murdock** · 23-Jul-08, 10:30 PM

talking of insurance...to this day i have never heard of a claim not being paid out for a fire caused by bad workmanship...it is apparently too difficult to prove once the fire has burnt the building down...what i could do is sell the insurance companies some of the reports i have done...proving the installation is electrically unsafe...like the shopping centre fire in durban ( we wont mention names) i could have saved the insure company over R200 000 in fire damage...i would have sold the report to them for less than R100 000...i can reduce the risk of fire by doing thermal hotspot scans on the DBS etc and reduce the risk of fires by pin pointing all potential fire hazards.

for the first time i had a customer call me today because they put in a claim for electronic equipment which was damaged due to a surge in power...the insurance is refusing to pay the claim because thay dont have lightning or surge protection installed in the DB

this is gona be an interesting one...i look forward to this inquiry.

**Dave A** · 24-Jul-08, 08:45 AM

Originally Posted by murdock

for the first time i had a customer call me today because they put in a claim for electronic equipment which was damaged due to a surge in power...the insurance is refusing to pay the claim because thay dont have lightning or surge protection installed in the DB

this is gona be an interesting one...i look forward to this inquiry.

It would be great to know how that one turns out.

**Marq** · 25-Nov-07, 11:04 AM

I am not familiar with electrical problems/assessments/compliance and the various codes of the ECA and who is responsible for what. I only have my experiences to go on here and it would be nice to know what the actual situation is with regard to responsibilities.

As an example - It seems that if I have an electrical compliance certificate in hand (say after having bought a house) and a problem crops up later on with, say junction boxes not having covers on in the roof. I have to look for that electrician to come and rectify the problem. He is my only recourse of action. If he has 'disappeared' - there is nothing I can do beside get another electrician in at my cost to rectify the problem.

ECA or whoever issued the electrician with a certificate to practice is not held responsible to resolve the situation.

Is this true?

I recently had work done where cable to a plug in one of my rooms was rewired and joined to an existing junction box in the roof. I asked for a compliance certificate for the work done and was told that I was not compliant as, one of the many problems, the junction boxes had no covers. Now this 'electrician' says there were no covers to start with, so he did not put any on when he fixed the wiring problem.

So where do I go to resolve this - the original electrician who gave the compliance certificate when I bought the house, bearing in mind that nobody has been in the roof since and that situation must have existed at the time of sale - or to this electrician for not having done a simple task like put a cover on. Putting a cover on would be less time than writing the report and discussing who is responsible for what, cost a few bucks and problem resolved. Or is the ECA responsible for or have insurance for certifying idiots and wanna be electricians that they say can do the job.

To an outsider here - it appears as if there are no real ground rules, no one to take responsibility, anyone with a screwdriver in hand can be an electrician and one can get ripped off by any 'certified' sparky.

but they all fall on deaf ears because personally i think nobody wants to take on this massive problem.

- I assume that you know this game and have the same problems and concerns that I have. So when you have a problem............what do us non wired peoples do?