Pictures of bad electrical installations

[David]

Hello all,

A couple of months ago I started a website that features pictures of bad/lethal home repairs. I'm an electrician by trade, and took a couple of photo's of some bad work I saw whilst doing a house rewire and started the website. The intention of the site is to amuse & horrify those who would not dream of indulging in bad practices.

At the moment most of the examples are electrical, but there are others as well. Some of the examples of bad practice include a two-way lightswitch where the faceplate screws becomes live when the other switch is turned off, wires buried just beneath the plaster, an electric shower that actually has the mains switch IN the shower cubicle amongst other examples.

Currently the content has come from the UK, but I'd really love to feature American examples as well. The site isn't limited to electrical, I'd like to feature other trades. The site has examples done by householders and professionals alike.

If you have any contributions you'd like to submit, you can either email me at this address, or do it via the site.

David

[David]

Hello all,

A couple of months ago I started a website that features pictures of bad/lethal home repairs. I'm an electrician by trade, and took a couple of photo's of some bad work I saw whilst doing a house rewire and started the website. The intention of the site is to amuse & horrify those who would not dream of indulging in bad practices.

At the moment most of the examples are electrical, but there are others as well. Some of the examples of bad practice include a two-way lightswitch where the faceplate screws becomes live when the other switch is turned off, wires buried just beneath the plaster, an electric shower that actually has the mains switch IN the shower cubicle amongst other examples.

Currently the content has come from the UK, but I'd really love to feature American examples as well. The site isn't limited to electrical, I'd like to feature other trades. The site has examples done by householders and professionals alike.

If you have any contributions you'd like to submit, you can either email me at this address, or do it via the site.

David

[Jeff Wisnia]

Feel free to grab this photo of a fused disconnect switch on an outside wall of our home adjacent to the heat pump/AC compressor-coil unit it services.

and:

When that heat pump was recently replaced with a new one, the low voltage control cable wouldn't reach its connection terminals in the new unit. The HVAC installer (Not a licensed electrician.) routed the old control cable and a piece of new cable into the disconnect switch through a knockout in its back, spliced them with wirenuts and said. "All done sir!"

Putting 230 volts and low voltage control wiring in the same box is against code here, as confirmed to me by our town's electrical inspector.

This genius also used wirenuts to connect the new 230 volt cable he ran to the unit to the cut off stubs of the old wires he left in the terminals of the switch. Maybe he couldn't find his screwdriver to undo the terminal screws?

I made the HVAC company come back and do the job properly before I paid them.

Jeff

[HorneTD]

Some good north american examples can be found at

Tom Horne