Electric shocks-How long to wait before you call an electrician

[ARWadsworth]

My O level physics teacher turned the installation of a new blackboard (chaulkboard if you are PC) into a very interesting lesson. The whole class helped to fit it and remove the old one. He managed to turn the lesson into fun. Not only were there drills and spirt levels etc but the class also weighed the board and worked out how much tension there was on the screws holding the board up (probably not accurate but it was only O level).

He would probably get fired for repeating that lesson if he did it today.

Adam

[Tim S]

Andy Dingley coughed up some electrons that declared:

Exactly - and that's why Britain is pretty much down the pan :(

Although, even without having a copy of the OnSite Guide or green book, common sense should indicate to even the more uninformed that "if switch have wires, wires have to be somewhere in wall in the general direction of switch".

[whisky-dave]

Ah but doe these wires come from above, below to the left or right, or perhaps diagonally. You really shouldn't trust a switch to have been put in correctly.

[Tim S]

whisky-dave coughed up some electrons that declared:

Apart from diagonally, all the others should be assumed to be likely.

I'm chasing my cables in at the moment and an using all of the permitted zones bar the 150mm from ceiling one.

But you are right, a sensible man will have a cable detector handy.

A real man however will lick the wall and detect the leakage with his tongue!

[ARWadsworth]

500 lines of

Do not electrocute the childen.

Adam

[ARWadsworth]

If the customer is blind you could just pretend to put the picture up.

Adam

[js.b1]

If the house predates 13th Amended (late 1987) then assume wires will be diagonal, indeed assume diagonal to the shortest possible route.

[The Natural Philosopher]

In all cases, don't assume anything.

AFAIAC the regulations are not there to prevent you hitting cables, they are there to make it a lot less likely, that's all.

[John Rumm]

Its amazing the number of people that it never seems to occur to though.

Was speaking to a chap once about the trouble he had installing a phone socket for a friend. She said where she wanted it, so he fixed it and then set about the cable run. She interrupted and said "Oh no, I don't want any of those wires". So he explained the wire was required for the phone socket to work. She did not believe him, and countered by saying "Well the mains socket does not have any wires!". He tried to explain they were buried in the wall, and she refused to believe it!

There are probably government rules against actually teaching kids useful stuff these days!

[whisky-dave]

I think it's lack of real education and actually doing things rather than writing about them. I remember the days when appliances and plugs came separately. If you didn't know how to wire a plug, you'd find out. Now it seems that the majority of learning comes from writing essays and doing multiply choice questions. If you're not good enough to go to uni. tio get some written qualification you're all but written off unless you want to become army fodder for the next 'war'.

[Scott M]

Isn't that the initiation ceremony for the Masons?

[ARWadsworth]

God Bless Them. If he does not then it is £30 an hour at their house when I am there.

Adam

[Lobster]

Not if you were my mother-in-law you didn't. Christ....

David

[Dave]

Are you so cheap?

Dave

[John Stumbles]

Working in a computer centre in the late 70s/early 80s I learned to beware of teletypes connected on otherwise-innocuous twisted phone line circuits :-)

[Tim S]

John Rumm coughed up some electrons that declared:

Wibble...

I bet they get me on the drawing pins first. Must give children pointy things....

[The Medway Handyman]

You would be surprised. Hang pictures, assemble simple flatpack like bathroom cabinets/shoe racks (4 confirmat screws), change bulbs (now a H&S issue, needing a risk assesment), install washing machines (no plumbing, simply connect feed & waste & plug in), supply & fit new sink plug & chain.

Mus'nt grumble though.

[The Medway Handyman]

Thankfully few :-)

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Tim S writes

we didn't have the nanny state and the likes of Part Pee then.

cars were designed to be user-serviceable then. nowadays you're lucky if you can change the oil yourself. Everything else is hidden away under plastic covers.

[John]

It seems that many can't change a failed brake light bulb - or don't care.

I told a driver recently that his had gone (why is it always the nearside one??) and he replied that his MOT was due in a couple of months time. Doh!