No electrician worth his salt would insert/tighten/remove cables on a live circuit unless he has a death wish.Therefore,he should switch off the supply and check that the circuit is 'not live' before commencing work. Why then do I see electricians screwdrivers and pliers which claim to be 1000 volts fully insulated,or are these made purely for the idiots to use?
I presume you haven't worked on triac circuits with a cro? This is where you have to remove the cro earth lead and wear gloves to tweak the controls. Try it, it's fun ;)
Here's another one for you. Many moons back, my old chap used to do small scale theatrical lighting. The dimmers were - galvanised buckets full of salt water connected to 240V live. Shovels connected to the bulbs. Dunk the shovels = brighter lights. Safe as houses, the shovels had wooden handles :D
Good question. The 'leccy that did my extension added a new ring (spare way in the CU) and swapped a type B MCB for a type C on the downstairs lighting without turning the power off.
Due to a misunderstanding between him and my builder he only brought one type C MCB 'coz he didn't know we have separate up- and downstairs lighting circuits. He offered to cpme back and fit the other one but asked if I was happy to fit it myself (to save hime making a 40 mile rould trip) if he sent me an MCB. No problem - with the power off - but now I'm wondering if I can/should do it live. The CU is an MEM Memera2000
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(scroll down for a "cover off" view). Having pulled the front cover off mine it seems I don't need to get my fingers any closer than 50mm to the hot stuff. What do you reckon? Should I do it live or not?
Rubbish. Brushing a suspect cable with the back of a finger is a well-proven way to check whether it is live or not. Just make sure you're not standing in an earthed bucket of water at the time.
It is an extra safety level, just in case the circuit you isolated isn't the right one. I've worked on a 3-phase supply that I though was dead before discovering that one phase had an extra connection to the incoming main. As I was standing on 6mm thick rubber safety matting at the time, I didn't get a shock, even though I was working on a brass terminal with an uninsualted allen key.
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