Ian Malcolm wrote:

Pete C. wrote:
Ian Malcolm wrote:
Iggy is considering working on the feed to his panel. We presume there
is a supply company fuse somewhere upstream but with Iggy, who can tell?


The fuse will be on the primary side of the distribution transformer and
is unlikely to blow if someone shorts one phase in their panel.

I'd expect the screwdriver, wrench or whatever to loose a fair bit off
the end then. Over here, we tend to have a *LOT* of households tapped
off each phase in turn of a three phase 240 V main. Due to the
extremely large current available, the feed to the meter comes through
an electricity company owned fuse, (or one per phase). Wireing up to
that fuse is NOT MY PROBLEM and after the meter is my responsibility. I
can pull that fuse if I need to work on the board, but have to get the
company out to check and reseal it on reconnection.

Here the first protection after the drop is the main breaker in the
house panel. You're responsible for the meter socket on. There are code
limits on the distance the unprotected feeder can travel inside the
house before reaching the main breaker and if the panel and service
entrance need to be further apart you have to provide a main breaker at
the meter socket.

The utility puts their little seal on the meter socket here too, but
they rarely seem to care much about it unless they have reason to
suspect you are stealing power. I had to replace my meter socket on
short notice when it failed some years back so I didn't contact the
utility. It was years later when they changed the meter to the new
remote read ones that they actually put a new seal on it.



I've stripped out some real horrors over here. Pre war as far as I
could tell. Mahogony case with a mica window, two brass buss bars with
*thumbscrews* !!! and either side more thumbscrews and terminals for the
other end of the fuse wires. It had fuses in both live and neutral, (I
belive there used to be a DC system that was symmetrical about ground in
the area) and it had a couple of its set of little sprung flags left
that would pop out into the window when the fuse wire broke to indicate
which circuit was blown. The disconnect feeding that was a knife switch
which had a metal guard that wasn't grounded. The whole lot was wired
with cotton covered wire with totally powdery hard rubber insulation.
Not supposed to still be in service, but the previous owner had been
there since the place had been built back in the 30's. She used to plug
her iron in the kitchen light socket. Between that and a three phase
panel and sub panel in our workshop where some idiot had ripped out the
conduit which had been the sub panel ground and rewired it without one,
and the bare unlabelled buss bars inside, there are plenty of ways to
get in trouble over here.

Yep, the real old stuff can be pretty scary although people are far too
paranoid about old knob and tube wiring. I'm still not sure the "modern"
stuff is all that good in some areas though. I've seen some pictures of
some apparently much newer service equipment that appeared to be quite
new DIN mount breakers and whatnot mounted on a section of DIN rail. All
fin to that point, but this DIN rail was mounted in an under stair
closed to the back of a stair riser with no enclosure around it. I hope
this was just a one off hack job.


The government has finally brought in a law that all domestic
installations must be inspected by an approved contractor (who will
normally insist in being paid to do the work as well as to inspect) and
changed the wiring colours so as to keep the DIYers honest. Looking at
some of the stuff I've seen, I guess its probably for the best, but
those of us DIYers who were working to code are slightly ****ed off
because previously, unless you were very lucky, you'd wind up having to
sort stuff out that wasn't up to spec if you had occasion to open up
any part of an installation that had passed a full inspection, or even
find remedial work you had paied for 10 years ago hadn't been completed.

Here the old stuff is "grandfathered" and allowed, but if you do any
significant electrical work that requires a permit you will generally be
required to bring the old stuff up to code as well. Here the homeowner
can generally do their own electrical work, but they have to get a
permit, follow codes and have it inspected just like any electrical
contractor would. Generally seems to be the best way to do it as I will
not permit anyone to force me to pay someone to do what I can do at
least as well myself.


Nearly everyone was concentrating on insulating the tool, not on
protecting Iggy. IMHO he needs to do *BOTH* so that if something goes
wrong, he's got a chance to come back and tell us how he *nearly* had a
bad accident, rather than the alternative.


We must presume that he has enough sense to not try this while standing
barefoot in a puddle, after all he hasn't killed himself with his RPC or
welder yet.

Pete C.
Well he's gone and done it without running into any trouble, thankfully.

Its been an interesting discussion. Thank you.

--
Ian Malcolm. London, ENGLAND. (NEWSGROUP REPLY PREFERRED)
ianm[at]the[dash]malcolms[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk [at]=@, [dash]=- &
[dot]=.
*Warning* SPAM TRAP set in header, Use email address in sig. if you must.

It's interesting how things vary between countries too.

Pete C.