yourname wrote:
volts500 wrote:
Bill wrote:

For safety of anyone working on these outlets in the future, I would suggest
using a tiebar breaker (like for 240 volt circuits) for the circuits in
these boxes and placing a note in the breaker panel that these outlets are
on two circuits.

The tiebar will force them to turn off both circuits at the same time.

This would keep someone from turning off the circuit to say the left outlet
and still having live power on the right side and zapping themselves...


I'm sorry, but IMHO, anyone who doesn't check all wires in a box for
voltage deserves what they get......as they don't have any business
doing electrical work in the first place.

Here's the preferred tool to use:
http://www.emsco-usa.com/fluke/flvolt.htm

IMO, using a tied breaker just sets up an unqualified person who has a
very bad habit of not testing for a presence of voltage on all wires
for a wake up call. It doesn't happen a lot but sometimes circuits are
accidently backfed. If the backfeed is on the same leg, the miswiring
often goes unnoticed. I saw this on a circuit just two months ago on a
service call. A tied breaker won't protect against it, as the circuit
will still be fed from another circuit. Bottom line, the first rule to
doing electrical work is to TEST ALL WIRES, even equipment grounding
wires, for voltage with a known to be good tester. If one doesn't want
to invest the $25(US) for the Fluke Volt Alert, or similar device, the
old standby $3 neon tester will do, although more time consuming. And,
yes, both can sometimes give a false positive from induced voltages, in
which case one should investigate further with an analog meter or a
test lamp.

What a load

The tie bar is a damn good idea.

For people who need laws to protect themselves from themselves?

Read this as "anyone who doesn't pay me to do the work is an idiot"

Read it as "how to protect yourself from idiots."

Why did they invent lock out tag out rules?

To keep people like you from energizing circuits that other people are
working on? To absolve employers and insurance companies from
responsibility? LO/TO is one of the biggest screw jobs running for
employees. I once worked for a large, top 50 in the US, electrical
contracting company who went out of their way to bring a safety officer
to the jobsite just to tell 60 electricians that they would be fired on
the spot if they did not use LO/TO. By chance, later that day I had to
LO/TO a 200 amp feeder to work on it. The jobsite LO/TO kit did not
have a 200 amp breaker LO, so I told my supervisor that I needed one.
What do you suppose I was told? That's right, just get r done.

I'd tell you how to _really_ protect oneself in such cases, but since
you seem to think that I'm in it for the money, make a deposit in my
PayPal account and I'll be glad to tell you.

Shouldn't they always check to see if its live?

If they did that then they wouldn't need to have breakers tied now
would they?