"Jerry G." wrote in message
...
I don't know your service experience, but you gave a simple example of
why professional service people warn people who don't have the proper
training and experience to give their service work out to qualified
services to have their repairs done.

I know of cases where people have had injury from a terrible electric
shock, of cases where people had fires, and who were injured from
exploding parts that have not been correctly replaced.

But... For some reason many people think they can do the work
themselves, thinking that they will save a few dollars.


Jerry G.
======


Hmmm, here's a little story-

After several attempted and failed warranty repairs on my cooker to fix the
same fault, and all by different engineers, my son leant on the metalwork
and got a shock. I did a quick test with a multimeter from chassis to a
nearby earth point and, guess what- no earth.

I removed the small access panel on the back of the cooker where the mains
feed enters, and discovered that the internal earth leads had been
disconnected from ther terminal block and taped together. The mains lead had
also had its earth disconnected from the block and had a small length of
thin, solid core red wire taped to it which went nowhere.

One tech who came out said he'd 'done something to the wiring' to try and
eliminate the fault (the clock and oven randomly go off) so it's likely he
is responsible for this, but the worrying thing is that all the techs have
signed the paperwork saying that the appliance had been tested for safety.
The first rule of checking for electrical safety is surely checking the
earth- it took me literally 5 seconds so why did they all miss this? The
engineer who called today said it was disgraceful and he would be 'having a
quiet word' with the engineer who did it, but I had to suppress the urge to
point out that *he* was happy enough to sign it off as safe without checking
it, pots and kettles spring to mind.

So, no offence, but qualified techs can and do not only screw up but are
capable of potentially homicidal recklessness. Some individuals are
competent, some are not, regardless of qualifications. I have no formal
qualifications but I would *never* have done something like this, the
importance of a good earth on metal kitchen appliances is blatantly obvious
and cannot be overstated. Had I not have had an electronic background, the
missing earth may well have gone unnoticed and the shock may have been
dismissed as static. The consequences don't bear thinking about.

Morse