John E wrote:

A machinist moved his shop across town and required some rewiring (3-phase
outlets, conduit, etc.) in order to locate some machines where he wanted
them.

He hires a guy who's not a pro (and later discovers is not insured) but has
done shop wiring before and had a good attitude and track record. The guy
does good work. No complaints about the quality of his work.

It is the owner of the shop to make sure the electrician he hired was licensed
and if needed insured. Since you did not say where this happened, I can only
make a blanket statement.

If the "guy" represneted himself as a licensed electrictian, then there may
be some criminal liability here for fraud. If he did not claim to be licensed,
or the owner of the business knew that he was not licensed, he is free and
clear.

If the owner hired him knowing he was not licensed, then it was his
responsability to hire a licensed electrician to inspect the work before
he "threw the switch". If he did not, he may be subject to criminal and
civil penalties, have his electricity turned off, etc.


Owner throws the switch, all works fine.

The story continues 4 weeks later when the very expensive CNC fries its
controller PCB to the tune of $4000.

Turns out the voltage in the shop was upward of 245 and the taps in the CNC's
power supply were set for 220.


And how do you know that? What device did you use to measure the voltage.
Assuming the voltmeter was accurate to 2% and rounded up, 240 volts would read
245. The difference is negligable anyway.

As for the voltage setting on the device, it's not the "wiring guy's" job.

Would you want some random "handyman" poking around inside of an expensive
CNC machine?

What is the legal and moral responsibility of each party?

I am not a lawyer, but from my (mis)understanding, as long as the "guy" did
not represent himself as an expert on the machine in question, or as a licensed
electrician, ALL of the responsability falls on the owner of the business and
none on the "guy" or anyone's insurance company.


What will not be helpful are replies about the character or intelligence of
either of the players or their actions.

Well, I'm going to make one. If the "guy" was up front about his not being
licensed, nor trained on the insides of the CNC machine, he is of good
character and reasonable intelligence.

Let's just say that the person who hired him was also of good character and
intelligence, but ignorant of the law and the requirments of equipment.

He's lucky that all he suffered was one $4000 board failing, not his
entire factory burning down around him with no insurance.

If in the future, he does not hire a licensed electrician to perform the
necessary inspections, etc, nor a properly trained technician to inspect
the equipment, you can say something very different.

I also think it is fair to assume that he has by now had a licensed electrician
in to inspect the work, and a trained technicain in to check all of his
equipment. If he has not done both.........


BTW, if both locations are connected to the same "power grid", it is
unlikely that the line voltage was 220 volts in the old location and 240
in the new one.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM