nachtwulf

I am currently doing a rewire job at a small machine shop in my town, and it seems that every day that I work there I find another dangerous or broken thing.

Day one, "holy c---, where do I start.."

"Ok, they ran 300 ft of 6ga for this 25HP motor, spliced it twice, and are wondering why things are getting a bit warm.." This is in the main compressor room, where everything is running first to a splice, and then to two separate breaker boxes. It was also very convenient for them to run the electric service and the compressed air pipe through the same hole.. This is being replaced with a much shorter run of 4ga (75 ft) and separate low voltage runs.

quot;Surely that exposed pressure switch on the portable compressor tank can't be live.. Oh.. It is.. and how 'bout that. It's 220 fed from the high leg.." (the pressure switch would not shut off the machine, and the safety valve was wired closed. would have made a nice little bang some day..

The shop is in a large steel frame building, and has office and storage areas built into it. Above the tool room is a storage area. I found two poorly ran conduit runs leading up to this storage area. "This does not bode well." I thought. at the other end of the conduit, I find a pair of 4" hexagon boxes, with no less than 7 circuits between the two. no cover, some of them not connected to anything, and a metric butt-ton of romex leading into them. At this time I also notice a run of 6-3 BX that seems to disappear somewhere under the floor as well. At this point, I don't have much other choice than to start ripping out the floor. I am greeted by all of that romex laying ON TOP OF THE FLOOR JOISTS. if you could even call them joists. it's all framed up with 2x4s, and was originally intended only as a ceiling.

Oh, and that BX? it went to a nail in blue 4square, and then off with some 14-2 mc to a 15A receptacle, also in a plastic nail in box. all fed from a 60A three pole breaker The room I have been working on the last few days is part of all of this. at one time it was an unfinished room, with exposed studs. well, someone didn't like that, so they put some OSB sheeting up, covering most of the outlets and junction boxes.

This room had two real gems to it, the first was someone using a standard staple gun to hang romex, the best part being the staples were too narrow to straddle it, piercing the insulation as they hung it. The second shining example was the old first generation GFI outlet, in a single gang handibox, BURIED UNDER THE SHEETING that fed TWO CUT IN OUTLETS down the line "oh, those have never worked? I wonder why..."

Not to mention the light switches in a J-box with a mud ring, and they were using the tabs on the switches to hold it all to the OSB. it was leading off of a hidden J-box, and on both of them they simply bent the box rather than use MC or bend the EMT scrap they used.

In one of the main machine rooms are two large 200A GE service panels. these are stuffed to the gills, and ugly as sin. once again, many dead circuits, bare ends dangling in the box, nothing labeled, you know the drill. the great part here is that the cover has been taken off because "some of the breakers get too hot and keep tripping." this box is about 11 ft away from the CNC router table. this machine flings bits of aluminum everywhere within a 20 ft radius. I found many bits of said aluminum in said box.

All of this is just scratching the surface of what I have found, and everyday that I go back, i keep finding more and more and more.. Oh yeah, stuff like MC feeding the outside AC unit, a mystery extension cord hard wired into an outdoor box on the side of the building, etc, etc..

I have to go in every day reminding myself that anything I touch may try to kill me.. I think I have enough there to keep me busy for a year or two. if it doesn't catch fire first.

Wireless

Feel free to breathe anytime now!

480sparky

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All responses based on the 2008 National Rat Code.

sparkyboys

break that **** down! i aint read all that ****.

i am like 480... at the third sentence

Speedy Petey

So what's the problem???


Welcome to the site!

nachtwulf

Sorry about the condition of the post to start with. the editor is not quite wysiwyg I have discovered..

480sparky

It can be.

Click on User CP

Under Settings & Options, choose Edit Options

Scroll all the way down to Miscellaneous Options and choose Enhanced Interface - Full WYSIWYG Editing.

__________________
All responses based on the 2008 National Rat Code.

InPhase277

Man that's the gravy job! Find everything that you can find, and bill, bill, bill!

MDShunk

I didn't read everything you wrote, but I read enough to think you've stumbled into a bit of job security as long as someone's actually willing to pay you to fix any of it. Spotting wrong stuff is easy. Explaining that it's a hazard, even though it works, is harder. Getting someone to pay to make it right is the biggest challenge of all.

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-Marc, ABC, XYZ, PhD, 1-2-3

-Someday, I'll wear pajamas in the day time.

Celtic

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Magnettica

I eat jobs like this for breakfast.

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classicelectriconline.com

mcclary's electrical

Careful with the bits of aluminum. I worked on a three phase knife grinder and it through metal shavings around. Eventually worked into boxes,,,then starters,,,,,,,,,eventually,,,,,,,,,phase to phase short,,,,,,very loud,,,,,,be careful