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FPE article in paper

2192 Views 6 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  JohnJ0906
This is an article in a local paper one of my foremen brought in. I suspect we may see an upswing in panel changes soon!:whistling2:

It has a "Q" and "A". I just love the question part. It starts out, "We had a handyman....":laughing:

http://www.hometownglenburnie.com/vault/cgi-bin/gazette/view/2007G/06/30-33.HTM
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Nice article. I see that Doug Hansen is in the credits. I've got a few books he's authored or co-authored. If I'm not mistaken, he used to work for Joe Tedesco once upon a time.
Nice article. I see that Doug Hansen is in the credits. I've got a few books he's authored or co-authored. If I'm not mistaken, he used to work for Joe Tedesco once upon a time.
Marc: Yes, I hired him to work for NTT, Inc., as an Instructor, he dislikes being called Doug!
"
Q: We had a handyman over doing some work on our house.
He needed to move an electrical outlet and so he took a piece of wire, bent it into a U shape and stuck both ends into the socket to trip the circuit out.

It turned into a fireworks show with sparks and flame shooting out burning his hand and scorching the outlet. The breaker didn't trip.

He said he'd never seen that happen before and that he tripped out circuits he was going to work on that way all the time. He said this was the first time anything like this has happened."


Anyone doing this needs to be fired and removed from the job,ASAP.

FIRE THE HANDYMAN IMMEDATLY, my first thoughts also, not defending FPE, but this is not uncommon issue when trying to trace circuits with a BENT piece of wire.
I also have seen this practice first hand. I once worked with a guy that did it all the time. I always told him not to do it, but he insisted it was the easiest way to find the breaker.
One day searching for the "hidden" breaker he pulled out some #10 and proceded to short out the recept. I again told him not to do it. That I would find the breaker. Well I left the room he was in and went and sat in the truck thinking to myself how dangerous this man was. I planned on discussing this issue with our company owner.
The next thing that happened was an ambulance and cop car came racing into the parking lot.
To make a long story short. He burned 4 fingers on his hand real bad, hurt his back out when he fell "was blown back" and promplty was fired after he got better.
We were talking about this at the shop, and someone pointed out, not only breakers that don't trip (any defective breaker, not just FPE) but the old penny-under-the-fuse trick would make this super dangerous.

I have even seen where someone landed wire under the main lugs BEFORE the main service disconnect (Main breaker). That is a really stupid practice.

As soon as I started reading this article, I knew this would be a big topic of discussion.
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