ok I'm... I have no words. whoever worked on wiring in this apt before me (but long after those who built it) used a screw terminal in a junction box. and into that screw terminal they put what? some wires twisted together, quite badly. and in the other side? bingo. aluminium!
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on the left, three mystery wires in decaying cloth insulation go into the wall. on the right, it's phase, neutral and protective earth. there has been no protective earth spec'd when the house was built. none of the mystery wires cannot possibly be protective earth. what
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
since people required photographic proof, here it is, mystery junction boxpic.twitter.com/F7loN4Vhuv
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
when the lights are on, all three wires are at the same potential -and- my indicator screwdriver says they're all live. when the lights are off there's 220Vac between BLU and BRN, and 10Vac (what) between BLU and G/Y. I don't even know.
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
when I poked with a meter, it made an omnious crackling sound and the lights started to flicker so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this requires replacing right about fucking now
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
there's a fan in the wall near the light switch. if I turn the fan on, precisely one ceiling lamp also turns on. the same ceiling lamp turns on if I flip the switch as well. here I filmed itpic.twitter.com/j9CCnABoGE
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
I think at this point I need less an "electrician" and more an "exorcist". I'll call the local church
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
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I did some measuring and -of course- the light switch is inserted in the zero circuit. so the lamp is energized when it's turned off. this isn't even the Carter system they just wired it backwards
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
in order to rewire this circuit I flipped off one of the switches in the distribution box. kitchen and bathroom lighting and -all- sockets went dead but living room and bedroom lighting stayed on. what
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
why are all sockets and precisely two out of four ceiling lamps are on a single 16A breaker. why is the bathroom socket (and absolutely nothing else) that has only a low-power washing machine on its own 16A circuit. why is none of this shit behind a GFCI
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
this wire (that's at *best* 1.5sqmm) goes into electricity meter and then supplies three 16A circuits. both the wire feeding it and the one going out of the meter are far thicker. is it supposed to blow like a fuse before any of the three breakers trip? I won't be surprised
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
of -course- since the power into the apartment goes directly through a pair of twisted Al wires--there's no breaker before the meter, though the code requires one--I have no way of fixing this short of getting out dielectric gloves and working on this shit live. Do Not Want
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
"oh look a piece of tape i bet that's just junk let me rem..." so the person who installed the lamp managed to cut the insulation of wire that DID NOT HAVE OUTER PVC SHEATH. HOW. HOW ARE YOU THIS BAD AT ITpic.twitter.com/W6ZN5LQ6R3
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
if this house wasn't slated for demolition in several years (no one in the government can coherently say when, only that it is. they used to say this year but then they did cosmetic repair instead, because that makes sense) I would literally just replace all wiring and appliances
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
honestly tempted to do it anyway but that's like 30-50m of new wiring to put in cable channels and it's both expensive (copper aint cheap) and labor intensive so I'll reuse the old wiring in walls on the assumption that LED lamps are just not enough current, and redo junctions
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
correction: that breaker switched off all sockets except precisely two completely arbitrary oneshttps://twitter.com/whitequark/status/1013856560970457088 …
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
so basically there's both lighting and sockets in apparently random arrangement on two 16A circuits and there's a third one that powers nothing but a washing machine and bathroom mirror light. because that makes sense.
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
hellooo there, flying spaghetti monster inside the ceiling lamp. i don't even want to think what hides in the other lampspic.twitter.com/xhf2wJAwez
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
I -very- gently pulled at one of the wires going into the screw terminal and it literally just fell out. THIS IS FINE
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
replaced it all with fresh, not horribly oxidized copper wiring (the one that was screwed in was pretty much black) that's crimp terminated on both ends and then goes into a Wago spring clamp not the prettiest job but it won't catch fire for surepic.twitter.com/hj9WhEVoX2
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
the mechanical skills of the person who installed the lamp are on par with electrical. the mounting holes don't lie on the line drawn under the lamp. they aren't parallel to the walls (or anything else anywhere) eitherpic.twitter.com/3vmdA4AVXX
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
the old insulation (unidentifiable crumbling polymer under unidentifiable crumbling cloth braiding) was in an extremely bad state so I gave it a makeover with some (correctly colored) heatshrinkpic.twitter.com/eUVS5F1O6v
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
Wago CAGE-CLAMP 222 series is spec'd for aluminium, see Wago website https://www.wago.com/global/installation-terminal-blocks-and-connectors/compact-splicing-connector/p/222-413 …https://twitter.com/11rcombs/status/1013886151336382465 …
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
mystery of the hot G/Y conductor: solved I will find the trash who has worked on wiring in this house, and I will skewer him on a hot protective earth wirepic.twitter.com/o6yLNHDos3
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
to recap: the brown wire here is -neutral-, and blue and green-yellow are switched, and normally hot because they're energized through the lamp. the G/Y wire in the junction box misses a chunk of insulation in the middle, too, just for kicks
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
I don't think I can tear up walls here so I did the next best thing: switched G/Y to be neutral and indicated the real purpose of wiring with a heatshrink sleevepic.twitter.com/nsTr0RYI8u
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
when they say "you can twist copper" they don't mean twist LIKE THISpic.twitter.com/B9WDoV0yNn
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
in case you thought this thread can't get any worse, we have a code violation bingo! behold: exactly 5cm of copper wire extremely badly twisted together with decaying aluminium wire. there was enough length to not do this extension, he could have just put the junction box higherpic.twitter.com/Daf8q70v2H
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান -
also the decaying aluminium wire was load-bearing: the junction box was "fixed" to the wall with a single screw (naturally, not going through the hole specifically meant for a screw) but mostly held in place by wiring
এই থ্রেডটি দেখান - 17টি আরও উত্তর
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