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turretslug · 3rd Sep 2020, 10:47 pm

Talking of borrowed neutrals, when my parents moved into their current house some 40 years ago now, we were quite pleased to see that the integral garage had a no-messing 8ft fluorescent fitting- good, no struggling with gloomy half-light. However.... it didn't take long to spot the two spidery black insulated wires leading out of it across the ceiling, sort of 240 degrees apart. One went behind a 13A wall outlet, spliced into the doubled 7/0.029 neutral, the other went to a surface wall switch, then snaked into the front lobby into the ceiling rose, the strands casually wrapped round the exposed conductor at the rim of the loop-on Scruit. Goodness knows why they went for this diversity of live/neutral connection, but at least the live was sourced from a 5A fused place! No earth of course, as befitted the general bodginess of the installation.

Some years on, I got one of those slightly worried calls from my sister, who was now in her own house and typically keen to get on with personalising things. She had fitted a nice new kitchen ceiling light, but when she put the main switch back on, the light was on despite the wall switch being off. Then flicking the switch on, there was a 'bang' from the consumer unit and all was dark again. You've guessed it- pulling the mass of connections down from the ceiling behind the old light, she'd opted to connect all the reds together and all the blacks together.... Stands to reason, dunnit? At least that was straightforward to sort out and earned a hot meal and a couple of beers in return.

Working on location one time, we were preparing to wrap for the night, the night-watchman (a characteristically self-sufficient bunch) approached me- he'd connected his caravan up, but the lights fuse had blown, his fridge wasn't working and his VCR had produced a puff of smoke. Checking back, he was plugged into a smart, shiny new distribution panel that had a selection of various current rating red "4343" 3-phase outlets plus a single blue 16A single phase that he'd plugged into. Smelling a rat, I undid the panel screws and prised it away for a peek- yep, the 16A single phase outlet had a red wire going into the L terminal and a blue wire going into the N terminal. Poor lights, poor fridge, poor VCR. I never got an answer as to who had signed that panel off.

3rd Sep 2020, 10:47 pm	#121
turretslug Dekatron Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Surrey, UK. Posts: 4,400	Re: Bodges Talking of borrowed neutrals, when my parents moved into their current house some 40 years ago now, we were quite pleased to see that the integral garage had a no-messing 8ft fluorescent fitting- good, no struggling with gloomy half-light. However.... it didn't take long to spot the two spidery black insulated wires leading out of it across the ceiling, sort of 240 degrees apart. One went behind a 13A wall outlet, spliced into the doubled 7/0.029 neutral, the other went to a surface wall switch, then snaked into the front lobby into the ceiling rose, the strands casually wrapped round the exposed conductor at the rim of the loop-on Scruit. Goodness knows why they went for this diversity of live/neutral connection, but at least the live was sourced from a 5A fused place! No earth of course, as befitted the general bodginess of the installation. Some years on, I got one of those slightly worried calls from my sister, who was now in her own house and typically keen to get on with personalising things. She had fitted a nice new kitchen ceiling light, but when she put the main switch back on, the light was on despite the wall switch being off. Then flicking the switch on, there was a 'bang' from the consumer unit and all was dark again. You've guessed it- pulling the mass of connections down from the ceiling behind the old light, she'd opted to connect all the reds together and all the blacks together.... Stands to reason, dunnit? At least that was straightforward to sort out and earned a hot meal and a couple of beers in return. Working on location one time, we were preparing to wrap for the night, the night-watchman (a characteristically self-sufficient bunch) approached me- he'd connected his caravan up, but the lights fuse had blown, his fridge wasn't working and his VCR had produced a puff of smoke. Checking back, he was plugged into a smart, shiny new distribution panel that had a selection of various current rating red "4343" 3-phase outlets plus a single blue 16A single phase that he'd plugged into. Smelling a rat, I undid the panel screws and prised it away for a peek- yep, the 16A single phase outlet had a red wire going into the L terminal and a blue wire going into the N terminal. Poor lights, poor fridge, poor VCR. I never got an answer as to who had signed that panel off.