cowboy electrican

maverick2011

Hey everyone,

I visited a friends house recently to find some unbelievable poor workmanship by the electrician. There was wires exposed everywhere and the main distribution board had a simple sign saying 'LIVE WIRES'. The main breaker was off but what was stopping someone from simply switching it on and maybe killing someone upstairs..?? There was exposed wires coming out of several sockets upstairs with no plug on them so if someone turned on the breaker downstairs....???
Has anyone seen something as poor as this before? I'm pretty sure decent electricians would have had all that locked out and secured. The house was left like this over a weekend. Can anything be done about this or what would happen if I reported it?

Sorry for no picture...can't add one cos i'm a new user...

Appreciate any advice guys.
Cheers

EHP

maverick2011 wrote:

I visited a friends house recently to find some unbelievable poor workmanship by the electrician. There was wires exposed everywhere and the main distribution board had a simple sign saying 'LIVE WIRES'. The main breaker was off but what was stopping someone from simply switching it on and maybe killing someone upstairs..?? There was exposed wires coming out of several sockets upstairs with no plug on them so if someone turned on the breaker downstairs....??? Has anyone seen something as poor as this before? I'm pretty sure decent electricians would have had all that locked out and secured. The house was left like this over a weekend. Can anything be done about this or what would happen if I reported it?

Safe electric website has a report function if you want to report it and they should investigate.

maverick2011

Thanks EHP

17larsson

Is it a switched fuse? Maybe the fuse has been removed.
Maybe those cables that are exposed are new and not installed in the fuseboard yet.
Is your friend as worried about this as you are?
Have you talked to the electrician at all about this as surely that would be the first step to take

maverick2011

Hey 17Larsson,

I don't know enough to confirm if its a switched fuse...I'll be able to post a pic for you to see shortly so you'll see for yourself then. It's pretty much a new build. House is being completely re-wired. My friend is definitely as worried as I am so I told him I'd ask some people for some advice.. The potential for an accident is insane and the house is still in a dangerous state....even for other trades guys. Being honest, the (electricians) workmanship is just shocking throughout...plugs are put on badly, there are still sockets hanging out of the wall with some wires having a big ball of insulation tape around them at the moment. Don't know if my friend has spoken to the electrician yet....I'm a technician for a living and if I left any machine like that, i'd be out the door in a second...

maverick2011

Picture

maverick2011

Hey guys, My last post there has the url with the picture in it.....That's the ways it was left for a full weekend so it'll give you some indication of what i'm talking about. Is it really as bad as I was describing or worse? Other people were working in the house with the wiring like that...

ED E

This is how you post the image:

maverick2011

colm_mcm

So your friend is living in a house with no electricity?

maverick2011

Cheers Ed E....eventually figured it out...Thanks.

maverick2011

No. He's not living there yet....it's being done up at the moment but the electrician is a bit elusive and turns up when he feels like it so it's very difficult to get all that crap sorted out..

Luckysasha

Looks to me like the tails coming in to the board from the meter are live. Then he has some second fixing done which are the circuits he has connected in to the board but the mcbs are off. The wires hanging to the left are obviously the other ends of the bare wires hanging out of the walls you mentioned so he hasn't terminated them in to the board yet. He has one MCB one and the rcd so this would suggest he has made a couple of sockets live to keep the other trades going. To be honest apart from the cover missing off the board I think your blowing this out of proportion. You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about this sparks for whatever reason so you decided to come on here and complain about him. Your getting annoyed because he hasn't finished the job and maybe he is holding your friend up from moving in but honestly there is not much anyone on the forum can do to solve this. And we are only hearing your side of things