One big mess

[HTT]

I dont post on this forum to often but thought I would would show the mess I found this week.

I get a call from a regular customer wanting me to wire the under counter of a bar they where opening. Most every thing was was there(bar, lighting bathrooms etc.) from the previous occupants. I found some romex as my guys where doing the work so I looked further into the crawl spaces of the building.


I found a 3 phase 200 amp service feeding into the 1st floor crawl space where it had been spliced into 1 single phase 1/0 feed to the 2nd floor and 1 single phase 4/0 feed to the 3rd floor both feeding 200 amp panels with no grounding.
Feeds went thru floor with no conduit and the 2nd floor feed has no conduit at all, just run like romex thru the floor joists.

I found numerous code violations everywhere and was amazed the building hasent burned down yet. This is a historic building in down town with one set of stairs for three floors and shares common walls with all the other historic buildings on the block, some of wich are my customers aswell.

I bid to rewire the whole 2nd floor and fix the panel feeds(the right way) and was not suprised to hear the landlord was going to get his electrician to do it much cheaper.

I would hate to lose a good customer but I think a call to the investigations department at the city is in order.

 

[lavacano]

I would just give an honest quote to fix the whole shebang, if they dont want it all fixed just do the job they want you contracted for and documents well what you've modified. Let the inspector deal with it after you receive the payment. Then when they call you up pull out your original quote.

 

[Cow]

That place is a WRECK!! The bare conductors passing through that sharp edged plumbers tape sealed it for me.

This is about one step away from being one of those famous nightclub fires.....

 

[zbang]

GAK! Don't touch it unless you're allowed to do it right. Wonder when the last permit was pulled for something in there.....

 

[Sierrasparky]

looks good from my place.
disgusting

 

[cdslotz]

WOW!!!

 

[petersonra]

I would hate to lose a good customer but I think a call to the investigations department at the city is in order.

I am not a big fan of ratting people out to the city. If you do not get the job to fix it, I can just about guarantee that the story will be you ratted the landlord out because you did not get the job, and that is the story that will stick for the next ten years.

Even if your true motive is safety, that is not what will be remembered. You will be remembered as the vindictive contractor that screwed over a customer by ratting them out to the city. Your business will suffer, you will end up going broke because no one will hire you, your children will be put out on the streets, your trophy wife will ditch you, your boat and fancy sports cars will be taken and sold to pay your debts, and your dog will run away from the shame and join up with a pack of coyotes. Next thing we know you will be stocking shelves at Walmart.

Let it go and move on. You don't want to lose the dog.

 

[renosteinke]

I fully appreciate that you want some 'payback.' I mean, it's one thing to lose a job, and another to be insulted. Sure, they'll just give the work to the unqualified handyman who made the mess in the first place.

Let me tell a story:

1) A local bar / laundromat burned out. The papers said the cause was 'electrical, over the bar.' I was skeptical;

2) I had a job at another of the same franchise, same owners, to power up the new air conditioning. Over the bar I found flying splices, zip cord used as the wiring method, etc. Gee, maybe the news report was on target;

3) While eating at another business, owned by the same guys, I see one of the owners preparing to do some electrical work. He says he's planning to give my boss a call when he's ready. The call never came; and,

4) I bet that place has the same kludge I saw in the other place.

Moral of the story? Even after having burned one place out, some folks just won't learn.

So ... what to do?

On the one hand, we all have a duty to follow the law. We hurt ourselves when we let someone cheat.

OTOH, It's pretty easy to confuse your own self interest with 'higher principles.'

Do we really want to live in a world where we are in fear of government visits to check on us, provoked by anonymous complaints? Keep in mind that every tyranny has existed only as long as folks took part in it.

 

[Kdog76]

I am not a big fan of ratting people out to the city. If you do not get the job to fix it, I can just about guarantee that the story will be you ratted the landlord out because you did not get the job, and that is the story that will stick for the next ten years.

Even if your true motive is safety, that is not what will be remembered. You will be remembered as the vindictive contractor that screwed over a customer by ratting them out to the city. Your business will suffer, you will end up going broke because no one will hire you, your children will be put out on the streets, your trophy wife will ditch you, your boat and fancy sports cars will be taken and sold to pay your debts, and your dog will run away from the shame and join up with a pack of coyotes. Next thing we know you will be stocking shelves at Walmart.


I take that to mean:

I love keeping my mouth shut and after a place burns down and people get hurt, at least I kept my good name. And later when the inspector or fire chief asks " BTW, didnt you do some work there?" "And you didn't say anything at the time?". what's your reply?

I don't operate that way. I've got the reputation of calling inspectors on jobs. I'm licensed, and i've got plenty of repeat work from similiar customers & situations as that. If they don't want it done right, I leave and so does my liabilty on the job. If they want me to do the job great. Let's call the inspector first and as prelim and see how far reaching the job goes.

 

[Kdog76]

To clarify, I would call the inspector only if I got the job OR if saw that it was being done by someone not licensed. If another contractor comes who is licensed then I wouldn't bother. I wouldn't call the inspector on the spot unless I felt there was a life safety issue.

 

[dmagyar]

Makes you wonder!

Makes you wonder!

This is probably just the tip of the iceberg. Just the fact that you found this and that the place haden't yet caught on fire is amazing.

I received a call from a potential client and he went on to mention during the initial conversation about just what he wanted done that he'd had a few electrical fires in the past. That got my full attention, and quickly passed on the job. In another case where a real estate agent I knew was trying to get a house sale completed, I went out and gave a detailed report on what I'd found in causually inspecting the house. Short story, the owner said they'd do the repairs. thats the last time I got involved with estimating a "fix" on crappy work. Where would you even start?:?

 

[HTT]

This was not an easy call to make and I talk to the customer about it before. I explained I would walk from the job and not bill for the work i started after i called inspections and he said he understood.

As far as my reputation, it is good with all my customers.

The big issue at hand is safety. This owner has been bootleging the building for years. One gnarly staircase for 2nd and 3rd floors, no exit or egress lighting, no fire escape, no fire extinguishers and fire hazards everywhere. I had to stop them from installing a 28Kw instahot witch would exede the rating of the 1/0 bootleg panel feeders fused at 200 amps. I have other customers on the block that have been worried for years about this property and where happy to see something done about it. Have you seen how fast fire spreads in a 100 year old wooden and brick structures with adjoining tar paper roofs?

The NEC and local code enforcment is there for a reason. I would rather be known as the contractor that reported a fire hazard than the last electrician on the job before it burned down with 100 people inside it. My brother in law nearly lost his license fore finishing another electricians job that acually caught fire. At a meeting at a local associon a state board member spoke about a co/al job that went bad and the master lost both his licenses and the sub lost his aswell. It's very important to cover your @ss in some situations. After a fire do you think the the owner would hesitate to throw my name out there.

Although some might call it something els, it's Morals in this situation. If you saw some one in front of a 3 story occupied building with a can of gas and a match would you not say something?

 

[HTT]

This was not an easy call to make and I talk to the customer about it before. I explained I would walk from the job and not bill for the work i started after i called inspections and he said he understood.

As far as my reputation, it is good with all my customers.

The big issue at hand is safety. This owner has been bootleging the building for years. One gnarly staircase for 2nd and 3rd floors, no exit or egress lighting, no fire escape, no fire extinguishers and fire hazards everywhere. I had to stop them from installing a 28Kw instahot witch would exede the rating of the 1/0 bootleg panel feeders fused at 200 amps. I have other customers on the block that have been worried for years about this property and where happy to see something done about it. Have you seen how fast fire spreads in a 100 year old wooden and brick structures with adjoining tar paper roofs?

The NEC and local code enforcment is there for a reason. I would rather be known as the contractor that reported a fire hazard than the last electrician on the job before it burned down with 100 people inside it. My brother in law nearly lost his license fore finishing another electricians job that acually caught fire. At a meeting at a local associon a state board member spoke about a co/al job that went bad and the master lost both his licenses and the sub lost his aswell. It's very important to cover your @ss in some situations. After a fire do you think the the owner would hesitate to throw my name out there.

Although some might call it something els, it's Morals in this situation. If you saw some one in front of a 3 story occupied building with a can of gas and a match would you not say something?

 

[stevenje]

I am not a big fan of ratting people out to the city. If you do not get the job to fix it, I can just about guarantee that the story will be you ratted the landlord out because you did not get the job, and that is the story that will stick for the next ten years.

Even if your true motive is safety, that is not what will be remembered. You will be remembered as the vindictive contractor that screwed over a customer by ratting them out to the city. Your business will suffer, you will end up going broke because no one will hire you, your children will be put out on the streets, your trophy wife will ditch you, your boat and fancy sports cars will be taken and sold to pay your debts, and your dog will run away from the shame and join up with a pack of coyotes. Next thing we know you will be stocking shelves at Walmart.


Screw that Crap. Drop a dime on the slumlord. It's a friggen fire trap. Maybe I'm just getting old, but whatever happened to having a backbone and doing what is right. Stand up for our industry and help stop this hack work.

 

[GUNNING]

oops

oops

I get those occasionally What to do. I would tell the owner not without a permit, inspection and a very precise defined set of parameters of what is being done. Talk to the inspector discretely and point out where to look. Let the inspector be the bad guy.
You win by getting what you were asked to do done and will get paid hopefully to rewire the place when its condemned.
My moment was the open 3/0 wiring.

 

[petersonra]

I am not a big fan of ratting people out to the city. If you do not get the job to fix it, I can just about guarantee that the story will be you ratted the landlord out because you did not get the job, and that is the story that will stick for the next ten years.

Even if your true motive is safety, that is not what will be remembered. You will be remembered as the vindictive contractor that screwed over a customer by ratting them out to the city. Your business will suffer, you will end up going broke because no one will hire you, your children will be put out on the streets, your trophy wife will ditch you, your boat and fancy sports cars will be taken and sold to pay your debts, and your dog will run away from the shame and join up with a pack of coyotes. Next thing we know you will be stocking shelves at Walmart.


I take that to mean:

I love keeping my mouth shut and after a place burns down and people get hurt, at least I kept my good name. And later when the inspector or fire chief asks " BTW, didnt you do some work there?" "And you didn't say anything at the time?". what's your reply?

I don't operate that way. I've got the reputation of calling inspectors on jobs. I'm licensed, and i've got plenty of repeat work from similiar customers & situations as that. If they don't want it done right, I leave and so does my liabilty on the job. If they want me to do the job great. Let's call the inspector first and as prelim and see how far reaching the job goes.

I never suggested you personally do any hack work. If what you see bothers you enough that you don't want to do the work the customer wants done, just pass on it. Stop with the silly hysterics about you being personally responsible for anything bad that may or may not happen down the road. You are not responsible for what is there and you are not responsible for making it come up to code. You could probably go into just about any establishment in the city and find stuff that is arguably "unsafe". You going to report them too?

This kind of thing is common just about everywhere and history has not shown it to be all that hazardous. The big fires that happen with serious repercussions are rarely if ever of electrical origins. They are usually related to stupid crap like chaining the fire doors closed, severe overcrowding, and using fireworks inside.

MYOB.

 

[cadpoint]

Where is the Firie Marshall in this, does your state not have a fire marshal inspection to state the total number of occupants? Where is the health inspector in all this and what are either's power's in all this? Was all this done by his regular truck Slammer? :thumbsdown:

To bad you didn't fill in at least your State, patrons beware....

 

[Cow]

I never suggested you personally do any hack work. If what you see bothers you enough that you don't want to do the work the customer wants done, just pass on it. Stop with the silly hysterics about you being personally responsible for anything bad that may or may not happen down the road. You are not responsible for what is there and you are not responsible for making it come up to code. You could probably go into just about any establishment in the city and find stuff that is arguably "unsafe". You going to report them too?

This kind of thing is common just about everywhere and history has not shown it to be all that hazardous. The big fires that happen with serious repercussions are rarely if ever of electrical origins. They are usually related to stupid crap like chaining the fire doors closed, severe overcrowding, and using fireworks inside.

MYOB.

I'd like to see somebody like Satcom respond to your post. I don't think he'd install a recep in a home without having a lawyer draw up a contract first.....

 

[HTT]

This is Houston TX,

Did some research, !st floor has 2 year old occupancy for a bar and is currently being worked on. The 2nd floor has no occupancy just a blank space on record. Inspection in 2002 for a bathroom done correctly then wired the rest of the floor in romex.

As far as the rest of the establishments, they might be missing a gfi or a box cover but have legit and safe installs. We have elctrical fires all the time in this city. A town home caught fire 4 doors down from where i was changing a panel from a loose connection on a switch. Maybe I should have let it burn and minded my own business.

 

[John120/240]

This is Houston TX,

Did some research, !st floor has 2 year old occupancy for a bar and is currently being worked on. The 2nd floor has no occupancy just a blank space on record. Inspection in 2002 for a bathroom done correctly then wired the rest of the floor in romex.

As far as the rest of the establishments, they might be missing a gfi or a box cover but have legit and safe installs. We have elctrical fires all the time in this city. A town home caught fire 4 doors down from where i was changing a panel from a loose connection on a switch. Maybe I should have let it burn and minded my own business.

At the end of the day HTT you need to take what ever action that will let you sleep with a

clear consience. All of the opinions on here are just that "Opinions". Free advice on the internet

however helpful, is worth what you paid for it.