Hello boys jonathan20 saw a spark show today

Status
Not open for further replies.
J

JONATHAN20

Member
Location
CLINTON, CT
So we had to do a service upgrade today 100-200 so i was like fun fun fun. I get to stand around with my finger up my wahzoo for 6 hours. Occasionally running back and forth to the truck. Thats about the highlight of my excitment. So anyway here he is with 18 flimsy circuit hangin down and a live bus. I dont why he had it live he usually doesnt. You can probably guess what happened...........One of the unpredictable ground wires hit the bus. BANG!!! Happy 4th of july,Sparks burn marks on the panel. Niiiiice. I just smiled and said you see now if that were me id be all done ud have a fit. But other than that it was a good day i guess.
 
i hate working in live panels like that. thats my biggest fear that one of those damn bare grounding conductors will hit that bus and blow up in my face. why didnt he just shut the panel off for a few minutes? hopefully you learned something from that
 
It was more unlucky he had quite a bit of breakers in there already it happend to make its way past all the breakers to a bare spot. It sounded like an m-80. Scary stuff.
 
JONATHAN20 said:
So we had to do a service upgrade today 100-200 so i was like fun fun fun. I get to stand around with my finger up my wahzoo for 6 hours. Occasionally running back and forth to the truck. Thats about the highlight of my excitment. So anyway here he is with 18 flimsy circuit hangin down and a live bus. I dont why he had it live he usually doesnt. You can probably guess what happened...........One of the unpredictable ground wires hit the bus. BANG!!! Happy 4th of july,Sparks burn marks on the panel. Niiiiice. I just smiled and said you see now if that were me id be all done ud have a fit. But other than that it was a good day i guess.
Click to expand...


So the fact that it was live and someone could have been seriously injured, if not killed, was FUN for you?? Another thing...if you were working for me, your fingers would be all over the job, rather than "up your wahzoo", that is, if you expected to get PAID. GROW UP, and acknowledge the fact that electricity is not something to be made fun of.
 
JONATHAN20 said:
So we had to do a service upgrade today 100-200 so i was like fun fun fun. I get to stand around with my finger up my wahzoo for 6 hours. Occasionally running back and forth to the truck. Thats about the highlight of my excitment. So anyway here he is with 18 flimsy circuit hangin down and a live bus. I dont why he had it live he usually doesnt. You can probably guess what happened...........One of the unpredictable ground wires hit the bus. BANG!!! Happy 4th of july,Sparks burn marks on the panel. Niiiiice. I just smiled and said you see now if that were me id be all done ud have a fit. But other than that it was a good day i guess.
Click to expand...

I'm going to call your boss and tell him you're posting all this stuff about him on the internet. :D

neener_neener.gif
 
Last edited:
I was changing out a couple of bad breakers in a ge panel. When I pulled one out it basically just fell apart into pieces and the metal guts of course fell right back into the buss and it exploded in my face. I was seeing stars for awhile.
 
Johnathan, here is one of the OSHA standards you should be working under.

What you do with it is up to you but you should at least know about it. :smile:


1910.333(a)(1)

"Deenergized parts." Live parts to which an employee may be exposed shall be deenergized before the employee works on or near them, unless the employer can demonstrate that deenergizing introduces additional or increased hazards or is infeasible due to equipment design or operational limitations. Live parts that operate at less than 50 volts to ground need not be deenergized if there will be no increased exposure to electrical burns or to explosion due to electric arcs.


Note 1: Examples of increased or additional hazards include interruption of life support equipment, deactivation of emergency alarm systems, shutdown of hazardous location ventilation equipment, or removal of illumination for an area.


Note 2: Examples of work that may be performed on or near energized circuit parts because of infeasibility due to equipment design or operational limitations include testing of electric circuits that can only be performed with the circuit energized and work on circuits that form an integral part of a continuous industrial process in a chemical plant that would otherwise need to be completely shut down in order to permit work on one circuit or piece of equipment.


Note 3: Work on or near deenergized parts is covered by paragraph (b) of this section.
Click to expand...
 
Jonathan it's good that you got to see this. You can learn as much from seeing what people do wrong as from what people do right if you notice the difference.

Having a bunch of bare copper ground wires hanging loose in a live panel can be dangerous. If your boss is going to continue to do this you should start to carry a length of rope on you at all times just in case he gets hung up on a live circuit. Make sure to throw the rope around him to pull him loose. If you don't have rope handy use an extenion cord if he get caught by a live circuit.

If you can't teach him any better be sure to know what to do in an emergency. A CPR class could be a good idea. Put the EMTs on speed dial on your cell phone.
 
JONATHAN20 said:
I just smiled and said you see now if that were me id be all done ud have a fit. But other than that it was a good day i guess.
Click to expand...

I assume you mean "you would" or even "you'd" there?

So you're implying that you're a better electrician than your boss and he would be mad to see you doing the job better than him?

Or are you saying that those sparks would make you call it a day from sheer nerves?

If the latter, then yes I agree...stuff like that would keep my heart rate up about 30 beats for the next hour.

If the former, well...that's just sad.
 
Boss or not, it should always be your position to say something when you see something not right. Next time you might get burned or loose your eyesight.
Not worth it for any amount of money. :mad:
 
I don't know about successfully getting a rope over someone if they're hung up - something non-metallic with a hook would be better. But really - it should be a really really rare event that this should even be going on - working a live panel like that.

Was this a new service? Didn't the POCO disconnect to pull the swith over?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top