New hire

[fisherelectric]

I hired a new electrician 3 weeks ago, checked him out on a few jobs and he seemed to know his stuff, so I sent him on a job at a local business that grows and sells flowers to check out a couple of greenhouses that had dead lights and receptacles. This business has been around about 60 years and the greenhouses are old and the wiring around the sheds and sales area mostly consisted of cords and plug in drop lights etc without a GFI in sight. My guy spent about a day and a half getting rid of code violations, installing GFIs, in--use covers and basically making the place safe. I sent the owner a bill for about $2000, which he promptly paid and everything was good. Then I get a call saying employees are getting shocked off the metal frames, doors, water lines of the greenhouses. I go over there and pull the cover off a sub panel in the first greenhouse...240 hot to hot, 120 volt hots to neutral, no voltage between hot and ground, and 120 v from neutral to ground. The can of this sub-panel was hot and screwed to the metal frame of the greenhouse, making the whole greenhouse hot. The subpanel was fed underground from the service in 50 year old emt and the conduit was hot at the subpanel and grounded at the service. I switched off the breakers in the subpanel one at a time and found the offending circuit, which was in 1/2 emt, also running underground to the next greenhouse. Obviously the conduit between the service had rotted away leaving the subpanel ungrounded (no equipment ground wire was run) and then the other 1/2" conduit had a short in it that energized both greenhouses without tripping a breaker. I called Mr. New guy and asked him what the heck? He says when he got there the 60 amp breaker for the subpanel was tripped. He reset it and it "made a noise" and then the fault cleared so he figured it was OK. I asked him how he could work on a system for 2 days and not figure out there was no freaking ground. He says "my bug eye (plug tester) read OK except one light was a little dim", and "I never got shocked". This guy is 38 and has 16 years in the trade. This is why I haven't hired any new people in the last 10 years.

 

[resistance]

Sometimes time in the trade doesn't mean anything! Many of us have miss something at some point. The good thing (I hope): No one got hurt!

 

[wbalsam1]

The guy clearly needs some training. You could be heading to court if things had worked out differently. Get him in the shop and blast him with a spray of effective ground-fault return path 101. And, by the way, count your blessings. :smile:

 

[augie47]

sing his praises to your competition..perhaps they will "lure" him away from you :smile:

 

[mdshunk]

I feel the need to defend him a little bit, but not necessarily for what he did. Him resetting the 60 amp breaker I think would be typical of many in the trade. They can get their head around the day-to-day stuff pretty easily, like all the code violations he corrected, but to troubleshoot a possible blown-up feeder is a step above what most guys are used to doing. Just teach him this simple rule. Never, ever reset a circuit breaker without figuring out why it tripped. Doesn't sound like he even put an ounce of effort into finding out what might be the problem with that 60 amp breaker.

 

[nakulak]

I agree - this is the kind of thing that separates the real mechanics from the average ones. I've made my share of mistakes, too. He should have checked out that panel with the 60 and found something was up. However, this doesn't mean he's useless to you either. Maybe he needs a little training and he'll take the next step. That is exactly the kind of job where (if you could afford it) it would have been nice to take him there with you so you could show him how to properly find and diagnose that kind of problem (as opposed to rushing through and missing the boat).

 

[fisherelectric]

I agree with Marc....he's good at the day to day stuff, but I can't see how he could install GFIs and work in that subpanel for 2 days without once checking from hot to ground with a voltmeter. It is scary to send men out on a job and trust them to be smart....but I can't be everywhere, and I'm not always smart, but the first thing I would do on pulling the cover from a subpanel with a tripped feeder breaker would be to turn off all the breakers, reset the feeder and check all my voltages. The employee who got shocked was an older Oriental guy who was working in the greenhouse barefooted watering plants.

 

[jmsbrush]

I feel like every one makes mistakes. I have made plenty in my day. Thats how you learn. As an apprentice, journeyman to a Master I still have made them. My journeymen would get upset but then teach me. I have found that that in electrical trade there are different class of electricians. some are real good at pipe, some at motor control. Some at every thing. We cant expect them to know as much as us, but then again they might know allot more than us. I'll never forget I met this guy 7 years ago and man he was a hard worker. We were doing a sky rise. Some of the guys were not happy with his pipe bending. This guy has been been in the trade for, I think 5 years at this point. I was a second year apprentice I think, and was doing better than he was. I got to know this guy and apparently the only thing he did for the company he worked for 5 years was outside work .In my opinion ,an over paid laborer. No one gave this guy the time of day. All he need was training and some guidance and that's where we fit in. Its very rewarding to teach and train. So what he messed up one time, doesn't mean that he is no good! Teach him! If he keeps messing up then you know what you will have to do.

 

[benaround]

You don't know if the grounding was good or bad when the new guy left

the job. His tester read 'OK' and he did not recieve any shocks. This could of

happened to anyone. It is possible that the feeder tripped one or more times

after you completed your part, and the multi resetting of it caused the

problem. Seems like you can't wait for him to make a mistake.

 

[active1]

Would the GFI's trip with the test button or tester if your missing the ground?
I can't speek for every GFI but I can say a plug tester wont trip a GFI if you hit the test button.

He also should have known a dim ground light on a tester means a poor ground.

A old EMT pipe underground rotts to nothing around here. EMT underground means a questionable ground to me.

Bisides the safty issue and call back more work could have been sold.
Another tough question is who will pay for the repairs. The EC IMO because they said it's all good and fixed for the $2K. It would be hard to say sorry we missed this big problem that costs thousands more to fix.

I would say I might can that person. Easier and maybe cheaper to do now. There is no reason why you shoud have to train a 16 year person normal skills unless he is outstanding in other areas.

 

[ike5547]

Would the GFI's trip with the test button or tester if your missing the ground?

The test button on the GFI will trip. The test button on an external tester will not.

 

[fisherelectric]

He pushed the test button on the GFIs but didn't test the outlets downstream which is something that should always be done. If he had he would have found the problem. I'm not going to fire this guy because he is a decent electrician, but I did have a long talk about safety and procedures and what I expect. This guy has mostly run simple residential service and is good at that, so now I know his limitations. I feel this situation is my fault for not checking on him while he was doing the job...after all I really don't know in 3 weeks what his abilities are. It just freaked me out that in 28 years I've never had 2 energized greenhouses sitting in the middle of town over the weekend.
I told the owners what was going on with their underground EMT and we came back the next day and refed everything overhead and charged them accordingly so everything is good. You're never too old to learn something and the bottom line is I'm responsible.

 

[ike5547]

I'm not going to fire this guy because he is a decent electrician...

I wouldn't either. I'll bet he learned something from this.

 

[growler]

It just freaked me out that in 28 years I've never had 2 energized greenhouses sitting in the middle of town over the weekend.

I doubt if it ever happened to the new guy guy before either. It's one of those things that will be hard to forget. :smile: If this little incident scared the crap of the guy he will be more carefull in the future. He could have been the guy getting zapped.

I like to think that I would have noticed the problem right off but you never know. I do check every receptacle on a GFCI protected circuit so I guess I would have noticed when the down stream receptacles didn't trip.

I would probably question why he didn't learn that even in residential. You have to check the receptacles because the inspector is going to ( they love those little testers). I don't even bother with the test button because that's not the way it's going to get tested.

 

[satcom]

I feel this situation is my fault for not checking on him while he was doing the job...after all I really don't know in 3 weeks what his abilities are. (YES YOU ARE THE LICENSE HOLDER)

I always check their references, and then work closely with them, until I feel a comfort level with their work.

It just freaked me out that in 28 years I've never had 2 energized greenhouses sitting in the middle of town over the weekend.
I told the owners what was going on with their underground EMT and we came back the next day and refed everything overhead and charged them accordingly so everything is good. You're never too old to learn something and the bottom line is I'm responsible.

We just hope anyone reading this, will remember what can happen.

 

[khixxx]

when the guy left everything was ok, now moisture comes into play from watering plants or rain. now fault occurs and energizes the buildings. Could this have happened?

If you checked in on him would you have noticed the ground problem if it was still there? If, What, Who, and But could have all came into play this is how things go nothing is perfect. Just glad no one got seriously hurt.