TOCHING LIVE PARTS!!

[Toros]

hI
My friend, an electrician, touches live wires, buss bars, utility non-fused feeders (All 120v-240v) WITHOUT ANY GLOVES
He belives he is safe as long as he has the plastic showes on and he is not touching any conductive materials while he is with contact......

This not right/safe things to do right??

Tanx

 

[Sierrasparky]

A boss of mine used to do this.

 

[user 100]

hI
My friend, an electrician, touches live wires, buss bars, utility non-fused feeders (All 120v-240v) WITHOUT ANY GLOVES
He belives he is safe as long as he has the plastic showes on and he is not touching any conductive materials while he is with contact......

This not right/safe things to do right??

Tanx

No, actually it isn't. I know that as long as you aren't grounded.........But still all it takes is that one accident. We have all done it but really we don't need to. To be honest a lot of times it would depend on exactly what you are doing with respect to an actual risk. I did see part of an old electricians book from way back that talked about testing for live wires with fingers.

 

[alive wire]

No it is not a right or safe thing to do but yes it can be done although I would not recommended it and you can find out why in a electrical theory class

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

 

[Sahib]

hI
My friend, an electrician, touches live wires, buss bars, utility non-fused feeders (All 120v-240v) WITHOUT ANY GLOVES
He belives he is safe as long as he has the plastic showes on and he is not touching any conductive materials while he is with contact......

This not right/safe things to do right??

Tanx

Your friend seems to have a knack for live line work such as mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live-line_working. Perhaps, he may make a fortune after having a training in it.

 

[romex jockey]

hopefully those hot days don't make his feet sweat.....~RJ~

 

[luckylerado]

Your friend is a fool. Like the guy that plays with a snake and then is shocked when the snake bites him. :thumbsdown:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85V1Xewv20k

 

[LMAO]

hI
My friend, an electrician, touches live wires, buss bars, utility non-fused feeders (All 120v-240v) WITHOUT ANY GLOVES
He belives he is safe as long as he has the plastic showes on and he is not touching any conductive materials while he is with contact......

This not right/safe things to do right??

Tanx

A buddy of mine knew a guy who used to stand underneath 600V bus bars (really thick ones conducting 6000A), jump up, grab the live bus bar and swing! He'd be alright as long he did not touch another phase or a conducting material.... MORON.

 

[kwired]

hI
My friend, an electrician, touches live wires, buss bars, utility non-fused feeders (All 120v-240v) WITHOUT ANY GLOVES
He belives he is safe as long as he has the plastic showes on and he is not touching any conductive materials while he is with contact......

This not right/safe things to do right??

Tanx

Your friend is correct that he is safe "as long as......"

It is when something he is not aware of is connecting him to another potential that he will be bitten by it.

Making a habit of such a practice will eventually lead to something being overlooked.

Did you ask him how many times he has been nailed when he wasn't paying close enough attention to what is going on?

Situations where you are on say a wood floor certainly do favor his position, but go to a place where standing on a grounded surface and the hazards increase.

 

[Jraef]

Aside from the comments already made as to the idiocy of this, I'll add that he is relying on the untested dielectric qualities of the shoes he is wearing. Just because he thinks they are "rubber" soles does NOT always mean they are non-conductive, or that the insulation value of the material is sufficient for the voltage he is in contact with. The same holds true, even MORE so, for his clothing. Most material used in clothing offers almost ZERO insulation properties, especially when damp with sweat. A casual brush of a moist sleeve against an enclosure wall or a pant leg against a frame and he is toast, literally.

A Darwin Award in the running...

 

[ggunn]

A boss of mine used to do this.

Is he still with us?

 

[ActionDave]

Is he still with us?

My boss's dad used to do this all the time. Checked breakers by licking his thumb and finger and touching the breaker and neutral buss, put the tip of his finger in a light socket and touch the shell with knuckle to see if the light had power, stuff like that. He only made it to ninety four.

 

[jeremysterling]

I would not deliberately touch potentially energized metal parts. Even on a fiberglass ladder with thick-soled workboots and one hand behind my back. I don't like the feeling of electric shock.

I don't even touch the neutral bus because I don't trust the guy who bonded X0. Have you met him? Do you know if he knew what he was doing? I don't.

The qualifier "as long as" is too specific. Touch the bus when there is a tack in the sole of your boot and sweat soaked socks on a concrete floor and you're going to ride the lightning.

 

[mopowr steve]

My boss's dad used to do this all the time. Checked breakers by licking his thumb and finger and touching the breaker and neutral buss, put the tip of his finger in a light socket and touch the shell with knuckle to see if the light had power, stuff like that. He only made it to ninety four.

Good for him what was his brand name, HaHa
lasted longer than some testers.

 

[kwired]

My boss's dad used to do this all the time. Checked breakers by licking his thumb and finger and touching the breaker and neutral buss, put the tip of his finger in a light socket and touch the shell with knuckle to see if the light had power, stuff like that. He only made it to ninety four.

Could he tell if voltage was within an acceptable range? No need for solenoid type testers if so, and don't have to worry about "ghost voltage" you may get on high impedance meters either.

I would not deliberately touch potentially energized metal parts. Even on a fiberglass ladder with thick-soled workboots and one hand behind my back. I don't like the feeling of electric shock.

I don't even touch the neutral bus because I don't trust the guy who bonded X0. Have you met him? Do you know if he knew what he was doing? I don't.

The qualifier "as long as" is too specific. Touch the bus when there is a tack in the sole of your boot and sweat soaked socks on a concrete floor and you're going to ride the lightning.

I don't have a problem with touching the neutral bus at the service or first disconnect of a separately derived system where the bonding jumper to the enclosure is installed - it effectively extends the neutral bus to the entire can as well as all the equipment grounding which you will touch anyway. There even may be EGC landed on the neutral bus in those two applications and is code compliant. But otherwise some information in there worth consideration.

 

[Carultch]

hI
My friend, an electrician, touches live wires, buss bars, utility non-fused feeders (All 120v-240v) WITHOUT ANY GLOVES
He belives he is safe as long as he has the plastic showes on and he is not touching any conductive materials while he is with contact......

This not right/safe things to do right??

Tanx

I'll start with the basic idea:

It takes two points of contact, with a voltage difference across the two points, in order to cause current to flow and thus damage to the human body. Current can be even more dangerous, if it flows through a path that crosses the heart. You will hear about the "one hand rule", which is that you only handle live circuits with one hand, so that current doesn't flow anywhere near your heart.

It is not the level of voltage that hurts you, it is the difference in voltage across two points on your body. If there is only one point of electrical contact, or two points of electrical contact at identical voltage levels, you could say that the person is figuratively "a bird on the wire". There is no voltage difference across the human body driving current to flow, and therefore the person would be safe.

Just like a bird on an electrical wire. Both of the bird's talons are touching points on the wire that are at 13 kV, and in the same phase with one another. The resistance through the short piece of wire between talons is a lot less than the resistance through the bird body. Therefore, current flows through the wire like it should, and not through the bird.

The same is true, if a person can perfectly insulate themselves, and only handle one phase of one busbar at a time. You very likely can get a false sense of security, because conventional clothing is not a perfect insulator. Even though the shoes and clothing are normally non-conductive, they are not tested to electrical conditions. And if the clothing is damp, it ruins its value as an electrical resistor.

There do exist linesman's insulating boots, that are rated for withstanding 15 kV (or possibly higher) while working on power lines. Much safer than conventional shoes, but not perfect. The person still needs to be careful, not to let any part of their body or clothing, come in contact with a live or grounded part, while working on a live part.