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After years in the business you can often times read a house like a history book. Most often I’ll start reading the as I drive up the the property and sometimes it’s once inside. Sometimes issues show up unannounced. But sometimes there are so many issues that the mind boggles at how unsafe some homes really are.
When asked to check out this socket for safety it didn’t take a second look to say no. As we started to uncover the wiring and the worked backwards to figure out where it came from the situation didn’t get any better. We eventually found the other end of the cable upstairs in a bedroom which was also not connected correctly. There were three more sockets like this one throughout the house. Some were being fed from cables running under the carpets and being trampled on all day!
Aside from the sockets issues this house also had many other problems. We found all new chrome light switch covers with no earthing and old (often burnt) aluminium cabling, no earthing on the PVC fed light switches, burned and cracked live and neutral wires to most switches, a reading lamp hard wired into the light fixture in the ceiling next to the tub, unsafe light fixtures in the bathroom and improperly wired lights with no earthing to lights throughout the house, a live cut cable under the house which had once been the ring main which was now two long spurs! Ths list goes on and on but I think my point is made.
If you don’t understand electrics don’t play with electrics. If you don’t care about your own safety at least think about your family. This house had a wife and child who could have been seriously hurt or worse by the lack of concern by the person carrying out the work.
