DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD
Bad ‘Electricians’
Regulations broken: BS7671:2008: 134.2.1, 610.6, 631.1, 416.2.1

This weeks award goes to the landscaper who thought he was a builder and electrician too. Unfortunately for the client he was neither a builder nor an electrician and only a mediocre landscaper. The client chose him because his quote was  approximately £10K cheaper than two other companies they looked at. The reason he was cheaper was that he had no idea what he was doing!!

The call we received was that some outdoor lights mounted in the wooden beams of a pagoda were starting to fall out and also that rainwater was dripping down through the lights causing rust stains on the white travertine below. It didn’t take more than a few minutes to deduce that all of the outdoor lighting was installed incorrectly. As seen in the pictures above the landscaper drilled a hole into each wood beam, pulled the lamp cord through and used a nail in cable clip to hold the light up. Following the cable along we then find crimped non-weatherproof connectors on two of the lights and a non-weatherproof clamp-on connector in which sharp contacts pierce the insulation to make contact with the conducting wires inside on two more. This  form of connection is prone to degradation and electrical arcing over time and certainly not in the least weatherproof. The low voltage cable in turn connects to a transformer which is also designed only for interior use or can be enclosed in a fully weatherproofed box designed for outdoor connectors.

When asked if we could add a third spike spotlight in the garden we also uncovered that the two pre-installed lights had been hooked up via crimped connectors wrapped with a bit of green tape and buried underground. The moisture had already started to degrade the tape and the connectors underneath were starting to rust. The only good news with all of the electrics is that they were low voltage so no body was injured.

As for his building skills: the owner had to bring in a friend to help create a proper land drain as the landscapers drainage was inadequate. The homeowners could see that for themselves. The rectangular shape of the structure is slightly wider at one end than the other, the beams are not square or plumb and were cut off site and therefore don’t fit the non-square structure, the travertine tile floor is already shifting with some of the tiles already shifting when walked upon, the walls are showing signs of leakage from behind the walls. There may be more but we were only on site for fifteen minutes.

The cheapest priced contractor is not necessarily the best deal.  In this case, including the drain ground works that the home owner and their friend (a general contractor) had to sort out themselves along with the repairs we will have to undertake and the fact that the structure is already showing the signs of movement, timber warpage, staining and a poor build in general there will be no savings.

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