DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD
Bad ‘DIY Property Maintenance ‘

It’s getting on to the end of the year. No Really! If you don’t believe me take a walk through your town centre. Christmas sales and decorate remind us that the cold weather is coming. My interest in the seasonal change however is safety. The big burning ball of mostly hydrogen called the sun is around in shorter supply every day. Especially here in Oldham. Your heating systems and fires are starting to get turned onto supplement.  If you haven’t had your fire or boiler serviced recently here’s at least one good reason why you should. continue

DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad Gas Fitter

While moving a boiler for a client we were presented with this issue. The single socket was feeding a fridge located under a stairway. The socket was already spurred off of the ring located upstairs. The black cable was the also wired into the socket from behind and then fed out to a shed via an armoured cable. What’s the problem with that?

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad Tenant Plumbers…

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We received a call early this week to repair a leak in a flat that we look after for the landlord. When we arrived the solid wood flooring had already been wrecked. After speaking to the tenant we were told that they went on vacation and when they returned the place was flooded. After we removed all of the stuff from under the kitchen basin we found a leaking hose connection to the dishwasher.  When I called the owner I heard a slightly different story. continue

DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad DIY Gas Fitter…

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When called to a home last week we viewed a fire which was to be swapped with a new unit of the same type. Everything looked alright on first glance. The gas fire was old and the surround was worn. The flue terminal and chimney brickwork looked good too. So we showed up yesterday to remove the old fire and re-fit the new one but had to stop when we realised that we couldn’t gain access to the catchment space behind the fire.

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad DIYers…

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So you drive down to Ikea or B&Q and pick up a nice looking light fixture for your bathroom. You get home and turn off the bathroom electrics (we hope!) and then remove the current fitting. You’re not sure what you’re doing so you hook up the wires in a way that seems logical. Red/brown to red/brown and black/blue to black/blue. As you don’t know that the symbol for earthing is where the bare copper wires or the green/yellow stripe wire should connect so they don’t get connected. And here is where the potential for electrocution start.

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad Electricians…

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It is important to point out here that anybody who pushes low voltage cables (240 volts AC) through metal back boxes or metal light fixtures should always use PVC grommets; and here’s why!

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DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD

Bad DIY

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This job had a lot going on. We were asked to move a kitchen from one room to another which meant upgrading the consumer unit to comply with current building regulations, the central heating controls also required moving from the old kitchen to a closet and there were lots of plumbing issues too. The worst issues we had to sort out was this set of clamp on lights in the bathroom which were wired through a false ceiling and not at all compliant or safe.

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