Class. It’s rare to see proper diagnostics, systematic elimination and the commitment to not leave until it’s safe. This is by far the best advertisement for you and your company so far. Thank you for going to the effort to share best practice at its best.
Thank you artisan- very much for this. It happend in a well known hotel, I switched off the breaker to change a lighting ballast because there was no other way to switch it off, All the lives were dead but believe you me when I touch the earth it gave me the shock of my life. I will never and ever forget that. In the same stupid hotel I found so many faults on wiring that in the end I simply walked out of the job because the Manager who was in charge of managing the hotel said me to say Nothing!!! I simply picked my bags and never looked back or every worked for such dum people again. Your video reminds of me what I saw in a hotel in around at least ten different places and I was told to keep it quite. But the worse of it all was the ballast one, It had no batteries nothing. I was told not tell anyone or even not to investigate it just remember it and do nothing!!! but take note of it and every three weeks it blew the ballast.... The earth wire had somehow come into contact with some live part somewhere or may be even interconnection but I was not allowed to say anything or do anything because there were so many faults the big man incharge of many hotel had already heard about this hotel and if he heard the ones I had to tell him the managing manager who building the new hotel would have been fired, then the hotel opened and the same mistakes were there lo!!!
Great job Artisan. Though my brain hurts to understand your wiring systems compared to the US. The craziest thing I've encountered so far is a hung ceiling grid electrified to 220v.
As an instructor of 35 years and now retired I TAKE MY HAT OFF TO YOU!!! With technicians like you it would be a different World! Keep going, you are indispensable. Thank you.
Sadly even he isn't infallible. He never spotted the boiler E leakage fault. Inside the boiler, along one or several parts of the electrical heating element coil, it is in it's initial stages of FAULTING to it's outer metal sheath, meaning there is a trickle of FAULT current flowing from the elements PHASE core, and it's outer bonded earth sheathing, appearing (even at the very end of the video) as a 10 volt potential between his E & N at the wall outlet. BUT, maybe it's not anywhere at the actual boiler or heating system upstairs, as it could well be a similar fault, appearing from the ground, via underfloor pipework, or some other bonded ground rod? Anything that appears at ONE bonded earth point, may very well be seen as a 10v potential between an outlet's Neutral & it's E - even with the outlet switched off, as it's a N/E fault circuit - back to th distribution board's E and the boned Neutral bar there, giving a return to socket outlet N wire, a small potential seen as 10v at that outlet. The fult that I see STILL THERE was not cleared when he left the job, and probably will be there forever, until something eventually BLOWS (an element live core, to earth as a full fault), whereupon the distant element will be replaced removing the element core to sheathng (bonded earth) fault - whereupon the 10v will also dissappear.
@@naim19711 it would have prevented this particular super dangerous fault, but it still wouldn't be particularly safe as there would still be 2 circuits present on the relay, which might surprise someone if they were being less than cautious.
This is a perfect illustration of how a little bit of knowledge is so dangerous. I’m sure whoever wired up the boiler thought they had come up with an ingenious solution but didn’t understand sufficiently to recognise the danger they created. Do not mess with stuff you are not competent to deal with!
Stupidity is the greatest danger of all for humankind. Knowing something but not knowing enough to understand how little someone actually knows and by this not knowing what dangerous things are going out of his/her hands (minds) is the sickness of our era.
Or, another option, spend the time to learn how to do it well. There’s nothing wrong with DIY. It saves a ton of money. The issue is DIY with a shortcut that you think no one else has ever thought of. Besides, according to the video, this was a professionally done job.
The question now is how many other boilers did that 'geezer' wire up the same way? I'm guessing that 'geezer' knew what was required to do this properly, and thought too much work, its better to bodge it.
@@chrisliddiard725 That's a great question. If I was the homeowner, I'd be reaching out to the boiler guy to (a) invite him to cover or help cover the costs of repairing the dangerous wiring time bomb he left (all meticulously documented by Artisan Electrics) and (b) suggest that the boiler guy reach out to anyone else who might have the same issues based on work he did before a house burns down or someone gets electrocuted. And huge kudos to Artisan Electrics for figuring it out and saving the day. Cheers.
@@tarassu great, now I understand - before I was so confused before. Thank you for your diligent work. Where, no... wear on earth wood we be with out peoples like yous. Also, you are wrong. The word earth here should not be capatalised as it is an idiomatic expression/intensifier. I am being rude because "Fix the title" is not polite and I want to see less posts like this. Especially when its erroneous and spreading ignorance. Also one space between what and on please.
@@johnnyfast1461 Indeed! I once has some work done in the basement and on comming back home noticed a really strong smell of gas... It turned out the workmen I had hired for the job had drilled through the main gas supply line of the house and deciced to "fix" their mistake with gaffa tape!!!!! Good thing the hole was after the gas meter and isolation valve so I was able to switch off the thing before blowing off the whole neighboorwood. Needless to say I had a lively conversation with these guys... wich ended well: they came back to fix the gas stuff and didn't charge me anything for the electric work they had been hired to do in the first place
Fair play to you fella I have been an electrician for over 30 years and that is a mind blowing fault but what is really good is the satisfaction you must of felt finding that fault and fixing it, especially at that time of night. I hope the client appreciated the knowledge and skill you showed in sorting that problem out for them. You have earned a sub from me ..................
Just got to stand back and applaud that angle drill into the cupboard. Fair play for staying on and fixing the fault many would have returned at later date or worse not come back at all. And to still apply good workmanship at that time of night and not let tiredness bring down your standards that definitely says a lot about the type of tradesmen you are, a very good one In my book. Well done Jordan 👍.
@Mark Jones unimpressed with MIL. Without trying to sound like I'm full of myself I am fortunate enough to be wealthy. I don't care about pricey watches, fancy cars or 5 star hotels. I wear primark or supermarket chain clothes :P But paid for private heart operation for parent, bought them a bungalow this year now their mobility not so good, and even spoke to my sibling about private rehab today. Family number 1 priority as it should be.
@Mark Jones didn't take it that way :) I thought twice about mentioning being wealthy in case it sounded like I was waving my willy around - especially in a cost of living crises. People can do what they want with their money, and after taking care of family I plan to leave most of it to animal charities. Leaving too much to 1 person I think might actually cause harm rather than being a good thing.
Your a brilliant guy,to not go and leave that family in danger,to not leave that problem unsolved is a credit to you as a human being. Superb morals.Your Mother/Father really instilled the right ethics into you. Fantastic.
As an electrician and plumbing and heating engineer I can say I've come across this type of fault more than once over the last 20 odd years .all boiler manufacturers supply terminals to feed external controls via the boiler to avoid this problem. Good bit of detective work fella .
@@berndeckenfels it's simply the residual current as a result of the live feed to the boiler that then has no balancing neutral connection. If the circuit had been fitted with standard beakers it would have not shown but the plug would still be live when it was unplugged. It's only because the rcbo's break both line and neutral that it made the ground floor ring stay live.
Interesting that boilers are wired via a common/central supply that's fanned out to associated devices, because from the HVAC perspective it feels like the reverse - thermostat cables run (isolated) low-voltage AC as relay signaling, with the endpoint devices (compressors, pumps, etc.) being responsible for their own mains supply on the other end.
I draw lines on them across the joins before removal so I can be certain they're going down in exactly the same place - paranoid about hitting water pipes!
Householder is obliged to trace the cowboy(s) responsible and issue a writ to prosecute !!! They cannot allow another household to have the same issue and there most certainly will be one somewhere local.
I just had an electrician do a job where he did not realise a RCCB did not provide over current protection. He put it on an EV charger instead of an RCBO (no MCB). He came back but only after I had to repeat myself by email, bluntly the second time, that an RCCB does not provide over current protection. He made out it was an accident and he wasn't thinking that day and that the wholesaler gave him the wrong part! Complete BS otherwise he would not have said, plain as day, by email that an RCCB provides over current protection. The only over current device in the circuit was the main house cutout. He's apparently been in the trade 18yrs! He also did not provide a minor works cert until I asked him for one; I don't think he was going to bother until I asked (excuse was he was a bit behind with the paperwork). Also, he didn't bother to connect the armour on the SWA to anything; acceptable in the particular circumstance by regs I believe, but poor practice. I am not an electrician; just a DIYer. Not allowed to mess with DBs, me. 'Gainst regs isn't it. (Just like pulling the cutout is, like every electrician does.) The average householder would not have known there was any potential problem. The RCBO he eventually fitted buzzed like a b*tard, he stopped replying to my emails and so in the end I swapped it for another myself (yes it was the right type and yes, I even had a torque tool, which he didn't). Should have done the whole bloody thing myself from the start.... but I'm not allowed to because it would be oh so unsafe and against regs. Should I report him to NAPIT, as that was who certified him (according to his website)?
One of the lessons that really stuck with me learning the small amount of electrical engineering you do in an audio engineering degree is that dual supply is a recipe for death, and worse, makes an awful humm in the monitors.
One of the best videos you've made so far, both raw and humble in equal amounts. Quite frankly, the professional negligence of the previous contractors is mind blowing.
Seen quite a few times he's done angle drilling and he gets it absolutely bang on, impressive stuff, most recent one I saw was installing a tesla charger.
This gotta be the scariest electricians' video I have ever seen. I am in my second week of an electrician's course, for adults, and learn all about safe isolation and how important it is. But never in a million years would have thought I could have come across a live 3-pin plug feeding juice into a switched-off circuit! This video is invaluable. Thank you and my hat off to you Sir, take care out there!
Very good point, and also check for power between ALL conductors with a multimeter or 2-pole voltage tester before starting work, as this guy said. I wish the person taking the electrician training every success. I am not an electrician, but I myself am hoping to get qualified and start working as an electrician.
Me ? I am a FULLY REGISTERED NEW ZEALAND ELECTRICIAN and have been since 1985. Top "electrical apprentice" in Southland NZ in 1985, and represented the Southland Technical College at that year's Mystery Creek, Hamilton Fieldays - at a "public display" alongside the other 18 "top apprentices" from every NZ Electrical Tertiary Night-School Institution, who supplied the Mystery Creek Feildays display - with their own TOP Electrical apprentices, to represented them. So ? Maybe ask your training supervisor (or your electrical co-workers), to explain the MULTIPLE RETURN PATHS (via any earthing connection) whereby an electrical potential appears on a boiler's Earth terminal - at the "corded plug" - either inserted into, or unplugged out of, a switched PHASE ONLY outlet socket, where the earth to switchboard circuit is all that is connected - when the plug is put back into a wall outlet.! NEVER EVER assume all earth circuits (at an outlet OR at a plug OR ALONG AN "IN_GROUND" PIPE EITHER) - are dead at all times, or you WILL be a dead apprentice/electrician someday. If anyone who has dug a hole and discovered what appears to be an unused water pipe, NEVER EVER CUT IT, until you place grounding clamps to BOTH outer ends of the hole where the pipe to be cut appears out of the ground, with a 6mm bonding wire connecting both, & with a CLAMP-ON meter on that bonding cable, to see, when the cut "is made" - that the two sections of now cut pipe, do NOT have any voltage across them, or you will have to BOND THEM as far into the ground as possible, away from where the section to be removed is made, to ensure the bonding is continuous along the pipe, still buried in the (very high resistance) earth. Don't be a DEAD fool, be proactive at protecting yourself and everyone round you, from stray EARTH RETURN fault circuits - as they are LETHAL, and completely irrelevant to whatever PHASE you switched off. EARTH - is itself NOT a very good conductor, hence why we use a bonded grounded earth return system (at multiple points), to get STRAY GROUND FAULT CURRENTS back to the nearest switchboard and thus along overhead pole neutrals to the master transformer N/E as quickly as possible, to BLOW the protective fusing on whatever PHASE has been compromised, to remove the fault to ground, & thus eliminate any fault. The Earth - at the installation you work in, has multiple earth faults in & along it, at every point in time, yet they come from numerous places both within your worksite, as well as MANY MILES AWAY - as a fault to ground elsewhere, that all struggle to get BACK to their respective supply N's (bonded to earth) - which means the E potential (at any Earth circuit if bonded to grounded metalwork), changes all the time. It's why Electricity is, and of itself, extremely dangerous. AT ALL TIMES. Mostly, everyone assumes circuits are deadened, by ONLY switching off, the PHASE (L) . Leaving all bonded N & E terminals always connected to all bonded/ground connections, and thus the E terminals and E cables, are always live - if a fault occurs nearby.
I remember an older electrician told me to always triple-check every wire three times even though I'm convinced it's isolated, he saved my life a few times thanks to him just using two different phase testers. once when someone had bypassed a meter and another when a wire in a wall was from a terrace house next door!
This video was amazing. More of this please, problem solving and logical thinking. Enjoyed the investigation and then working out the fixing options of what is possible and what isn’t to find the best solution. Bravo 👏🏻
I know of two Electricians who had bad experiences. One who isolated the supply similar to you and started working on the house. He said that the next thing he knew he woke up with the customer doing compression on him. Basically it stopped his heart. Another Electrician isolated the consumer unit and could not understand why a wall light was still on in the living room. Moral of the story even when you're so tired, test test test trust no work.
Mate, I live in the US but if You were in my area I'd hire you in a heartbeat. You did what I would hope every skilled electrician would by going above and beyond to fix the issue. I guarantee a lot of others would have thought about it and buttoned it up for someone else to deal with. You didn't and I applaud your professionalism.
In spite of the differences in wiring that could happen just as easily in the US, I'll bet electricians have seen it. Someone adds a plug to something already wired and plugs it into a different circuit.
@@davidg4288 American here so the set up on that unit confuses me, but did it actually come with a built in plug like that? I doubt it because that would encourage the mistake the idiot before him did, hey its a plug all we need to do is plug it in to a socket. Surely it does not come with a built in plug surely.
@@inkman996 Probably was added by an idiot who could have killed someone! Some of this stuff confuses me in the USA, and the term "boiler" is not what I think of here, a boiler here as I know it- would be what creates steam to be piped to radiators around the house or building, that's almost exclusively what heats all buildings in NY City. This "boiler" appears to me what I might see here to on demand heat hot water for a sink faucet without a storage tank. The the 220+ volts being normal house current is strange to me too since 220 is only used for high draw appliances here like furnaces, heaters, cook stoves, everything else is reduced to 120
@@HobbyOrganist Roughly from memory here, there's an old video somewhere on YT: The U.S. center taps transformers for residential use, so we do actually get 240v, we just use the center of the transformer as a ground for the two lives offset 180 degrees to make it 120v. For things that need 240v we connect both legs through a breaker. I can't comment on the UK grid, don't know enough about it.
@@HobbyOrganist These things are called 'combination boilers' here in UK, A water heater and central heating compact unit which uses gas or electric to heat water and pump it through radiators and taps.. On demand as you say. Basically, A boiler is a container that uses fuel to heat fluid.. We call these thing boilers because they do that job - even though it doesn't pre-heat fluid in a container like the traditional boiler way.
This is where a non contact voltage tester is handy. A quick wave of an isolated circuit can alert you to anything abnormal. Then confirm with a proper multimeter, do not use non contact as outright replacement.
The funny thing is the more I learn the less likely I am to mess with household electrics. Glad you survived intact and thanks for the entertaining videos.
Ex-heating engineer here. Great vid! Twin feed heating systems are actually terrifyingly common in ex-Local Authority properties that have had a boiler relocation as part of a refit program. Have seen a load in London in my time, and been on the wrong end of one too. Usually unmarked and really hard to spot, but apparently in some refit programs it was normal practice and so entire buildings/estates may have all had all properties done the same way 😦
@@jamiehobson6336 Totally. Especially when you add in that it was a gas boiler to the equation. Engineer unplugs it thinking that will cut the power. Some gas leaks out while working and boom.
Same here! The number of room stats I've come across where a T&E has been run only for a nice new stat to be installed that requires a permanent live, so the installer has used the earth as one of the live conductors!
My brother was a sparks before he passed and was working on a housing association council plot he was a sub contractor at the time one day the formant say do you know anything about boilers there have been problems he sayed yes went to this old boys house with the forman all of a sudden the old man sayed we beenhaving problems with it for 6 months he took the panel of and went who the fxxx has wired up this is dam dangerous and need to be sorted now he literally turned the powered off and cut all the wires the forman then disappeared he asked who wired it the old boy sayed the forman what I could make out it was a new type of boiler just to say he was rewiring and wiring boilers for 6 months the excuse was by the forman was I always wire the boilers up after the plumbers have finished I've had no trouble till now
As soon as I saw the problem I thought ‘borrowed neutral.’ But this was another level, great diagnosis and spot. In my own personal experience Plumbers should stick to soldering pipes. As another note you should ALWAYS use a dedicated set of test lamps (to GS38) and a proving unit for isolation, not a meter. Test the circuit, then test the tester. I’ve had the same set for thirty years and they’ve saved me generally from half wits, numerous times.
My go-to tool to check for safe handling of AC wiring is a contactless wand. While its usefulness for troubleshooting is very limited since all it does is chirp or not chirp within a few inches of any conductor, its usefulness for safe handling is off the charts: it'll let me know if there's still even enough potential to ring a doorbell, let alone my bell.
Yes, not so much a borrowed neutral as a borrowed live. A borrowed neutral - commonly used in older properties having a landing light controlled by 2-way switches on ground and first floors - would only manifest itself when the fuse board was replaced with an RCD or RCBO protected consumer unit. The current difference between L&N when the light was switched on would cause either the ground floor or first floor lighting breakers to trip. Clearly in Jordan's situation the current drawn by the boiler wasn't sufficient to upset the 30mA RCBOs he'd installed previously. The powers-that-be have decided that a current difference sensitivity of 30mA is a good compromise between safety and nuisance tripping - how ironic!
I’m a boiler repair engineer. I’ve seen similar to this on a few occasions. I think a few years back a BG engineer was killed by something similar. I remember on our training course them absolutely drilling us on the correct safe iso procedure because of it. In fact they were so paranoid about dual live feeds that my manager said if he ever came out on site and found we didn’t have a volt pen he’d send us home. The safe isolation took longer than some repairs. 😂. Really good video.
I worked at Transco at the time the Volt Sticks and training was given to us. The reason was a Transco Engineer in Liverpool visited a possible unsafe situation with a gas cooker. When he was kneeling down he was touching the gas cooker with one hand and his other touched the emergency control valve, where he received a massive fatal shock. On investigation it was found that the electric kettle which was on top of the gas cooker had a damaged cable and was touching the gas cooker making it all live including the gas pipes. It just needed someone to provide a path to earth which he did. After that it became mandatory to check any part of a gas installation with an approved volt stick (After first checking on a known power source before and after checking the installation)
So, I'm curios, is there a lot of deaths from poor and untrained people doing electrical work in the UK? It seems that using the higher voltages should require a higher degree of safety and training? That boiler electrical wiring installer should be notified he will be killing someone if he doesn't get the right training.
There's cowboys everywhere unfortunately. Bathroom fitter took out a lighting circuit by putting chock blocks between live and neutral. Boiler engineer wired up my nest system all wrong and blew the nest wiring box. All different guys, all with excellent feedback on mybuilder. Honestly if you find a good sparky/plumber/handyman just keep using them.
@@silverismoney So, this is in the UK? Is this because there are so many unlicensed electricians in the UK or because licensing is allowing Boiler engineers too much latitude without sufficient training on electrical? With these outrageous stories that many people are killed or shocked, does anybody actually track incidents and can we look it up? In the U.S. we use 120 vac for most all of our electrical needs and only use 240vac when is truly necessary. U.S. electrical codes and enforcement are quite strict and I wonder if there is a big difference in serious electrical injuries in the U.K or U.S.?
I had a similar issue in a factory where a set of outside lights had been added to and extended after which they kept tripping out at roughly the same time each day. The previous electricians on the job had a few near misses but could not find a fault. After a lot of snooping, I realised that the lights were operated from a pair of timers, the timer that controlled the lights in winter and one of the manual control feeds for lighting circuit were wired to different phases, unfortunately some conscientious person had remembered to switch over to the winter timer, a task which had previously been ignored every year since the install which brought the fault to everyone's attention. There was also a 2nd manual switch (which was on a different phase from the first but fed the same control relay) which the other electricians had used to switch on the lights for testing. Fortunately for them they never had the two switches closed at the same time, unfortunately for them the manual switch bypassed the timers and the fault that they were looking for. I believe the faults were due to the installers not realising that they were dealing with a 3 phase supply board or not realising that they were wiring to different phases at all. I got rid of both timers and one of the manual switches and used a daylight sensor to control the lights instead.
Could you have installed a relay in the boiler? With the coil connected to the upstairs circuit for demand and the switch connector wired to the downstairs circuit. This would provide isolation without having to run any new cables. (Sorry if this has already been suggested - I didn't have time to go through the 2.7k comments!!) Great diagnostic video, keep up the good work.
Had the exact same idea! Also for safety could just use the wiring between circuits for a low current DC signal, isolated. Also could drive the relay through an optocoupler. Would be totally safe.
My thoughts too. Although my only knowledge comes from electronics repair. A contacter/relay between circuits might be a code violation and therefore not an option
@@alexoja2918best practice one spur should totally isolate all power to heating control .to fit boiler which doesn't need pump over run or run cable with sufficient amount of wire to do the job. But has a gas engineer this will encourage to be more detail with my checks
The only possible problem I can come up with regarding your solution is whether code will allow two mains-voltage circuits into the same device. The only thing that would change would be adding a low voltage transformer into the upstairs unit, as well as a relay to enable/break the low voltage circuit. The low voltage control circuit would then control the relay in the boiler. More components, more points of failure, but no drilling.
@@zierlyn It's allowed so long a there is a yellow sticker on the appliance, stating: 'Warning, multiple supplies - isolate elsewhere!' However, it is also frowned upon and should be avoided if at all possible. Finally, you're more likely to see multiple supplies in equipment in an industrial setting, not domestic.
That was one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen, voltage on the male end of a supply power cord! Great problem solving skills on display here, to identify the root cause and in implementing a proper solution to perfection, Bravo sir stay safe!
I have a friend here in the US who works in a home DYI store and he said every Christmas people coming in looking for a male-male extension cord because they put their lights on the tree with the male plug at the top of the tree. The want to ;ower it from the bottom female end. He calls these "suicide cords."
I remember they made such cables at the communal work on my scool when i was a kid as well, i can't remember the exact reason why. I don't know if it's a problem in the US, but in my country another thing people do is to mix in 3 phase/400V lines with unipolar single phase connectors so the 0 became a phase if the wires are confused by somebody... I almost had a fire in mu own house because of that, luckily it had not set the wall on fire before i saw it...
I love it when a plan comes together!! When I lived in a flat, each of the three flats was on a different phase of a 3 phase supply into the building. Whilst refurbishing the flat, we decided to remove the electric shower. The bathroom fitter had turned all our power off from the fuse box, but still found a voltage within the shower. He turned off the power at the meter box, and still a voltage. We then asked our neighbours if we could turn there power off and hey presto, no voltage anymore. He traced the cabling back to a junction box under the bath which had a twin core from our fuse box, and a three core that was from the downstairs flat lighting circuit. A three core was then going into the shower unit, but only one live core was in use, the other had a small bit of celotape (not electrical tape) on it. The shower was fed from the permanent live of the downstairs lighting circuit, and neutral of the shower fuse from my flat. Interestingly, the neighbours had been puzzled why their lighting circuit was on a 20 amp mcb. So there was two live conductors in the shower unit from two phases!!
Yep. I only do industrial and commercial because domestic is just a lottery. A lottery that has prizes like, install a socket in newly decorated rooms ( without lifting floors or cutting channels or using trunking, and of course.... part P idiots. I have a guy who i pass my domestic onto, he loves them. He calls me out to sort this sort of shite out. Boiler on it's own breaker. Every time. And always run a 3 core plus Earth for stuff like that.
@@raychambers3646 hi sir if your dealing with 3phase work in industry , you should have no problem in a domestic setting . At least with low voltage your in with a chance of surviving a shock , not so good when you get across 2 phases .
Just to add, I've seen many instances of the cpc being used as a switch live on heating systems and it's the first thing I look for. But this fault would have stumped most... Great persistence 👍 no exaggeration, you many have potentially saved a life.
That new cable routing was so so satisfying. Although you didn’t mention it, I noticed you used proper heat resistance cabling going into the boiler, unlike the original dodgy flex and plug !
You could have used a relay with a potential free contact. The Cabel from the Boiler switching the relay and the live from the downstairs sockets switched by the relay. But your way of doing it is probably the best way.
Relay would definitely have been a much quicker and simpler way to fix that, however you still have to sources of power in the boiler. I personally would have gone that way and labelled it appropriately, running cables in those houses looks absolutely painful.
My thoughts as well. And clearly labeled as such for future service people. Could take one step safer and make that wiring coming from above low voltage control to a relay.
You could use the original twin cable as a switch wire and mount the relay upstairs in its own box and labeled up nicely a much easier way. But the customer would still be using a socket in the kitchen to power the boiler.
@@90seconds33 Hi, You are probably never going to read this, as it is a year since you posted but... Can you explain why a relay would be needed? Permanent power from the plug socket I understand, but why can't the twin and earth cable (that is coming from the upstairs cupboard) just be wired directly to the 'call for heat' terminal in the upstairs cupboard. That is only live when switch by the controller, so where does the relay come into it? I'm only interested for interests sake ! Thanks.
@@danielward7707 the relay would maintain isolation between the upstairs and downstairs circuit, the upstairs circuit would power the coil and the relay contacts would create a switched live to the boiler with power from the downstairs circuit.
Colour me impressed - great to see you stayed to the end to resolve a problem that wasn't of your making! Also that you owned your incident and shared the experience, kudos!
A *very* good lesson here for everyone, and especially us DIY'ers: *NEVER assume a circuit is dead just because a switch says it is.* You never know when a circuit which _seems_ to be fed from the board is actually being fed through a UPS... ⚡🔋⚠ An *excellent* demonstration here of a risk that seems surprisingly easy to overlook, and many thanks for documenting it so well! If I have to do anything on a circuit with a boiler on it, I'll _definitely_ be taking a lot more care from here on in... 😇👍
This applies to every circuit not just the one with the boiler in it. The boiler appeared to take power from lower sockets but was actually backfeeding it, it could just as easily been backfeeding something unrelated like lights. Treat everything as lethal, especially if you checked it then changed something else!
Excellent bit of logical testing and rectifying. In 50 years in the electrical industry now retired, I came across many weird and wonderful ways people found ways of wiring things wrongly. Here is a real-life scenario that caught me out. In the small gatehouse for a football club in Scottish Division One there was a 4-way DB Supplied by 6mm SWA with a 60A isolator. Only 3 circuits were used. 1) 16A going a fair distance to supply some lighting in urinals top of terracing wired in 6mm SWA( Don't know why it was 6mm. I can only assume that was the only cable they had.) 2) 6A supplying one 60watt lamp in gatehouse wired in 1.5mm T&E 3) 16A supplying single socket in the gatehouse for a small heater wired in 2.5 T&E The socket and plug top showed signs of burning due to a slack connection in the plug. I thought, simple... only three cables, and they were easily identified by cable size but just in case I isolated the main 60A breaker and went to replace the socket. After an electric shock a loud bang and a flash in my eye. I thought how could that possibly happen. Tested incoming supply live conductor going to the main switch to find 0 volts tested outgoing supply feeding DB busbar 240 volts. Some idiot and I found out later who (not a spark but a handyman ) had mixed up 6mm circuit 1 and the 6mm incoming supply making circuit 1 through the circuit breaker feeding the DB busbar. It certainly made me change my ways of taking nothing at its face value and testing everything.
With 43 years in the electrical repair service my Wiggy tester was my best friend and saved my life many times. Still, "One Hand in the Zone" saved me more times working around troffers 277 VAC. When in the US Army working on a HUGE telephone equipment rack, I worked next to a boiler. Every time I touched both the boiler frame and my bonded conduit I'd get a buzz. Mind you in USA we have 240 VAC split into two 120 VAC. One side of the boiler 240 VAC had touched the frame and the frame was not bonded well. After calling and complaining, the plumber came out and could not find a issue, two days later I grabbed the Sergent in charge of one of the electrician crews and showed him my VOM reading of the boiler frame and my conduit. He first check my conduit and it was all correct. Then he looked over the boiler junction box and found the wiring error. It was wired maybe 40 years before, during WW2.
It's pretty scary to say the least. I'm an amateur DIY, and I'd say electrical work scares me the most out of everything. If I need to change out a socket, light fixture, or hang a ceiling fan, that's 100% fine to me. When you start doing more complicated stuff and in the 240v range, I throw my hands up and say no. Heck, I still remember one instance where I went to put a fan up. Flipped the switch in the room to kill the power, got tazed really good when pulling the fan down, and found out that switch wasn't even connected to the fan. I learned my lesson then and there to switch it off at box, rarely if ever trusting a switch.
@@amanawolf9166 You know in some old houses (at least around here in PA), back then they used to switch the NEUTRAL, so the hot to the fixture/fan is always HOT, and the neutral is switched, meaning whether the switch is ON or OFF, the hot is LIVE ! Very dodgy situation, since the switch works correctly turning on and off the light/fan, so you assume that if the switch is OFF it means you killed the hot, but actually not!
Well done Sherlock! It's so common for wiring issues to be discovered! In the first place plumbers generally don't have enough understanding of electrics and electricians don't understand heating wiring. End result can be what nearly killed you!! As a very experienced plumber ,I've learnt to wire any heating system the hard way; of all the knowledge I've learnt,Number 1 is start from a SINGLE 3amp fused spur or if you have to, an UNSWITCED socket. So simple,,so safe!
i love these fault finding videos this one was awesome! I cant believe how perfect that angle drill went nothing better than being in a customers house that late in the evening and having some awesome success and making progress
I have experienced the same situation where the combi boiler was located in an outbuilding, powered locally, and the control system was powered from the immersion heater circuit next to the hot water tank. Fortunately I discovered the boiler being powered from two circuits and avoided getting a belt! Nonetheless a very dangerous arrangement. Well done and thank you for sharing.
I bet this is more common than Jordan thinks (maybe without the special death-plug feature). Just turned off my 'heating' breaker to confirm that both the boiler display turns off and the heating timer display turns off. It did. Good video, thanks.
retired RN Sparky here. Well done mate on finding and correcting a truly horrifying bodge job. I did my share of jury rigged solutions on a ship but they were always safe and temporary. That was horrific.
On ships there are also multi-frequency and DC supplies and these may also be found in dockyards. Different frequencies created major problems for the USN during World War 2 , not only in Britain and Australia, but also at the San Diego shipyards which at the time were supplied with power from the Mexican grid which was 50 Hz.
Isn’t RUclips a great thing, I just popped in 18 months for a car charger review and bought a Hypervolt following the video, and I’m still here. I’m a Driving Instructor and know next to nothing about electrics, but subscribed and still watching the videos as the workmanship and pride in the job is epic. I think that’s why I keep watching, it’s just addictive stuff. Fantastic video and scary to imagine the danger the family were in.
Top Man Jordan ! A very dangerous situation, but your logical thorough fault finding and commitment to safety for others, outshines many so called electrical wizards in the industry. You're such a good tutor as well for the benefit of the new young generation trainee electricians. Keep up these interesting videos they are brilliant and such fun too !!
As an electrician I felt cold shivers down my spine when you opened that boiler. These plumbers should be out off business! Great video with more exitement than I am used to. Well done!
I had the same thoughts as yourself for initial diagnosis, but I was seriously impressed how you not only worked out what the plumber had done, but could actually rectify it. I think I needed a lie down when you explained that! I was even more impressed that you were able to fix it, and to a professional standard the same night. kudos. That's got you another subscriber - more of your videos and a cuppa coming up!
OMG! As a gas engineer I would never think to test a plug after removing it. Worryingly, I work in the same area as you so I could well have come across that one day. I can see how this has happened though, so it's a good lesson to always carry out your tests regardless.
If it has been installed since July this year, it has to have a Co alarm near the appliance. And the boiler shouldn’t be installed onto a switches plug
You shouldn't have to test a plug, this sort of thing shouldn't happen. Unfortunately we have a thriving population of top class cowboys and handymen in the UK.
The fact you stuck around and kept troubleshooting to find the problem to then remedy it is very admirable pal. I know a few sparks that would have rescheduled even when they found the bloody issue.
Nicely done sir! I am a Master Electrician and Contractor in the States and I love solving problems like this. Hate it when I get poked even after almost 40 years doing electrical work, so 100% I know where you are coming from. Good to see someone stick with the problem, and have the knowledge to not only find the issue, but to fix it as well. Seems the ability to diagnose an unusual problem is getting more rare with each passing year with the new younger batch of Electricians. Absolutely LOVE your test meter as well. Haven't seen that one on this side of the pond.
Totally agree there. Too many guys just want the quick money and walk away, or take shortcuts because the job will run til the end of the week and thoughts are on the pub.
Ability and inclination to analyse and diagnose is being lost everywhere - computers, business processes, politics, medicine (my mother trained and worked as nurse in WW2 and after till 1955 when I was born. Then went back part time around 1970 - appalled at the listcart of diagnisis repkaced by reliance on machine testing with no knowledge of what the nachines were doing and no attempt to think about the symptoms and diagnose with respect to the individual patient)
You are too quick to dismiss your juniors. Everyone does it, its always been common for people to think that the generation following them is inferior to their own, but that's a mistaken conceit. The fact is it takes a depth of knowledge and experience to efficiently problem solve in complex systems, whether we're talking electrical installations or anything else. Its true that some junior spark straight out of college would likely not have dealt with this situation so well, but after a few years on the job gaining the necessary knowledge and experience, that same person will have gained the skills to do so.
Absolutely shocked by this video but at the same time amazed by your commitment to the job. So many people could have just walked away after putting that new socket in, your a credit to all electricians. I don’t know you but I’m still proud of you 👍🏻
Respect to you man for fixing this problem. I’m a retired commercial heating maintenance engineer and a boiler on a plug top rang alarm bells to me. Loved the video and your fix.
Well done! I'm no electrician, but I was an HVAC technician and had to fix lots of botched/sketchy work others considered, "good enough" and my brained was mush pretty often. The "How?" and "Why on earth would you do that?" Always left me astounded, because I believe in quality over quantity.
Really enjoeyed that, I mean i felt your pain but I love to see a mystory solved. My background is Electronics and I used to spend all day every day looking for faults in incredibly complex machines right down to component level. Well done for solving the mystory and great angle drilling as always.
I'm impressed! It's nice to be able to leave a positive comment on RUclips, it seems like I spend most of my time on RUclips with my face in my palm wondering what the hell people are doing. There are so many self-professed experts on RUclips making videos who have no clue what they're doing that it is become very disheartening. With that said this video was a refreshing change. You're diagnostic skills and your professionalism are some of the best I've seen. I also watched your video with the hoarder DIYer which convinced me that you are also a decent human being. I was stunned that you even opened that panel. If I would have walked in and seen that mess I would have turned around and walked right back out the door. The moment you open the panel anything that goes wrong from that point on will be seen as your responsibility. But then again I live in the United States so things may be a bit different where you are. with your previous video I literally watch the entire video with my mouth hung open in disbelief. I don't think I've ever seen anything that bad and the fact that you help them is just testament to your good nature and the fact that you actually care about your customers. You're a better man than I am because like I said, I would have turned around and walked out the door.. I'm not sure what the previous installer was thinking wiring the hot from one circuit and the neutral in ground from another circuit together. effectively creating a dead man plug. That was a very dangerous situation.. As a general rule of thumb I won't let anybody touch the electrical in my house but me. With that said I'd have no problem hiring you to do work.
Great video, appreciated your candour admitting that it could possibly have been your error when fitting the new CU and that you didn’t follow correct safe isolation procedure. Lesson for us all I think!
Well done Jordan great fault finding . Keep a none contact voltage detector in your top pocket as the last line of defence to just sweep around any cable you are working with before you touch them. I am sure at that sort of voltage it would have give you a warning that all was not safe. I am retired now but the humble volt stick has safe me once or twice in my work career . Hope this helps
I love examples of things where most people would say "would never happen, not in a million years". This was genuinely exciting watching this develop! What time did you finish?
This is in fact a very common mistake, as multiple zones and UFH becomes common, having a volt free feed to a boiler usefull. many plumbers install UFH and use a seperate wiring centre. Instead of bringing a two core cable from the boiler to the wiring centre to act as the supply to the switch and the switching back, a contractor would often link the feed to the volt free switch to a 230v connection inside the wiring centre. This often worked if the boiler could tolerate a 230v supply. However it often blew a board not designed for this. In addition, the boiler could be turned off to be serviced or repaired and it was possible that a call for heat during this service time would result in 230v being sent to the boiler. I have seen this hundreds of times in my previous role.
@@nigelsanger7827 I live in a council owned rented property and exactly this happened. I had to have a socket replaced in the upstairs bedroom and the 'leccy guy pulled the wired fuse out of the box, and then proceeded to strip the damaged plug out. About 30 seconds later, there was an almighty yelp and a loud bang from upstairs. Apparently the socket was still live as the 'leccy guy found out. He got the plug fixed and left in a foul mood. A few days later the council called to inform us, we needed a complete rewire and new fuse box. This was before circuit breakers and such. We had fuse wire and a big grey box on the wall between the meter and the fuse box. It had a trip and reset button and that was it. We had it replaced by a shiny box with so many rcd things, it was amazing...
@@nigelsanger7827 great response. Would some education (and mandating it into code/standards) be useful? Having the old t&E supply a relay coil, then use that relay to switch the input to the boiler. It's obvious that having two circuits to one appliance will cause confusion, so educating & enforcing that it's never ok to use another circuits neutral for a different circuits active would be the key point.
@Jeff C Yes, the UK controls training is very poor. In my previous role of Technical Director of plumbing for Speedfit and RWC, it was part of my responsibility to develop controls. This involved working with control manufacturers and designing the wiring diagrams for different scenarios. I had a number that showed exactly how to avoid this fault as many plumbers and electricians think that as long as there is A 230v live feed, all will be OK. This is historic, however as I have seen many times, this is often the consequence.
I always laugh when someone says. Don’t worry that would be a 1 in a million chance. My response to that is. O so it happens 170 times a year then does it? There are 170 million houses in the United States.
Good that you survived what could have been a lethal shock. When I worked as a commercial electrician double feed faults on office lighting were bread and butter. A proximity tester (sniffer) could have alerted you before you got the belt. Almost certainly you have saved someone from a severe shock or worse. Job well done.
Thoroughly impressed by this, the openness, honesty and methodology you’ve used and shown here would be a useful lesson to many. And that angle drill, what a shot! I can well recall the feeling when you drill a hole then have to go check that it’s come out where you want it, it’s a weird mix of anticipation with a tinge of anxiety. I had it many a time installing phone lines! Great job though and you’re leaving what was clearly a family home 100% safe 👍👍
I'm so glad to see you do this video.... because you survived the shock. I'm not a qualified electrician but I've been in electrical and electronic fault finding all my life and have come across puzzling things like this. When you were holding that live boiler plug in the air, my toes were so tensed up, one of them cramped, I was in agony. Surely anyone with any sense should know not to have a feed from different circuits and if it was a qualified electrician that did that job, they should be named and shamed.
I was so nervous while you were holding that live plug for what seemed like 10minutes, but a fantastic fix! It's so lazy when people leave old wires around, or splice in crappy junction boxes
This was an amazing watch. Credit where credit is due, you are one heck of an electrician amongst a sea of cowboys. I take off my hat to you sir, all the best!
Absolutely crazy. Brilliant work there Jordan, really good fault finding knowledge. Also, may I just say that was the luckiest piece of skill ending up in that cupboard, with the drill bit right at the perfect place. Unreal.
WOW! What a weird problem and masterful diagnosis. People say water and electricity don't mix well, so maybe plumbers and electricians don't either. Glad you are still here.
OMG Jordan! I was truly cringing with anxiety at your reconstruction of that potentially fatal situation, but not only did you diagnose it, but you described and explained it brilliantly too. Thank you for that. I'm sure there are many people out there who appreciate it. I certainly do. As a matter of interest, will you attempt to find out who it was that wired the boiler that way, and bring it to their attention? Or, is it a 'reportable' fault? I mean, is there a requirement to report such a thing or code it as you would for an EICR? I hope the homeowner appreciates what you've done for them - oh yes they do, the Leffe lol One of your best ever videos I feel. Well done for surviving the shock and telling us about it. Regards Mark in the UK
Great Video it takes me back. I did 20 years of maintenance for an Electrical Contractor and came across many similar situations and head scratching moments. one such "shocker" literally was we had a call from a private customer to say they were getting shocks off the kitchen sink. The system was fed from overhead wiring, so not to risk getting a shock off the sink I first thought I would check the Earth rod. The cable was clipped down the wall and disappeared in the ground I went to clear the soil away to find the rod connection and got a cracking big shock off the ground. OFF THE GROUND!! frightening. To cut a long story short the fault was a pinched cable on a lighting circuit 6 A fault tracking to earth. But the distribution board did not have any RCD,s and was fed on overheads with the customers own Earth. Just to point out this one wasn't one of our installs. Keep up the good work. 47 years in the business I have seen a few things, but the EV charge points and PV Battery systems are all new to me.
Jordan, this is an absolutely superb video. You can't learn this stuff on a course - thank you for turning your electric shock in to a valuable lesson for everyone!
These videos are brilliant. I'm an electronics engineer so I work with this stuff on a micro-scale with voltages that are far less likely to kill me. I have a good working knowledge of electric principles but I'm not a qualified electrician. I feel like I'm undertaking an apprenticeship with you guys just watching and learning from videos like this. I can only imagine how valuable these videos are to people who are out in the field. Keep up the great work. Have a great Christmas!
I've been into electronics all my life but in my childhood we had valves and high voltages. I don't know how I'm alive. It's very reassuring to work at 5 volts nowadays!
@@chrisreynolds6331 Me too but I work on systems with all sorts of voltage levels, 5VDC, 15VDC, 48VDC 110VDC, 230VAC, 270VDC, 380VAC too, a real mixed bag in the switch tripping game.
I hope they appreciated what you did for them and got paid well, you possibly saved someone's life. It was only a matter of time before someone pulled and handled that plug when it was live. Good on you buddy!
Problem solving that late in the day is hard enough. We all get complacent at times, awakening for us all. I hope you had a cold beer when you got home 👌
Great job explaining your diagnosis. I am an American electrician and was able to follow you. I have had a similar problem recently on a flip house that had two breakers that had to be turned off for one circuit. I was fortunate to have great attic access. The electrician who did the work for the flip was a real mess. My original bid doubled from my estimate. Fortunately the new owner was very understanding and just wanted to have it safe to rent.
That was trully great! I watch you guys all the way here from Brazil, even though your electrics are a little bit different from ours (we use radial circuits) it's always a pleasure to see how you do your work and take pride of it. I discovered your channel as a mariner and decided to go on a career change, today I'm on my way finishing my electrical apprenticeship, the way you do your work inspired me in become a proud professional and I always had a blast watching your episodes. This one got me hooked to see what was the fault, almost like a detective movie :)
That was beyond brilliant! You have to be techie to follow it, but the 170V was strange, though like you I thought it had to be appliance related after you found the circuit linkage. Sheesh, what a frightening mess! The way you cracked it under pressure was stunning! Well done! I hope you had a pint or 2 after, you definitely earned it.
Great diagnosis Dr Jordan, what a mess, and potentially lethal fault rectified. I do hope your customer appreciates what you've done for them but also how much risk they've been exposed too.
American here, who only has an "advanced homeowner" understanding (I would feel confident doing a whole house rewire, to US codes anyway, but I'm lost in 3 phase or stuff with multi-wire branch circuits w/shared neutrals). I know the UK does things considerably different, but you managed to break my brain with the troubleshooting. Very nice work, I hope the homeowner was grateful for what you did!
Pretty sure we can't do that over here. There's some building regs that mean you can only do certain things. You have to be registered to do the complex stuff.
@@sroberts605 possibly. It's all in part P of the regs. Minor stuff like replacing simple things and adding to existing circuits is OK. But big stuff like rewires, new circuits, fuseboxes etc are reportable?
@ftumptch86 in the US it depends on where you are, for example whether your in the jurisdiction of a city or outside the city limits, outside is however you want to do it and no inspections required around here but national electric code should be followed but isn't inforced out in the county. Then in the city it depends on the city rules whether you can do it yourself but all new work likely requires permits and inspections regardless of who can do it.
Just re-found your channel, watched it about 18 months ago but it went. So starting on previous videos and MY GOD I’m so glad I did. This video absolutely shocked (pun intended) me. Genuinely I’m open mouthed watching this. I’m not even a good DIYer and even I know not to wire something into two circuits. This just shows whoever installed that boiler didn’t care, he wasn’t just incompetent, he actually didn’t care if he killed someone. Fella should be in jail. Excellent work, excellent video. I’ve hit that subscribe button now so ya saved.
Far and away your best fault-finding video ever! You demonstrated a good, logical approach - and the golden rule that it will be something the plumber touched holds fast once again. A little unlucky that whatever current the boiler pulled from the upstairs live (and returned via the downstairs neutral) wasn't enough to unbalance either RCBO and trip it. An older boiler might have done so and saved you several hours searching. Anyway nice work and a great advert for the professionalism of your company.
If you are taking floorboards up or taking boards up from previous work I always felt tip pen number them which always guarantees the correct board in the original space. Mark the first fixed board as the start with a "F" marking which will even give you the correct orientation of the numbered removed boards when you come to re-affix.
At 6 minutes 55 seconds you said you expected the R2 resistance to be higher because the CPC is a slightly larger conductor. If its a 1.5mm conductor then its a smaller conductor than both the R1 and Rn, a difference of 1.67 (2.5/1.5) therefore, the resistance of R2 should have been around 0.53 ohms (0.32*1.67) for a healthy ring circuit. Not a criticism, just a clarification.
💪🏼Powered by Hilti Nuron - hilti.to/nuron_range
Nice
Class. It’s rare to see proper diagnostics, systematic elimination and the commitment to not leave until it’s safe. This is by far the best advertisement for you and your company so far. Thank you for going to the effort to share best practice at its best.
Imagine this would be done in germany... "sorry, its not mentioned in your order, new date to search for the problem is in two month"
Thank you artisan- very much for this. It happend in a well known hotel, I switched off the breaker to change a lighting ballast because there was no other way to switch it off, All the lives were dead but believe you me when I touch the earth it gave me the shock of my life. I will never and ever forget that. In the same stupid hotel I found so many faults on wiring that in the end I simply walked out of the job because the Manager who was in charge of managing the hotel said me to say Nothing!!! I simply picked my bags and never looked back or every worked for such dum people again. Your video reminds of me what I saw in a hotel in around at least ten different places and I was told to keep it quite. But the worse of it all was the ballast one, It had no batteries nothing. I was told not tell anyone or even not to investigate it just remember it and do nothing!!! but take note of it and every three weeks it blew the ballast.... The earth wire had somehow come into contact with some live part somewhere or may be even interconnection but I was not allowed to say anything or do anything because there were so many faults the big man incharge of many hotel had already heard about this hotel and if he heard the ones I had to tell him the managing manager who building the new hotel would have been fired, then the hotel opened and the same mistakes were there lo!!!
Great job Artisan. Though my brain hurts to understand your wiring systems compared to the US. The craziest thing I've encountered so far is a hung ceiling grid electrified to 220v.
@@dennisbaker6814 oof
Absolutely agree, if all tradesmen would work like you do, imagine. Tbh. Whoever did that dodgy dangerous job should be paying for that!
As an instructor of 35 years and now retired I TAKE MY HAT OFF TO YOU!!! With technicians like you it would be a different World! Keep going, you are indispensable. Thank you.
Żałosne 😂
Here here ! Well said
Sadly even he isn't infallible.
He never spotted the boiler E leakage fault.
Inside the boiler, along one or several parts of the electrical heating element coil, it is in it's initial stages of FAULTING to it's outer metal sheath, meaning there is a trickle of FAULT current flowing from the elements PHASE core, and it's outer bonded earth sheathing, appearing (even at the very end of the video) as a 10 volt potential between his E & N at the wall outlet.
BUT, maybe it's not anywhere at the actual boiler or heating system upstairs, as it could well be a similar fault, appearing from the ground, via underfloor pipework, or some other bonded ground rod?
Anything that appears at ONE bonded earth point, may very well be seen as a 10v potential between an outlet's Neutral & it's E - even with the outlet switched off, as it's a N/E fault circuit - back to th distribution board's E and the boned Neutral bar there, giving a return to socket outlet N wire, a small potential seen as 10v at that outlet.
The fult that I see STILL THERE was not cleared when he left the job, and probably will be there forever, until something eventually BLOWS (an element live core, to earth as a full fault), whereupon the distant element will be replaced removing the element core to sheathng (bonded earth) fault - whereupon the 10v will also dissappear.
Relax with the hat removal, he claims to have almost killed himself because of an amateur mistake.
How exactly would the world be different?
This video needs to be compulsory viewing for every trainee electrician and plumber (perhaps as well as existing ones). Literally life saving, Jordan.
Could you have used the upstairs SL to drive a relay to switch a downstairs SL and keep the boiler on the downstairs circuit
@@naim19711 it would have prevented this particular super dangerous fault, but it still wouldn't be particularly safe as there would still be 2 circuits present on the relay, which might surprise someone if they were being less than cautious.
This is a perfect illustration of how a little bit of knowledge is so dangerous. I’m sure whoever wired up the boiler thought they had come up with an ingenious solution but didn’t understand sufficiently to recognise the danger they created. Do not mess with stuff you are not competent to deal with!
Whoever wired that was a dangerous cowboy no excuse for that at all!
Stupidity is the greatest danger of all for humankind. Knowing something but not knowing enough to understand how little someone actually knows and by this not knowing what dangerous things are going out of his/her hands (minds) is the sickness of our era.
Or, another option, spend the time to learn how to do it well. There’s nothing wrong with DIY. It saves a ton of money. The issue is DIY with a shortcut that you think no one else has ever thought of. Besides, according to the video, this was a professionally done job.
The question now is how many other boilers did that 'geezer' wire up the same way? I'm guessing that 'geezer' knew what was required to do this properly, and thought too much work, its better to bodge it.
@@chrisliddiard725 That's a great question. If I was the homeowner, I'd be reaching out to the boiler guy to (a) invite him to cover or help cover the costs of repairing the dangerous wiring time bomb he left (all meticulously documented by Artisan Electrics) and (b) suggest that the boiler guy reach out to anyone else who might have the same issues based on work he did before a house burns down or someone gets electrocuted. And huge kudos to Artisan Electrics for figuring it out and saving the day. Cheers.
Leave a like for that epic angle drill 📐
Fix the title - not "what on earth" but rather "what on Earth".
Good job Jordan👍
Pythagoras Jordan 🤣
@@tarassu great, now I understand - before I was so confused before. Thank you for your diligent work. Where, no... wear on earth wood we be with out peoples like yous. Also, you are wrong. The word earth here should not be capatalised as it is an idiomatic expression/intensifier. I am being rude because "Fix the title" is not polite and I want to see less posts like this. Especially when its erroneous and spreading ignorance. Also one space between what and on please.
One solution would be a contactor coil fed by upstairs contacts switch power from boiler feed to to boiler heat input.
That family are VERY lucky you took a shock for them. Incredible people out there will happily put people at risk like this.
as the saying goes, never underestimate just how little regard some people have for your life.
@@johnnyfast1461 Indeed! I once has some work done in the basement and on comming back home noticed a really strong smell of gas... It turned out the workmen I had hired for the job had drilled through the main gas supply line of the house and deciced to "fix" their mistake with gaffa tape!!!!! Good thing the hole was after the gas meter and isolation valve so I was able to switch off the thing before blowing off the whole neighboorwood.
Needless to say I had a lively conversation with these guys... wich ended well: they came back to fix the gas stuff and didn't charge me anything for the electric work they had been hired to do in the first place
Fair play to you fella I have been an electrician for over 30 years and that is a mind blowing fault but what is really good is the satisfaction you must of felt finding that fault and fixing it, especially at that time of night. I hope the client appreciated the knowledge and skill you showed in sorting that problem out for them. You have earned a sub from me ..................
Just got to stand back and applaud that angle drill into the cupboard. Fair play for staying on and fixing the fault many would have returned at later date or worse not come back at all. And to still apply good workmanship at that time of night and not let tiredness bring down your standards that definitely says a lot about the type of tradesmen you are, a very good one In my book. Well done Jordan 👍.
@Mark Jones and leave the family with no heating and hot water?
@Mark Jones unimpressed with MIL.
Without trying to sound like I'm full of myself I am fortunate enough to be wealthy.
I don't care about pricey watches, fancy cars or 5 star hotels. I wear primark or supermarket chain clothes :P
But paid for private heart operation for parent, bought them a bungalow this year now their mobility not so good, and even spoke to my sibling about private rehab today.
Family number 1 priority as it should be.
@@tisme1105 👍
@Mark Jones Sorry to hear that my friend.
@Mark Jones didn't take it that way :) I thought twice about mentioning being wealthy in case it sounded like I was waving my willy around - especially in a cost of living crises.
People can do what they want with their money, and after taking care of family I plan to leave most of it to animal charities.
Leaving too much to 1 person I think might actually cause harm rather than being a good thing.
Your a brilliant guy,to not go and leave that family in danger,to not leave that problem unsolved is a credit to you as a human being. Superb morals.Your Mother/Father really instilled the right ethics into you. Fantastic.
Brilliant bit of detective work Jordan. You’ve saved someone’s life, for sure. You are an incredible electrician and I salute you for professionalism.
💯 the mind boggles with what could have happened with that live plug
well sorted out, sod plumbers....
Brilliant 👏 👏
As an electrician and plumbing and heating engineer I can say I've come across this type of fault more than once over the last 20 odd years .all boiler manufacturers supply terminals to feed external controls via the boiler to avoid this problem. Good bit of detective work fella .
When I realized that plug was hot and back feeding the circuit I was like, "Holy crap!"
@@GaryCameron780 yep
Why does the boiler feed the control line back to the continous supply and to the neutral of that? Is it a relay entry?
@@berndeckenfels it's simply the residual current as a result of the live feed to the boiler that then has no balancing neutral connection.
If the circuit had been fitted with standard beakers it would have not shown but the plug would still be live when it was unplugged. It's only because the rcbo's break both line and neutral that it made the ground floor ring stay live.
Interesting that boilers are wired via a common/central supply that's fanned out to associated devices, because from the HVAC perspective it feels like the reverse - thermostat cables run (isolated) low-voltage AC as relay signaling, with the endpoint devices (compressors, pumps, etc.) being responsible for their own mains supply on the other end.
Something so deadly, the homeowners were so lucky they didn't get killed with that fault. Amazing work.
Top Tip, before removing floor boards number the boards and the boards they lay next to before removing that way you will know where to relay them.
I draw lines on them across the joins before removal so I can be certain they're going down in exactly the same place - paranoid about hitting water pipes!
@@richiero0o0bet you get your crayons out haha
@@stickemuppunkitsthefunlovi4733 I resemble that remark, yuck, yuck ...
I always mark boards, top, bottom, first, second, left , right or 1,2,3 from etc. Makes it infinitely easier to restore.
That seems criminally negligent, whoever wired that up that should be out of business.
absolutely. This person is so lucky to have contacted you.
And inside prison
Householder is obliged to trace the cowboy(s) responsible and issue a writ to prosecute !!! They cannot allow another household to have the same issue and there most certainly will be one somewhere local.
@@michaelaltun where is this info ?
I just had an electrician do a job where he did not realise a RCCB did not provide over current protection. He put it on an EV charger instead of an RCBO (no MCB). He came back but only after I had to repeat myself by email, bluntly the second time, that an RCCB does not provide over current protection. He made out it was an accident and he wasn't thinking that day and that the wholesaler gave him the wrong part! Complete BS otherwise he would not have said, plain as day, by email that an RCCB provides over current protection. The only over current device in the circuit was the main house cutout. He's apparently been in the trade 18yrs! He also did not provide a minor works cert until I asked him for one; I don't think he was going to bother until I asked (excuse was he was a bit behind with the paperwork). Also, he didn't bother to connect the armour on the SWA to anything; acceptable in the particular circumstance by regs I believe, but poor practice. I am not an electrician; just a DIYer. Not allowed to mess with DBs, me. 'Gainst regs isn't it. (Just like pulling the cutout is, like every electrician does.) The average householder would not have known there was any potential problem. The RCBO he eventually fitted buzzed like a b*tard, he stopped replying to my emails and so in the end I swapped it for another myself (yes it was the right type and yes, I even had a torque tool, which he didn't). Should have done the whole bloody thing myself from the start.... but I'm not allowed to because it would be oh so unsafe and against regs. Should I report him to NAPIT, as that was who certified him (according to his website)?
One of the lessons that really stuck with me learning the small amount of electrical engineering you do in an audio engineering degree is that dual supply is a recipe for death, and worse, makes an awful humm in the monitors.
One of the best videos you've made so far, both raw and humble in equal amounts. Quite frankly, the professional negligence of the previous contractors is mind blowing.
How you managed to drill into the corner of the cupboard like that was impressive.
WHY they did it is not really impressive
As an electrician myself that was a very good shot,
that was a fucking jaw dropper of a hole
Jedi level drilling.
Seen quite a few times he's done angle drilling and he gets it absolutely bang on, impressive stuff, most recent one I saw was installing a tesla charger.
This gotta be the scariest electricians' video I have ever seen. I am in my second week of an electrician's course, for adults, and learn all about safe isolation and how important it is. But never in a million years would have thought I could have come across a live 3-pin plug feeding juice into a switched-off circuit! This video is invaluable. Thank you and my hat off to you Sir, take care out there!
I am not an electrician, but I've seen things one wouldn't believe. Never take a chance with electricity.
Always carry a multimeter with NCV even near circuits you thought were off, could save your life
Very good point, and also check for power between ALL conductors with a multimeter or 2-pole voltage tester before starting work, as this guy said. I wish the person taking the electrician training every success. I am not an electrician, but I myself am hoping to get qualified and start working as an electrician.
Me ?
I am a FULLY REGISTERED NEW ZEALAND ELECTRICIAN and have been since 1985.
Top "electrical apprentice" in Southland NZ in 1985, and represented the Southland Technical College at that year's Mystery Creek, Hamilton Fieldays - at a "public display" alongside the other 18 "top apprentices" from every NZ Electrical Tertiary Night-School Institution, who supplied the Mystery Creek Feildays display - with their own TOP Electrical apprentices, to represented them.
So ?
Maybe ask your training supervisor (or your electrical co-workers), to explain the MULTIPLE RETURN PATHS (via any earthing connection) whereby an electrical potential appears on a boiler's Earth terminal - at the "corded plug" - either inserted into, or unplugged out of, a switched PHASE ONLY outlet socket, where the earth to switchboard circuit is all that is connected - when the plug is put back into a wall outlet.!
NEVER EVER assume all earth circuits (at an outlet OR at a plug OR ALONG AN "IN_GROUND" PIPE EITHER) - are dead at all times, or you WILL be a dead apprentice/electrician someday.
If anyone who has dug a hole and discovered what appears to be an unused water pipe, NEVER EVER CUT IT, until you place grounding clamps to BOTH outer ends of the hole where the pipe to be cut appears out of the ground, with a 6mm bonding wire connecting both, & with a CLAMP-ON meter on that bonding cable, to see, when the cut "is made" - that the two sections of now cut pipe, do NOT have any voltage across them, or you will have to BOND THEM as far into the ground as possible, away from where the section to be removed is made, to ensure the bonding is continuous along the pipe, still buried in the (very high resistance) earth.
Don't be a DEAD fool, be proactive at protecting yourself and everyone round you, from stray EARTH RETURN fault circuits - as they are LETHAL, and completely irrelevant to whatever PHASE you switched off.
EARTH - is itself NOT a very good conductor, hence why we use a bonded grounded earth return system (at multiple points), to get STRAY GROUND FAULT CURRENTS back to the nearest switchboard and thus along overhead pole neutrals to the master transformer N/E as quickly as possible, to BLOW the protective fusing on whatever PHASE has been compromised, to remove the fault to ground, & thus eliminate any fault.
The Earth - at the installation you work in, has multiple earth faults in & along it, at every point in time, yet they come from numerous places both within your worksite, as well as MANY MILES AWAY - as a fault to ground elsewhere, that all struggle to get BACK to their respective supply N's (bonded to earth) - which means the E potential (at any Earth circuit if bonded to grounded metalwork), changes all the time.
It's why Electricity is, and of itself, extremely dangerous.
AT ALL TIMES.
Mostly, everyone assumes circuits are deadened, by ONLY switching off, the PHASE (L) .
Leaving all bonded N & E terminals always connected to all bonded/ground connections, and thus the E terminals and E cables, are always live - if a fault occurs nearby.
always assume conductors are live until you have proven them dead with testing
I remember an older electrician told me to always triple-check every wire three times even though I'm convinced it's isolated, he saved my life a few times thanks to him just using two different phase testers. once when someone had bypassed a meter and another when a wire in a wall was from a terrace house next door!
This video was amazing. More of this please, problem solving and logical thinking. Enjoyed the investigation and then working out the fixing options of what is possible and what isn’t to find the best solution. Bravo 👏🏻
This was an amazing video! Please more problems solving and logical explanations! Glad you are so smart!
Great watch.
I know of two Electricians who had bad experiences. One who isolated the supply similar to you and started working on the house. He said that the next thing he knew he woke up with the customer doing compression on him. Basically it stopped his heart. Another Electrician isolated the consumer unit and could not understand why a wall light was still on in the living room. Moral of the story even when you're so tired, test test test trust no work.
Mate, I live in the US but if You were in my area I'd hire you in a heartbeat. You did what I would hope every skilled electrician would by going above and beyond to fix the issue. I guarantee a lot of others would have thought about it and buttoned it up for someone else to deal with. You didn't and I applaud your professionalism.
In spite of the differences in wiring that could happen just as easily in the US, I'll bet electricians have seen it. Someone adds a plug to something already wired and plugs it into a different circuit.
@@davidg4288 American here so the set up on that unit confuses me, but did it actually come with a built in plug like that? I doubt it because that would encourage the mistake the idiot before him did, hey its a plug all we need to do is plug it in to a socket. Surely it does not come with a built in plug surely.
@@inkman996 Probably was added by an idiot who could have killed someone! Some of this stuff confuses me in the USA, and the term "boiler" is not what I think of here, a boiler here as I know it- would be what creates steam to be piped to radiators around the house or building, that's almost exclusively what heats all buildings in NY City. This "boiler" appears to me what I might see here to on demand heat hot water for a sink faucet without a storage tank.
The the 220+ volts being normal house current is strange to me too since 220 is only used for high draw appliances here like furnaces, heaters, cook stoves, everything else is reduced to 120
@@HobbyOrganist Roughly from memory here, there's an old video somewhere on YT:
The U.S. center taps transformers for residential use, so we do actually get 240v, we just use the center of the transformer as a ground for the two lives offset 180 degrees to make it 120v. For things that need 240v we connect both legs through a breaker. I can't comment on the UK grid, don't know enough about it.
@@HobbyOrganist These things are called 'combination boilers' here in UK, A water heater and central heating compact unit which uses gas or electric to heat water and pump it through radiators and taps.. On demand as you say. Basically, A boiler is a container that uses fuel to heat fluid.. We call these thing boilers because they do that job - even though it doesn't pre-heat fluid in a container like the traditional boiler way.
This is where a non contact voltage tester is handy. A quick wave of an isolated circuit can alert you to anything abnormal. Then confirm with a proper multimeter, do not use non contact as outright replacement.
The funny thing is the more I learn the less likely I am to mess with household electrics. Glad you survived intact and thanks for the entertaining videos.
I thought the same, never knew voltage could go out of a plug I’ll make sure my kids never touch plugs now!
This is one of the most masterful, multi-disciplinary bits of problem solving I have ever seen! Bravo, mate!
Ex-heating engineer here. Great vid! Twin feed heating systems are actually terrifyingly common in ex-Local Authority properties that have had a boiler relocation as part of a refit program. Have seen a load in London in my time, and been on the wrong end of one too. Usually unmarked and really hard to spot, but apparently in some refit programs it was normal practice and so entire buildings/estates may have all had all properties done the same way 😦
Pure laziness from the previous spark. All because he couldn't be bothered to drill a whole and run a 3-core-earth cable.
That is actually terrifying.
@@jamiehobson6336 Totally. Especially when you add in that it was a gas boiler to the equation. Engineer unplugs it thinking that will cut the power. Some gas leaks out while working and boom.
Same here! The number of room stats I've come across where a T&E has been run only for a nice new stat to be installed that requires a permanent live, so the installer has used the earth as one of the live conductors!
My brother was a sparks before he passed and was working on a housing association council plot he was a sub contractor at the time one day the formant say do you know anything about boilers there have been problems he sayed yes went to this old boys house with the forman all of a sudden the old man sayed we beenhaving problems with it for 6 months he took the panel of and went who the fxxx has wired up this is dam dangerous and need to be sorted now he literally turned the powered off and cut all the wires the forman then disappeared he asked who wired it the old boy sayed the forman what I could make out it was a new type of boiler just to say he was rewiring and wiring boilers for 6 months the excuse was by the forman was I always wire the boilers up after the plumbers have finished I've had no trouble till now
As soon as I saw the problem I thought ‘borrowed neutral.’ But this was another level, great diagnosis and spot. In my own personal experience Plumbers should stick to soldering pipes.
As another note you should ALWAYS use a dedicated set of test lamps (to GS38) and a proving unit for isolation, not a meter. Test the circuit, then test the tester. I’ve had the same set for thirty years and they’ve saved me generally from half wits, numerous times.
My go-to tool to check for safe handling of AC wiring is a contactless wand. While its usefulness for troubleshooting is very limited since all it does is chirp or not chirp within a few inches of any conductor, its usefulness for safe handling is off the charts: it'll let me know if there's still even enough potential to ring a doorbell, let alone my bell.
Or a 2 pole tester
Yes, not so much a borrowed neutral as a borrowed live. A borrowed neutral - commonly used in older properties having a landing light controlled by 2-way switches on ground and first floors - would only manifest itself when the fuse board was replaced with an RCD or RCBO protected consumer unit. The current difference between L&N when the light was switched on would cause either the ground floor or first floor lighting breakers to trip. Clearly in Jordan's situation the current drawn by the boiler wasn't sufficient to upset the 30mA RCBOs he'd installed previously. The powers-that-be have decided that a current difference sensitivity of 30mA is a good compromise between safety and nuisance tripping - how ironic!
I’m a boiler repair engineer. I’ve seen similar to this on a few occasions. I think a few years back a BG engineer was killed by something similar. I remember on our training course them absolutely drilling us on the correct safe iso procedure because of it. In fact they were so paranoid about dual live feeds that my manager said if he ever came out on site and found we didn’t have a volt pen he’d send us home. The safe isolation took longer than some repairs. 😂. Really good video.
dont just rely on your volt stick, always use a multi meter and a mulitmeter prover.always test your volt stick on a known live. first.
I worked at Transco at the time the Volt Sticks and training was given to us. The reason was a Transco Engineer in Liverpool visited a possible unsafe situation with a gas cooker. When he was kneeling down he was touching the gas cooker with one hand and his other touched the emergency control valve, where he received a massive fatal shock. On investigation it was found that the electric kettle which was on top of the gas cooker had a damaged cable and was touching the gas cooker making it all live including the gas pipes. It just needed someone to provide a path to earth which he did. After that it became mandatory to check any part of a gas installation with an approved volt stick (After first checking on a known power source before and after checking the installation)
So, I'm curios, is there a lot of deaths from poor and untrained people doing electrical work in the UK? It seems that using the higher voltages should require a higher degree of safety and training? That boiler electrical wiring installer should be notified he will be killing someone if he doesn't get the right training.
There's cowboys everywhere unfortunately. Bathroom fitter took out a lighting circuit by putting chock blocks between live and neutral. Boiler engineer wired up my nest system all wrong and blew the nest wiring box. All different guys, all with excellent feedback on mybuilder. Honestly if you find a good sparky/plumber/handyman just keep using them.
@@silverismoney So, this is in the UK? Is this because there are so many unlicensed electricians in the UK or because licensing is allowing Boiler engineers too much latitude without sufficient training on electrical?
With these outrageous stories that many people are killed or shocked, does anybody actually track incidents and can we look it up? In the U.S. we use 120 vac for most all of our electrical needs and only use 240vac when is truly necessary. U.S. electrical codes and enforcement are quite strict and I wonder if there is a big difference in serious electrical injuries in the U.K or U.S.?
Nothing like being stuck at 7pm and you gotta get it done. I feel your pain brother.
Absolutely hate wiring, I’m glad there’s guys like you around. First class job.
I had a similar issue in a factory where a set of outside lights had been added to and extended after which they kept tripping out at roughly the same time each day. The previous electricians on the job had a few near misses but could not find a fault. After a lot of snooping, I realised that the lights were operated from a pair of timers, the timer that controlled the lights in winter and one of the manual control feeds for lighting circuit were wired to different phases, unfortunately some conscientious person had remembered to switch over to the winter timer, a task which had previously been ignored every year since the install which brought the fault to everyone's attention. There was also a 2nd manual switch (which was on a different phase from the first but fed the same control relay) which the other electricians had used to switch on the lights for testing. Fortunately for them they never had the two switches closed at the same time, unfortunately for them the manual switch bypassed the timers and the fault that they were looking for. I believe the faults were due to the installers not realising that they were dealing with a 3 phase supply board or not realising that they were wiring to different phases at all. I got rid of both timers and one of the manual switches and used a daylight sensor to control the lights instead.
Not even an electrician and I'm gripped!
Impressed you even stayed to do the job at 7pm at night. Applause for this fab electrician.
Some dedicated work there. I probably would’ve run in a temporary cable on the Friday and dealt with it next week 😅
Could you have installed a relay in the boiler? With the coil connected to the upstairs circuit for demand and the switch connector wired to the downstairs circuit. This would provide isolation without having to run any new cables. (Sorry if this has already been suggested - I didn't have time to go through the 2.7k comments!!)
Great diagnostic video, keep up the good work.
Had the exact same idea! Also for safety could just use the wiring between circuits for a low current DC signal, isolated. Also could drive the relay through an optocoupler. Would be totally safe.
My thoughts too. Although my only knowledge comes from electronics repair. A contacter/relay between circuits might be a code violation and therefore not an option
@@alexoja2918best practice one spur should totally isolate all power to heating control .to fit boiler which doesn't need pump over run or run cable with sufficient amount of wire to do the job.
But has a gas engineer this will encourage to be more detail with my checks
The only possible problem I can come up with regarding your solution is whether code will allow two mains-voltage circuits into the same device.
The only thing that would change would be adding a low voltage transformer into the upstairs unit, as well as a relay to enable/break the low voltage circuit. The low voltage control circuit would then control the relay in the boiler.
More components, more points of failure, but no drilling.
@@zierlyn It's allowed so long a there is a yellow sticker on the appliance, stating: 'Warning, multiple supplies - isolate elsewhere!' However, it is also frowned upon and should be avoided if at all possible. Finally, you're more likely to see multiple supplies in equipment in an industrial setting, not domestic.
That was one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen, voltage on the male end of a supply power cord! Great problem solving skills on display here, to identify the root cause and in implementing a proper solution to perfection, Bravo sir stay safe!
I have a friend here in the US who works in a home DYI store and he said every Christmas people coming in looking for a male-male extension cord because they put their lights on the tree with the male plug at the top of the tree. The want to ;ower it from the bottom female end. He calls these "suicide cords."
@@SuburbanDon yep
I remember they made such cables at the communal work on my scool when i was a kid as well, i can't remember the exact reason why.
I don't know if it's a problem in the US, but in my country another thing people do is to mix in 3 phase/400V lines with unipolar single phase connectors so the 0 became a phase if the wires are confused by somebody... I almost had a fire in mu own house because of that, luckily it had not set the wall on fire before i saw it...
I love it when a plan comes together!! When I lived in a flat, each of the three flats was on a different phase of a 3 phase supply into the building. Whilst refurbishing the flat, we decided to remove the electric shower. The bathroom fitter had turned all our power off from the fuse box, but still found a voltage within the shower. He turned off the power at the meter box, and still a voltage. We then asked our neighbours if we could turn there power off and hey presto, no voltage anymore. He traced the cabling back to a junction box under the bath which had a twin core from our fuse box, and a three core that was from the downstairs flat lighting circuit. A three core was then going into the shower unit, but only one live core was in use, the other had a small bit of celotape (not electrical tape) on it. The shower was fed from the permanent live of the downstairs lighting circuit, and neutral of the shower fuse from my flat. Interestingly, the neighbours had been puzzled why their lighting circuit was on a 20 amp mcb. So there was two live conductors in the shower unit from two phases!!
That's honestly terrifying.
@@Cyberpunk_Banshee But free hot showers 👍
Very professional excellent diagnostic skills and lack of bitter attitude. Great work
Good example of why some sparks only do commercial or industrial. Domestic cable routing is an art form. well done sir.
Thank you very much!
Yep. I only do industrial and commercial because domestic is just a lottery. A lottery that has prizes like, install a socket in newly decorated rooms ( without lifting floors or cutting channels or using trunking, and of course.... part P idiots.
I have a guy who i pass my domestic onto, he loves them. He calls me out to sort this sort of shite out.
Boiler on it's own breaker. Every time. And always run a 3 core plus Earth for stuff like that.
Industrial thanks , domestic can be a real pain .
@@raychambers3646 hi sir if your dealing with 3phase work in industry , you should have no problem in a domestic setting . At least with low voltage your in with a chance of surviving a shock , not so good when you get across 2 phases .
@@Kx110x it's not the wiring that is the problem ,its the carpets, floorboards, and clients !
Really good job! That live boiler plug was so dangerous - whoever did that should be ashamed of themselves.
The combination between the lighting and the baby giggling in the background and the haunted electrical behavior is just creepy. :)
Just to add, I've seen many instances of the cpc being used as a switch live on heating systems and it's the first thing I look for. But this fault would have stumped most... Great persistence 👍 no exaggeration, you many have potentially saved a life.
That new cable routing was so so satisfying.
Although you didn’t mention it, I noticed you used proper heat resistance cabling going into the boiler, unlike the original dodgy flex and plug !
You could have used a relay with a potential free contact. The Cabel from the Boiler switching the relay and the live from the downstairs sockets switched by the relay.
But your way of doing it is probably the best way.
Relay would definitely have been a much quicker and simpler way to fix that, however you still have to sources of power in the boiler. I personally would have gone that way and labelled it appropriately, running cables in those houses looks absolutely painful.
My thoughts as well. And clearly labeled as such for future service people. Could take one step safer and make that wiring coming from above low voltage control to a relay.
You could use the original twin cable as a switch wire and mount the relay upstairs in its own box and labeled up nicely a much easier way. But the customer would still be using a socket in the kitchen to power the boiler.
@@90seconds33 Hi, You are probably never going to read this, as it is a year since you posted but... Can you explain why a relay would be needed? Permanent power from the plug socket I understand, but why can't the twin and earth cable (that is coming from the upstairs cupboard) just be wired directly to the 'call for heat' terminal in the upstairs cupboard. That is only live when switch by the controller, so where does the relay come into it? I'm only interested for interests sake ! Thanks.
@@danielward7707 the relay would maintain isolation between the upstairs and downstairs circuit, the upstairs circuit would power the coil and the relay contacts would create a switched live to the boiler with power from the downstairs circuit.
Colour me impressed - great to see you stayed to the end to resolve a problem that wasn't of your making! Also that you owned your incident and shared the experience, kudos!
A *very* good lesson here for everyone, and especially us DIY'ers: *NEVER assume a circuit is dead just because a switch says it is.* You never know when a circuit which _seems_ to be fed from the board is actually being fed through a UPS... ⚡🔋⚠
An *excellent* demonstration here of a risk that seems surprisingly easy to overlook, and many thanks for documenting it so well! If I have to do anything on a circuit with a boiler on it, I'll _definitely_ be taking a lot more care from here on in... 😇👍
This applies to every circuit not just the one with the boiler in it. The boiler appeared to take power from lower sockets but was actually backfeeding it, it could just as easily been backfeeding something unrelated like lights.
Treat everything as lethal, especially if you checked it then changed something else!
Excellent bit of logical testing and rectifying. In 50 years in the electrical industry now retired, I came across many weird and wonderful ways people found ways of wiring things wrongly. Here is a real-life scenario that caught me out.
In the small gatehouse for a football club in Scottish Division One
there was a 4-way DB Supplied by 6mm SWA with a 60A isolator.
Only 3 circuits were used.
1) 16A going a fair distance to supply some lighting in urinals top of terracing wired in 6mm SWA( Don't know why it was 6mm. I can only assume that was the only cable they had.)
2) 6A supplying one 60watt lamp in gatehouse wired in 1.5mm T&E
3) 16A supplying single socket in the gatehouse for a small heater wired in 2.5 T&E
The socket and plug top showed signs of burning due to a slack connection in the plug.
I thought, simple... only three cables, and they were easily identified by cable size but just in case I isolated the main 60A breaker and went to replace the socket.
After an electric shock a loud bang and a flash in my eye. I thought how could that possibly happen.
Tested incoming supply live conductor going to the main switch to find 0 volts tested outgoing supply feeding DB busbar 240 volts.
Some idiot and I found out later who (not a spark but a handyman ) had mixed up 6mm circuit 1 and the 6mm incoming supply making circuit 1 through the circuit breaker feeding the DB busbar.
It certainly made me change my ways of taking nothing at its face value and testing everything.
One of those mistakes you only do once... one way or the other!
With 43 years in the electrical repair service my Wiggy tester was my best friend and saved my life many times. Still, "One Hand in the Zone" saved me more times working around troffers 277 VAC.
When in the US Army working on a HUGE telephone equipment rack, I worked next to a boiler. Every time I touched both the boiler frame and my bonded conduit I'd get a buzz. Mind you in USA we have 240 VAC split into two 120 VAC. One side of the boiler 240 VAC had touched the frame and the frame was not bonded well. After calling and complaining, the plumber came out and could not find a issue, two days later I grabbed the Sergent in charge of one of the electrician crews and showed him my VOM reading of the boiler frame and my conduit. He first check my conduit and it was all correct. Then he looked over the boiler junction box and found the wiring error. It was wired maybe 40 years before, during WW2.
It's pretty scary to say the least. I'm an amateur DIY, and I'd say electrical work scares me the most out of everything. If I need to change out a socket, light fixture, or hang a ceiling fan, that's 100% fine to me. When you start doing more complicated stuff and in the 240v range, I throw my hands up and say no.
Heck, I still remember one instance where I went to put a fan up. Flipped the switch in the room to kill the power, got tazed really good when pulling the fan down, and found out that switch wasn't even connected to the fan. I learned my lesson then and there to switch it off at box, rarely if ever trusting a switch.
An undercover Nazi boiler
@@amanawolf9166 You know in some old houses (at least around here in PA), back then they used to switch the NEUTRAL, so the hot to the fixture/fan is always HOT, and the neutral is switched, meaning whether the switch is ON or OFF, the hot is LIVE !
Very dodgy situation, since the switch works correctly turning on and off the light/fan, so you assume that if the switch is OFF it means you killed the hot, but actually not!
Always use a voltage pen first and you'll be OK, buy also getting zipped by 120v isn't too bad 😂
Well done Sherlock!
It's so common for wiring issues to be discovered!
In the first place plumbers generally don't have enough understanding of electrics and electricians don't understand heating wiring.
End result can be what nearly killed you!!
As a very experienced plumber ,I've learnt to wire any heating system the hard way; of all the knowledge I've learnt,Number 1 is start from a SINGLE 3amp fused spur or if you have to, an UNSWITCED socket. So simple,,so safe!
i love these fault finding videos this one was awesome! I cant believe how perfect that angle drill went nothing better than being in a customers house that late in the evening and having some awesome success and making progress
I have experienced the same situation where the combi boiler was located in an outbuilding, powered locally, and the control system was powered from the immersion heater circuit next to the hot water tank.
Fortunately I discovered the boiler being powered from two circuits and avoided getting a belt!
Nonetheless a very dangerous arrangement.
Well done and thank you for sharing.
I bet this is more common than Jordan thinks (maybe without the special death-plug feature). Just turned off my 'heating' breaker to confirm that both the boiler display turns off and the heating timer display turns off. It did. Good video, thanks.
retired RN Sparky here. Well done mate on finding and correcting a truly horrifying bodge job. I did my share of jury rigged solutions on a ship but they were always safe and temporary. That was horrific.
On ships there are also multi-frequency and DC supplies and these may also be found in dockyards. Different frequencies created major problems for the USN during World War 2 , not only in Britain and Australia, but also at the San Diego shipyards which at the time were supplied with power from the Mexican grid which was 50 Hz.
Isn’t RUclips a great thing, I just popped in 18 months for a car charger review and bought a Hypervolt following the video, and I’m still here. I’m a Driving Instructor and know next to nothing about electrics, but subscribed and still watching the videos as the workmanship and pride in the job is epic. I think that’s why I keep watching, it’s just addictive stuff. Fantastic video and scary to imagine the danger the family were in.
Top Man Jordan ! A very dangerous situation, but your logical thorough fault finding and commitment to safety for others, outshines many so called electrical wizards in the industry. You're such a good tutor as well for the benefit of the new young generation trainee electricians. Keep up these interesting videos they are brilliant and such fun too !!
As an electrician I felt cold shivers down my spine when you opened that boiler. These plumbers should be out off business! Great video with more exitement than I am used to. Well done!
I had the same thoughts as yourself for initial diagnosis, but I was seriously impressed how you not only worked out what the plumber had done, but could actually rectify it. I think I needed a lie down when you explained that! I was even more impressed that you were able to fix it, and to a professional standard the same night. kudos. That's got you another subscriber - more of your videos and a cuppa coming up!
OMG! As a gas engineer I would never think to test a plug after removing it. Worryingly, I work in the same area as you so I could well have come across that one day. I can see how this has happened though, so it's a good lesson to always carry out your tests regardless.
As a Gas Engineer would you insist on a monoxide detector for this property? Thanks
If it has been installed since July this year, it has to have a Co alarm near the appliance. And the boiler shouldn’t be installed onto a switches plug
@@TheNockPlumber The reason I asked is I did not see one
always check the power
You shouldn't have to test a plug, this sort of thing shouldn't happen. Unfortunately we have a thriving population of top class cowboys and handymen in the UK.
Solid graft, skill, experience, persistence & well deserved praise in the comments Sir.
The fact you stuck around and kept troubleshooting to find the problem to then remedy it is very admirable pal. I know a few sparks that would have rescheduled even when they found the bloody issue.
Nicely done sir! I am a Master Electrician and Contractor in the States and I love solving problems like this. Hate it when I get poked even after almost 40 years doing electrical work, so 100% I know where you are coming from. Good to see someone stick with the problem, and have the knowledge to not only find the issue, but to fix it as well. Seems the ability to diagnose an unusual problem is getting more rare with each passing year with the new younger batch of Electricians.
Absolutely LOVE your test meter as well. Haven't seen that one on this side of the pond.
Totally agree there. Too many guys just want the quick money and walk away, or take shortcuts because the job will run til the end of the week and thoughts are on the pub.
Ability and inclination to analyse and diagnose is being lost everywhere - computers, business processes, politics, medicine (my mother trained and worked as nurse in WW2 and after till 1955 when I was born. Then went back part time around 1970 - appalled at the listcart of diagnisis repkaced by reliance on machine testing with no knowledge of what the nachines were doing and no attempt to think about the symptoms and diagnose with respect to the individual patient)
You are too quick to dismiss your juniors. Everyone does it, its always been common for people to think that the generation following them is inferior to their own, but that's a mistaken conceit. The fact is it takes a depth of knowledge and experience to efficiently problem solve in complex systems, whether we're talking electrical installations or anything else. Its true that some junior spark straight out of college would likely not have dealt with this situation so well, but after a few years on the job gaining the necessary knowledge and experience, that same person will have gained the skills to do so.
Absolutely shocked by this video but at the same time amazed by your commitment to the job. So many people could have just walked away after putting that new socket in, your a credit to all electricians. I don’t know you but I’m still proud of you 👍🏻
Respect to you man for fixing this problem. I’m a retired commercial heating maintenance engineer and a boiler on a plug top rang alarm bells to me. Loved the video and your fix.
Watching this is bring back the joyous feeling of getting a cabling run through a decorated house without creating any making good! Well played man!
Well done Jordan, serious determination and professionalism 👌
Well done! I'm no electrician, but I was an HVAC technician and had to fix lots of botched/sketchy work others considered, "good enough" and my brained was mush pretty often. The "How?" and "Why on earth would you do that?" Always left me astounded, because I believe in quality over quantity.
Really enjoeyed that, I mean i felt your pain but I love to see a mystory solved. My background is Electronics and I used to spend all day every day looking for faults in incredibly complex machines right down to component level. Well done for solving the mystory and great angle drilling as always.
I'm impressed! It's nice to be able to leave a positive comment on RUclips, it seems like I spend most of my time on RUclips with my face in my palm wondering what the hell people are doing.
There are so many self-professed experts on RUclips making videos who have no clue what they're doing that it is become very disheartening.
With that said this video was a refreshing change. You're diagnostic skills and your professionalism are some of the best I've seen.
I also watched your video with the hoarder DIYer which convinced me that you are also a decent human being. I was stunned that you even opened that panel.
If I would have walked in and seen that mess I would have turned around and walked right back out the door. The moment you open the panel anything that goes wrong from that point on will be seen as your responsibility. But then again I live in the United States so things may be a bit different where you are.
with your previous video I literally watch the entire video with my mouth hung open in disbelief. I don't think I've ever seen anything that bad and the fact that you help them is just testament to your good nature and the fact that you actually care about your customers.
You're a better man than I am because like I said, I would have turned around and walked out the door..
I'm not sure what the previous installer was thinking wiring the hot from one circuit and the neutral in ground from another circuit together. effectively creating a dead man plug. That was a very dangerous situation..
As a general rule of thumb I won't let anybody touch the electrical in my house but me. With that said I'd have no problem hiring you to do work.
Great video, appreciated your candour admitting that it could possibly have been your error when fitting the new CU and that you didn’t follow correct safe isolation procedure. Lesson for us all I think!
Well done Jordan great fault finding . Keep a none contact voltage detector in your top pocket as the last line of defence to just sweep around any cable you are working with before you touch them. I am sure at that sort of voltage it would have give you a warning that all was not safe. I am retired now but the humble volt stick has safe me once or twice in my work career . Hope this helps
Always use ncv
I use the volt stick first, then the meter.
Love when you said I can't leave until I get this fixed, even though it's late. You knew the danger and protected the family!
I love examples of things where most people would say "would never happen, not in a million years". This was genuinely exciting watching this develop! What time did you finish?
This is in fact a very common mistake, as multiple zones and UFH becomes common, having a volt free feed to a boiler usefull. many plumbers install UFH and use a seperate wiring centre. Instead of bringing a two core cable from the boiler to the wiring centre to act as the supply to the switch and the switching back, a contractor would often link the feed to the volt free switch to a 230v connection inside the wiring centre. This often worked if the boiler could tolerate a 230v supply. However it often blew a board not designed for this. In addition, the boiler could be turned off to be serviced or repaired and it was possible that a call for heat during this service time would result in 230v being sent to the boiler. I have seen this hundreds of times in my previous role.
@@nigelsanger7827 I live in a council owned rented property and exactly this happened. I had to have a socket replaced in the upstairs bedroom and the 'leccy guy pulled the wired fuse out of the box, and then proceeded to strip the damaged plug out. About 30 seconds later, there was an almighty yelp and a loud bang from upstairs. Apparently the socket was still live as the 'leccy guy found out. He got the plug fixed and left in a foul mood.
A few days later the council called to inform us, we needed a complete rewire and new fuse box.
This was before circuit breakers and such. We had fuse wire and a big grey box on the wall between the meter and the fuse box. It had a trip and reset button and that was it.
We had it replaced by a shiny box with so many rcd things, it was amazing...
@@nigelsanger7827 great response. Would some education (and mandating it into code/standards) be useful? Having the old t&E supply a relay coil, then use that relay to switch the input to the boiler.
It's obvious that having two circuits to one appliance will cause confusion, so educating & enforcing that it's never ok to use another circuits neutral for a different circuits active would be the key point.
@Jeff C Yes, the UK controls training is very poor. In my previous role of Technical Director of plumbing for Speedfit and RWC, it was part of my responsibility to develop controls. This involved working with control manufacturers and designing the wiring diagrams for different scenarios. I had a number that showed exactly how to avoid this fault as many plumbers and electricians think that as long as there is A 230v live feed, all will be OK. This is historic, however as I have seen many times, this is often the consequence.
I always laugh when someone says. Don’t worry that would be a 1 in a million chance. My response to that is. O so it happens 170 times a year then does it? There are 170 million houses in the United States.
Good that you survived what could have been a lethal shock. When I worked as a commercial electrician double feed faults on office lighting were bread and butter. A proximity tester (sniffer) could have alerted you before you got the belt. Almost certainly you have saved someone from a severe shock or worse. Job well done.
Thoroughly impressed by this, the openness, honesty and methodology you’ve used and shown here would be a useful lesson to many. And that angle drill, what a shot! I can well recall the feeling when you drill a hole then have to go check that it’s come out where you want it, it’s a weird mix of anticipation with a tinge of anxiety. I had it many a time installing phone lines! Great job though and you’re leaving what was clearly a family home 100% safe 👍👍
I'm so glad to see you do this video.... because you survived the shock. I'm not a qualified electrician but I've been in electrical and electronic fault finding all my life and have come across puzzling things like this. When you were holding that live boiler plug in the air, my toes were so tensed up, one of them cramped, I was in agony. Surely anyone with any sense should know not to have a feed from different circuits and if it was a qualified electrician that did that job, they should be named and shamed.
I was so nervous while you were holding that live plug for what seemed like 10minutes, but a fantastic fix! It's so lazy when people leave old wires around, or splice in crappy junction boxes
This was an amazing watch. Credit where credit is due, you are one heck of an electrician amongst a sea of cowboys. I take off my hat to you sir, all the best!
Absolutely crazy. Brilliant work there Jordan, really good fault finding knowledge. Also, may I just say that was the luckiest piece of skill ending up in that cupboard, with the drill bit right at the perfect place. Unreal.
Amazing work, hope the customer realizes just how dangerous the situation was with that dodgy wiring.
You went way and above your job description, hats off to you, my friend. Your AWESOME!
This video was one of the best you've made. I loved the fault finding, bravo and thank goodness you're okay from the shock you received.
Absolute commitment to customer service and safety. What a legend…. ❤
WOW! What a weird problem and masterful diagnosis.
People say water and electricity don't mix well, so maybe plumbers and electricians don't either.
Glad you are still here.
OMG Jordan! I was truly cringing with anxiety at your reconstruction of that potentially fatal situation, but not only did you diagnose it, but you described and explained it brilliantly too.
Thank you for that. I'm sure there are many people out there who appreciate it. I certainly do.
As a matter of interest, will you attempt to find out who it was that wired the boiler that way, and bring it to their attention? Or, is it a 'reportable' fault? I mean, is there a requirement to report such a thing or code it as you would for an EICR?
I hope the homeowner appreciates what you've done for them - oh yes they do, the Leffe lol
One of your best ever videos I feel. Well done for surviving the shock and telling us about it.
Regards Mark in the UK
Great Video it takes me back. I did 20 years of maintenance for an Electrical Contractor and came across many similar situations and head scratching moments. one such "shocker" literally was we had a call from a private customer to say they were getting shocks off the kitchen sink. The system was fed from overhead wiring, so not to risk getting a shock off the sink I first thought I would check the Earth rod. The cable was clipped down the wall and disappeared in the ground I went to clear the soil away to find the rod connection and got a cracking big shock off the ground. OFF THE GROUND!! frightening. To cut a long story short the fault was a pinched cable on a lighting circuit 6 A fault tracking to earth. But the distribution board did not have any RCD,s and was fed on overheads with the customers own Earth. Just to point out this one wasn't one of our installs. Keep up the good work. 47 years in the business I have seen a few things, but the EV charge points and PV Battery systems are all new to me.
Your analyzing skills are amazing! So well thought out.
Jordan, this is an absolutely superb video. You can't learn this stuff on a course - thank you for turning your electric shock in to a valuable lesson for everyone!
These videos are brilliant. I'm an electronics engineer so I work with this stuff on a micro-scale with voltages that are far less likely to kill me. I have a good working knowledge of electric principles but I'm not a qualified electrician. I feel like I'm undertaking an apprenticeship with you guys just watching and learning from videos like this. I can only imagine how valuable these videos are to people who are out in the field. Keep up the great work. Have a great Christmas!
I've been into electronics all my life but in my childhood we had valves and high voltages. I don't know how I'm alive. It's very reassuring to work at 5 volts nowadays!
@@chrisreynolds6331 Me too but I work on systems with all sorts of voltage levels, 5VDC, 15VDC, 48VDC 110VDC, 230VAC, 270VDC, 380VAC too, a real mixed bag in the switch tripping game.
I hope they appreciated what you did for them and got paid well, you possibly saved someone's life. It was only a matter of time before someone pulled and handled that plug when it was live. Good on you buddy!
That live plug could have fallen on a stainless sinktop !!!
I've had this. A single lighting circuit fed from two different properties! Blows your mind how people think that it's safe. Great video.
Problem solving that late in the day is hard enough. We all get complacent at times, awakening for us all. I hope you had a cold beer when you got home 👌
This is a real eye opener and also highlights how tricky it can be to run cables in a fully decorated and carpeted house! Great video Jordan 👍❤️
Great job explaining your diagnosis. I am an American electrician and was able to follow you. I have had a similar problem recently on a flip house that had two breakers that had to be turned off for one circuit. I was fortunate to have great attic access. The electrician who did the work for the flip was a real mess. My original bid doubled from my estimate. Fortunately the new owner was very understanding and just wanted to have it safe to rent.
That was trully great! I watch you guys all the way here from Brazil, even though your electrics are a little bit different from ours (we use radial circuits) it's always a pleasure to see how you do your work and take pride of it. I discovered your channel as a mariner and decided to go on a career change, today I'm on my way finishing my electrical apprenticeship, the way you do your work inspired me in become a proud professional and I always had a blast watching your episodes. This one got me hooked to see what was the fault, almost like a detective movie :)
We have a lot of radials as well.
That was beyond brilliant! You have to be techie to follow it, but the 170V was strange, though like you I thought it had to be appliance related after you found the circuit linkage. Sheesh, what a frightening mess!
The way you cracked it under pressure was stunning! Well done! I hope you had a pint or 2 after, you definitely earned it.
@@andymerrett eh?
Thank God you're still around
Great diagnosis Dr Jordan, what a mess, and potentially lethal fault rectified. I do hope your customer appreciates what you've done for them but also how much risk they've been exposed too.
American here, who only has an "advanced homeowner" understanding (I would feel confident doing a whole house rewire, to US codes anyway, but I'm lost in 3 phase or stuff with multi-wire branch circuits w/shared neutrals). I know the UK does things considerably different, but you managed to break my brain with the troubleshooting.
Very nice work, I hope the homeowner was grateful for what you did!
Pretty sure we can't do that over here. There's some building regs that mean you can only do certain things. You have to be registered to do the complex stuff.
@@ftumptch86 I _think_ you're allowed to run the wires and then have a pro come and join the dots here in England. Is that right?
@@sroberts605 possibly. It's all in part P of the regs. Minor stuff like replacing simple things and adding to existing circuits is OK. But big stuff like rewires, new circuits, fuseboxes etc are reportable?
@@sroberts605 don’t know how many folk would be willing to rubber stamp a DIY job tbh
@ftumptch86 in the US it depends on where you are, for example whether your in the jurisdiction of a city or outside the city limits, outside is however you want to do it and no inspections required around here but national electric code should be followed but isn't inforced out in the county. Then in the city it depends on the city rules whether you can do it yourself but all new work likely requires permits and inspections regardless of who can do it.
Just re-found your channel, watched it about 18 months ago but it went. So starting on previous videos and MY GOD I’m so glad I did. This video absolutely shocked (pun intended) me. Genuinely I’m open mouthed watching this. I’m not even a good DIYer and even I know not to wire something into two circuits. This just shows whoever installed that boiler didn’t care, he wasn’t just incompetent, he actually didn’t care if he killed someone. Fella should be in jail.
Excellent work, excellent video. I’ve hit that subscribe button now so ya saved.
Far and away your best fault-finding video ever! You demonstrated a good, logical approach - and the golden rule that it will be something the plumber touched holds fast once again.
A little unlucky that whatever current the boiler pulled from the upstairs live (and returned via the downstairs neutral) wasn't enough to unbalance either RCBO and trip it. An older boiler might have done so and saved you several hours searching.
Anyway nice work and a great advert for the professionalism of your company.
If you are taking floorboards up or taking boards up from previous work I always felt tip pen number them which always guarantees the correct board in the original space. Mark the first fixed board as the start with a "F" marking which will even give you the correct orientation of the numbered removed boards when you come to re-affix.
At 6 minutes 55 seconds you said you expected the R2 resistance to be higher because the CPC is a slightly larger conductor. If its a 1.5mm conductor then its a smaller conductor than both the R1 and Rn, a difference of 1.67 (2.5/1.5) therefore, the resistance of R2 should have been around 0.53 ohms (0.32*1.67) for a healthy ring circuit. Not a criticism, just a clarification.