Dirty Trick On My Helper

[Paul W. Abernathy]

Hey Guys...I have to tell you I feel bad...I played a dirty trick on my helper today, he is going to be a good electrician but we have a K & T service call today on a house built in 1910.....

The lights went off when the owner flushed the toliet...he said anyway and well at the lights which had plugs in them in the bathroom the HOT and NEUTRAL side gave 115V......he ran into the living room where the 3 ways on the living room light was not working as well......pulled the switches out ( all while I am laughing inside....) and he is getting like 84V on one leg....56V on another....using a digital meter.....but nothing is working....so I am trying to train him as he is an apprentice in school as well.....

So.....he is looking at me....and wanting me to jump in and I am saying I will when you FIRST tell me why you are reading 115V at both plug holes.....and the irregular voltages on the switches in the other room....

anyway after 3 hours I gave in...explained that he had an open neutral somewhere and he needed to stop focusing on his readings and actually DO something.......

So I took him into the crawl space.....traced the lay of the circuits and guess what......found a old K & T splice that had gone bad.....and previous owners spliced together with speaker wire...which has shorted out and could have caused a major fire or hazard as it was laying on the cast iron plumbing pipe....

I spliced it........and it all worked.....My Time...5 minutes....his time 3 hours.....moral of the story.......NOTHING overrides education and experience....feel BLESSED when you have BOTH...

[Paul W. Abernathy]

Yeah..Yeah...I spliced it in Junction Boxes.....what do you think this is..HERTZ !

[Paul W. Abernathy]

BTW.........for those who say ANOTHER organization is better...you know the one with the "A" in it....

I was not their as a HI...but you know me I can't resist.....and they said it had a HI done only a year ago....and they added nothing so I asked who it was and to see it.....

Ok......30A Screw In Fuses all over the place on 14 AWG K & T, Open Splices and obviously the crap I found.....I found nearly 3 dozen serious issues while my helper was sweating bullets.....anyway none of them made it on the HI Report......AMAZING.......simply makes me want to CRY knowing I am here in the area....willing to training local guys for NOTHING.....if they want to learn and they still do crappy reports......saddens me.....

[Paul W. Abernathy]

Oh...I forgot to tell you in order to get a ground for testing in this house with NO ground.....he used an extention cord and jamed one end into the sink drain which was metal which did give him a ground...lol.......ironically huh....and used it to try and read voltage on each wire....lol.....

By this time.......I can't take it anymore and I had already told the owners of the house I would fix it and only charge them a 1 hour call fee......but my helper did not know this........so I let it play on...

Good news is..it could have back fired in my face if I could not have found the real problem...lol.....but I did...lol

[Roy D. Cooke, Sr]

Originally Posted by pabernathy

Oh...I forgot to tell you in order to get a ground for testing in this house with NO ground.....he used an extention cord and jamed one end into the sink drain which was metal which did give him a ground...lol.......ironically huh....and used it to try and read voltage on each wire....lol.....

By this time.......I can't take it anymore and I had already told the owners of the house I would fix it and only charge them a 1 hour call fee......but my helper did not know this........so I let it play on...

Good news is..it could have back fired in my face if I could not have found the real problem...lol.....but I did...lol

Dirty trick love em but be on your guard some time many years from now when you are little old man you could get yours .
Been there done that .
Pay backs can be a ***** .
Remember to laugh when it happens . Roy

[Paul W. Abernathy]

hmmm.....good point ROY...lol....and I can see him getting me back as well once he learns everything I have to teach him.....then I am USED up in his mind and WHAMO..he gets PAYBACK....lol

[Roy D. Cooke, Sr]

Originally Posted by pabernathy

hmmm.....good point ROY...lol....and I can see him getting me back as well once he learns everything I have to teach him.....then I am USED up in his mind and WHAMO..he gets PAYBACK....lol

I remember sending a Helper I had for a Wasserman tester he was gone for about one hour and when he came back he said an of the the electrician sent me to another plant to get it .
He said when I got there I was sent over to see some one else and they kept sending me to different places .
After about five minutes of stories he finally admitted he had grabbed a news paper and sat down and read it till lunch time .
I could not be mad as he was this time smarter then me .
When I left to go to another job he came up to me and said he had enjoyed the last two months immensely and that he said these have been the best learning days of my life . He was going back to school to be a lawyer.
Roy Cooke