I'm an old industrial electro mechanical engineer and agree that this guy is extremely professional. Great guy for such a young age. Keep up the good work.
Absolutely fantastic hand work. Master material. Adam is a lucky bloke to have you showing him the ropes. An outstanding repair, going over an above for the customer (who I am sure was breathing down your neck all day). The work with the Megger was top notch and very well worth finding. Bet the customer had no idea it was like that for years. Best Regards, Gerald Magill B.Eng in Electrical Engineering (Hons). My respect.
Hi Nick, from an old spark from the 60's. I enjoyed watching you undertaking this job. This is just an observation not a criticism, wouldn't it been easier to replace the tails and to cut back burnt cables to a sound piece then used a signal injector to fined the location of all the cables rather than spend time trying to untangle that mess? Peter.
I’m not sure about easier or quicker but it would have been enough cleaner that it would certainly have been my inclination. I suppose being able to replicate the exact breaker values and numbering of the old circuits has some value, but honestly… this seems like a “start from fuckin’ scratch” situation if ever there was one.
This is the first one of your videos I've watched and I am absolutely fascinated. My parents (U.S.) had a basement fire half a decade ago from just... 80 years? of patches on patches. The washer and dryer ran on a literal fuse box up until around 2000, which was then patched into the breaker box... While they were on vacation, a fire started in the wall behind the box, where the old wiring for the fuse box was. Near as anyone could tell, decades of the washer and dryer running had shaken connections loose enough that when the heat kicked on, something went. We're thankful we had a neighbor watching the house who saw the smoke well before the fire got hold of the main structure. Cracked the foundation on our porch addition; the fire on the porch was stopped getting into the foyer by old asbestos siding if you can believe. Smoke damage through the whole home; we're still working on last wallpaper replacements etc. 7 years later. We now have a massive beautiful breaker box that's well rated for all our modern appliances and wiring, plus upgrades to the upstairs, and then some. And, not labeled with masking tape... So this video was fantastic to see, personally, to have an idea of just some of what must have been done to coordinate the spiderweb of original 2-prong cabling going through the whole house (the base wires were upgraded on repair to prepare for running grounded wiring to the upstairs), grounded cabling to the kitchen, another set of grounded cabling to the basement den, the newest grounded wiring to the basement bathroom with GFI outlets... Thanks so much for sharing.
Well done both of you . I think it’s every electricians nightmare that something could happen on their jobs. We all try to be diligent but having seen a missed lose neutral at a D.B that had started to over heat . I can testify to being capable of making mistakes. The trade is not only demanding, but also comes with a lot of responsibility. Seeing what can result when things do go wrong is a very sobering thought . Regards from Mike
I came here after watching the Big Clive post-mortem. As I said on his video, it was the TH-cam equivalent of eating dessert before the main course. This video is a great example of why the UK requires some fire-blocking where the cables pass through the wall. Had that not been there...
I bet the smell in there was wonderful I've had to straighten out a blowed up board before in your hands stink for days even wearing gloves Keep On Keepin On
Good stuff Nick, Feel for the client, glad you put this out there hopefully the general public view this and realise all these improvementsl/ costs and EICR (reports) not certificates do have a valid reason, and not just making jobs for the boys, Well done 👏 👍
Big Clive sent me! At least you are not in someones house in a cramped hall cupboard with the owners constantly bothering you with questions and watching - nothing worse than having a customer leaning over your shoulder putting you off!!! 🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕
Great work I'm doing a domestic Installers course at the moment and all your videos are always informative. Hope Adam realises how lucky he is to have someone willing to teach him and tech him the right way. Keep up the great work.
domestic installers courses are dangerous in my opinion, all tradesman should be time served its the only way you get the experience needed to be competent at the job, seen many jobs messed up with "electricians" who have done 6 week courses.
Great video nick, as a firefighter currently retaining as a spark found this this interesting as go to 2 or 3 of these a year. Good to see gloves as that fire damage is full of carcinogens that will be absorbed by the body that can lead to cancer.
Great video and the finished job looked neat and very professional. I think the assumption that the fire was probably caused by a slack terminal is right and as another commenter had pointed out that there is an important difference between torque and tightness as over tightening can cause significant damage and stress on a terminal. I would point out that I am not an electrician but my life has been spent in the aerospace industry where instruction on torque tightening was a full 2 day course! The other point is that had the CU been a metal unit and sealed correctly then the fire would most likely have been contained and avoided a lot of the damage. My CU is in my attached garage and I have a smoke/heat detector in there for peace of mind. Keep up the good work and finally thank you for the effort you put in to produce some excellent content which we can all benefit from.
I was an electrician, now retired, In australia we used to use mains in 100A fuse, main breaker manual only, ELCB. for wet areas, 8A breakers for lights. 16 amp breakers for power points, 32 amp fuse for oven / cooktopm, 32A for hot water, plus others for Air Conditioner hot water boost element etc. had a problem with one circuit, the hot water service. the fuse holder had a badly treaded screw even though it was tight it wasnt gripping the wire 100 percent. the screw was missing about two turns worth of thread. the inital punn and jiggle the wires then retighten the screw didn't reveal a problem. It took about a month before it failed. Had to remove the fuse holder and clean up the wire hole in the fibreglass panel then refit a new fuse carrier and no more problems. Great video and give Adam a payrise. 12 hour shift without complaining. What month was this done. you both looked cold. Do you have any more like this. BTW big clive Sent me.
Nice clean work. So different seeing not 120/240v 60hz. In Us branch circuits are going Combo arc fault/ magnetic overload breakers. Just a lower MA trip here.
Brilliant job guys, its great to say that a visible hatch is needed in that bathroom for the junction extentions, people would just tell the customer to plaster board it in. The water pipe that was hanging off the wall where you were working would have bugged me, dont ask me why but I would have been scared in case I snagged on it and burst it, so I would have secured it to wall. I feel sorry for the bloke of that house. But still a brilliant job you did.
Strongly preferred, but not essential. With Dual RCD, if one trips you lose half the circuits. John Ward does some good videos explaining the differences. See here th-cam.com/video/WNe1xHlI5i4/w-d-xo.html
I wouldn't get a consumer units without individual RCBOs as they are far less annoying as you only have to work out what's on that circuit that's causing the trip instead of losing half the house and having to work out witch circuit first is causing the tripping
@@leexgx I would agree and do the same myself, but there is a cost difference which means that dual RCD units are still being installed. Annoyance is one thing, but the person building the house isn't the one who will be annoyed. Imagine how much fun it must be in the older houses with single RCD protection...
@@gavinminion8515 Hands up, lived in an older house that was single except the new basement wiring, which was a different rating and had its own box for a while. Not fun. Was super grateful when our new box was individual.
What I don't understand is ours has dual but they put all the sockets and lights on one side, bloody moronic. Surely upstairs lights and downstairs sockets on one side, reverse on the other, would make more sense? That way if it trips on the lights you can always plug in a lamp while checking for the problem.
Very lucky they still have a house. Good work lads. Wouldn’t it have been easier to replace all the fire damaged cable, identify the rings with end to end test then install the C/U, liven up and identify the other circuits once live?
The fire service and DNO were involved, meaning until all the dead tests are done and you're ready to live test they will not put the fuse in. It's just the legislative steps you have to carry out after an incident like this.
Excellent repair. I have been a qualified electrician since 1982. Luckily I have not had to deal with any domestic house bashing electrics apart from friends and family 🤨. Fortunately I work on industrial repair and maintenance. I came across several burnt out installations just much bigger !! 🔌😎
@@bluke5285 Don't know what your electrics are like, but you need to work on your English grammar. Your comment is ambiguous at best but in its current form it does imply that 6mm, 10mm and earth were different items. Lack of punctuation seems to be the problem. Just saying.
Have a look into cable identifiers (tracers), clip it onto a de-energised cable and walk around with a probe. Don't need to take off accessories either, saves a lot of time. It sends out a pulse on the cable and the battery operated receiver picks it up. They claim to be 100% accurate with no false positives.
I've got a relatively cheap one and definitely wouldn't say 100% accurate but if you've got access to the other end of the cable you're looking at, you can short it and if the signal disappears, you've found it. Connect the tester to a socket or lighting point, hold the receiver to the wires in the CU and if it picks up on several, short line and neutral one by one until the signal goes out.
@@Ragnar8504 Which one do you have out of interest, not sure if I misquoted the manufacturer but the one I saw was the Megger CI (Cable Identifier). They claim never to have false positives, but doesn't say anything about accuracy of not picking up the pulse on a dead cable.
Fantastic job guys; and great video too. Quite apart from the actual cause of the fire to start with, a great case study for why DNO's should be obliged by law to put a customer operable isolator between the cut out / meter and the board / service splitter ... customer very lucky to have got away relatively lightly but (assuming they were on site when it happened) with an isolator they could have removed the source of ignition before the service fuse went ..... might already have been too late to make the damage less than it was but on the other hand might have helped a bit.
I have an overhead supply with the DNO's supply cable running through my loft then dropping into the meter cupboard. The CU is mounted below the meter board so if my CU burned with the ferocity that the one in the video clearly did it would have set fire to the meter board destroying the meter, cut-out and the insulation off the end on the DNO's supply cable. So although I have an isolator switch, mounted on the meter board, it wouldn't help in the least with a similar fire. There is an in-line fuse in the cable just outside the house but its 30 ft above the ground and spliced into the supply cable, so not exactly convenient to pull in an emergency.
Yeah, but that might cost the DNO a couple of quid extra and that isn't going to happen. They will merrily chuck in Smart Meters, running into ancient Consumer units, and then when that board finally is going to be upgraded, I have to call them back in to put a switch in - and they charge the customer around £50. I'm sure they must be paying the contractor more than that to come back and do it, so why not just do it as standard anyway, especially if the consumer unit isn't fairly new and is probably going to be changed in the near-ish future? It's just a pain in the arse trying to decide whether to cut the seals on the main fuse when they have only been on for a couple of months, rather than having to wait a fortnight for them to come back and put a switch on so I can disconnect and replace the consumer unit. (And of course, we never cut the seals, right guys? ;-) )
@@davidfaraday3085 Gimme a break, I've only just got out of the habit of referring to the Electricity Board, haha! Of course, I used "DNO" there incongruously, for the sake of brevity - really meaning "Them" (upstream of the consumer's installation) as opposed to "Us" (the end user or those of us needing to safely disconnect the supply whenever necessary). I didn't really want to get into DNO/Meter Operator/Energy Supplier relationships and who does what, but at the end of the day, it's the DNO's network and they must have some sort of agreement with those they contractually allow to install equipment. It's surely not beyond the wit of man to ensure that an isolator is fitted whenever new cutouts/meters are installed or altered, by the aforementioned "Them", so that a safe disconnection can be made easily and conveniently? Or, they should stop getting shirty about cut seals and pulled fuses!
Top video mate. Makes you realise the importance of tightening things up properly. It's not a game we're playing, people can die due to sloppy installation.
I really liked this video, was cool seeing you two diagnose the mess at the beginning in almost real time. Nice little change of pace, especially having a camera guy for some of it.
I'm not an electrician, but I can see you guys took the time and effort to do a great job. You even went the extra mile by adding a light switch. Too many trades people just want to be in and out as quickly as possible or are too lazy to do the job right.
Fire sealant is a must over here, good little fine in the mail if you get picked with a gap bigger then 5mm2 and then every job is checked for how ever many
What wonderful work - a long day yes but starting from the disaster you were faced with at 8 am to finish with such a neat and safe job at 8 pm deserves a pat on the back. Just a pity you're too far away to be my go to electrician.
Great work Nick & Congratulations to Adam for learning his skills. Being an electricians is like artwork of cable management which done right, looks awesome to have some pride over it. Excellent video Nick... Keep them coming bro.
My college years learning as an electrician were cut short, but I've learnt more on site and helping along the way. I'm shocked at some of the so called professional work I come across and thats from from a novice like me!! Enjoy all your work, its informative, professional and enjoyable to watch....keep the videos coming lad 😁👍
Did 5 yrs apprenticeship ,its when you come out of your " time " that you really start to learn because you don't normally have someone to fall back on .
I’m really glad we don’t have to deal with ring circuits in the US. But I do wish we would adopt the concept of fuses in plug heads. Seeing people chain multiple 16awg extension cords plugged into a 15 amp circuit always makes me cringe.
It's good Adam has seen fire damage and how to tackle the testing I feel this can only be done in the field as each fire damages are different, well done Adam good job
Agreed. I fix cars, and an apprentice hasn't truly learned until they have seen consequences and how things can go wrong. This one is a free-bee for Adam.
Great video, the white beads in the cavity wall (meter cabinet) look like expanded polystyrene - will damage the PVC insulation over time. John Ward has a video on the subject amongst others. Worth advising the occupier of the risk. 👍
You two are exceptional. Brilliant job, very compliant, my bullshit detecter meter was set to high, as I've been an electrical engineer for 43 years. You didnt trigger my meter once. You might be getting a phone call.
Looking at the fire damage it looks as if most of the damage is above the MCB's and RCD's so id make a guess that it was a loose connection on the neutral bar. Unless that's the remains of the main switch hanging down then as you say a possible loose connection there... I torqued my MK one a few months ago and the main neutral connection was quite loose. Board installed 2010. Not something you think of checking. Maybe we need to have an "annual maintenance check" ... Oh yes we do it's the EICR :) but only on demand. Ever since my mother ignited a chip pan in our kitchen and I saw the damage fire scares the cra* out of me. Keep up the good work BUNDY10....
This may sound stupid but wouldn't it of been easyier to just put new tails in than putting a Henley box🤷♂️ either way great vid never get used to the smell BTW 😂
There is something very distinctive about the smell of burnt electrical equipment. Great bit logical thinking sorting out the final circuits from a chard mess
What a good example to show these fly by night so called electricians in London how they can effect someone's life with shoddy work. A big wake up to the owners not to hire said people as Cheap in not cheap in the long run....?? As to the final work in video above. You can be very proud of the work you have done. Thanks for sharing.
I came here from Big Clives' autopsy of the melted board, he agreed with your diagnosis of poorly torqued connections on the main switch. What a nightmare! Looks like the installers made some other bad joints around the building from the other high resistance faults that you picked up.
I watched bigclive also and fromwhat I"ve garhered in viewing most all the video's is on frame 927 in this video the loose neutral ground is the main fault meltdown - fire. Bad grounds are sneaky and inconsistent. Once the inconsistency of a solid ground heat begins to generateuntil this point when it goes poof...
I've worked on 500kW HF transmitters that "let the smoke out", but rarely seen a mess as bad as that! Plastic consumer units, who thought up THAT bright idea?!
This is definitely an eye opener, great job sorting out the mess. It should be a legal requirement that every installation has a regular eicr. I also hope that afdd's become more affordable, a belt and braces approach. A customer called me the other day asking for an additional socket outlet in the kitchen, upon investigation, the kitchen sockets are on a spur. I said this needed to be a separate ring final as the current set up is not safe. The customer didn't want her kitchen touched, i walked away. I think i made the right decision.
Tbh a torque screwdriver would not necessarily solve the issue of a board fire. It might have helped but often the torque settings from the manufacturers arent good enough and you can still move the cables in the terminal. In essence not using a torque screwdriver isn't the main problem, its that a cable was loose in the terminal and probably arcing.
if something was brushing against them every day then every day was increasing the chance of an arc, thats the only way I can see it happening even when torqued correctly. tails don't move unless they're moved. my guess is the family car door mirror was clipping it every day.
makes me kinda glad we never had plastic main panels over here in the usa and if there was ever a fire in the circuit breaker panel there is a secondary cutoff as that is how my moms house was designed that ya could get to if it was safe to get to it
This is stuff being not to the right torque completely agree - however AC has a habit of undoing terminals so regardless if it was or wasn't torqued up it's important to have EICR's done at sensible intervals. Over the years I've gone back to sites I've done with a torque driver (commercial) and even 2 years later they've loosened up. Great job as always though lads!
@@adamdavis3735 thank you, just bought a house which had EICR in August, garage fuse box didn’t appear to be viewed at all, document states 6a and 16a MCB but actually has old fuse box with 5a and 15a rating, cables stuffed in holes no grommets, unsheathed earth’s... non of it mentioned in report..🤔
@@richarddunn504 oh dear, sounds like it may have been a 'drive by' inspection. Theres alot of that going on, makes my blood boil! Was it satisfactory? If you're in any doubt as to the safety of your installation I would suggest getting your own EICR done by a reputable spark, tell them you want a full inspection and test with maximum sampling. Ie. Only if something is near on impossible to get to does it get passed over. They will no doubt find a fair bit of what may seem like scary stuff but at least you'll know whats what and can get it all sorted.
Good video Nick/Adam. Looks a tails/ main switch issue to cause that sort of fire issue. Thank god we’ve gone back to metal boards. I can imagine the smell was pungent! Disappointing that a modern board with supposably modern safety features can suffer from such a catastrophic failure. Well done both of you, for a rescue of a electrical installation.
Hello from America, very interesting on how different we are when it comes to electricity. Enjoy watching your videos, just a bit of terminology barrier but I am learning.
Nice job Nick. Only comment would be that you may want to check your fire magic as around cables it needs to be intumescent (expands when heated) so it fills the gap when the PVC melts This is usually grey in colour where as the white fire magic is non expanding and designed to use around non combustible materials such as metallic pipes or conduits. Keep up the great work.
This is gonna happen alot more with wylex boards as there main switch and rcbos have recessed screws that only the slimline torque screwdriver blades fit
Wow, nice job. I'm ok with basic electrics, wiring lights, sockets, pond switches, but even if I could I wouldn't touch it and leave it to the pros. Nice job. Surprised the householder us gonna leave the the joists like that, surely needs s light sanding
Great Vid, I’ve had a similar job in the past, guy tried to kill his family so it was arson, toasted the whole house, thankfully everyone was ok, but really weird environment to work in, house needed major refurb, that burning smell on your hands will be with you for days.
Wonder how far along the cables the heat was conducted. Nice and hot. Firefighters wear medical gloves under GP gloves. This may help you when dealing with the crispy CU. Guessing the smell is horrendous. Will smell for a while. Great job. Well done!
Pretty good demonstration of why consumer units belong in a garage or whatever where possible. Scary stuff - imagine that happening under your stairs or something. 32:25 can't imagine any reason why that install might have had an electrical fire..
Lol When Adam is testing the board with his bobble hat on and big Jacket, he looks like Kevin McCallister LOL The Job Looks great guys well done, perfect reason why EICR's are so important
A nice professional job - well done. Very neat and organised. The crimp system with junction boxes speeded up the job I expect, not like the old days where everything had screw terminals. The cause of the fire could be an interesting one. Clearly the fire started above the mcb’s and flames found all the cables going vertical. I would suspect the heaviest current circuit(s) or loose connection on the neutral side bus bar ?. I dare say the fault was there a while and no-one noticed. Perhaps the meter tails were never tightened up correctly ?, or never rechecked once they had been settled in ?. The fact that the system was extended also significant ? - two electric showers in use ?...
I’m not even an electrician and yet I can’t stop watching these videos 😂
You might be an Ohmosexual?
Couldn't resist could you??
@@edglue6138 culdnt stop laughing
I love that joke
@@topchannel1000 haha
You're not alone!
I'm an old industrial electro mechanical engineer and agree that this guy is extremely professional. Great guy for such a young age. Keep up the good work.
Yes I agree very professional keep the good work up guys.
Bit of Kopex and insulation tape would have been reet.
Haha
Looked in comments for this. Did not disappoint 🤣
Hands up who watched this unit get Clived?
Yep, watched Clive's video then came here!
Me!
Yooo! It came up randomly in suggestions and I thought hey that looks exactly like the unit I watched him go over earlier.
same straight from clives
Me!
Big Clive's patreon squad reporting in
Big Clive's cheap-ass viewer squad ready for action.
Aye!
@@kellyrjohnson7693 Big Clive's ass squad ready for action......
Big Clive sent me here
15:30 Thank you for saying my mistake and not my bad
Ugh I don't think that one ever caught on over there. Most fortunately!
@Ian Clegg Not sure about shot, that's a bit far but definitely would be finna' get smacked ;)
Congratulations to Adam, he has learnt his trade knowing his tests
Great team. Absolutely perfect apprenticeship and Boss for Adam.
Big up Nick and keep up the good work lads! 👏🏽👌🏽👍🏽
All those peculiar UK tests for ring mains.
The first decent and honest electrician I have seen on here that doesn't spout crap. Great job well done you!!!!
Look at Artisan Electrics too
Absolutely fantastic hand work. Master material. Adam is a lucky bloke to have you showing him the ropes. An outstanding repair, going over an above for the customer (who I am sure was breathing down your neck all day). The work with the Megger was top notch and very well worth finding. Bet the customer had no idea it was like that for years. Best Regards, Gerald Magill B.Eng in Electrical Engineering (Hons). My respect.
Hi Nick, from an old spark from the 60's. I enjoyed watching you undertaking this job. This is just an observation not a criticism, wouldn't it been easier to replace the tails and to cut back burnt cables to a sound piece then used a signal injector to fined the location of all the cables rather than spend time trying to untangle that mess?
Peter.
I’m not sure about easier or quicker but it would have been enough cleaner that it would certainly have been my inclination.
I suppose being able to replicate the exact breaker values and numbering of the old circuits has some value, but honestly… this seems like a “start from fuckin’ scratch” situation if ever there was one.
This is the first one of your videos I've watched and I am absolutely fascinated. My parents (U.S.) had a basement fire half a decade ago from just... 80 years? of patches on patches. The washer and dryer ran on a literal fuse box up until around 2000, which was then patched into the breaker box...
While they were on vacation, a fire started in the wall behind the box, where the old wiring for the fuse box was. Near as anyone could tell, decades of the washer and dryer running had shaken connections loose enough that when the heat kicked on, something went. We're thankful we had a neighbor watching the house who saw the smoke well before the fire got hold of the main structure. Cracked the foundation on our porch addition; the fire on the porch was stopped getting into the foyer by old asbestos siding if you can believe. Smoke damage through the whole home; we're still working on last wallpaper replacements etc. 7 years later.
We now have a massive beautiful breaker box that's well rated for all our modern appliances and wiring, plus upgrades to the upstairs, and then some. And, not labeled with masking tape...
So this video was fantastic to see, personally, to have an idea of just some of what must have been done to coordinate the spiderweb of original 2-prong cabling going through the whole house (the base wires were upgraded on repair to prepare for running grounded wiring to the upstairs), grounded cabling to the kitchen, another set of grounded cabling to the basement den, the newest grounded wiring to the basement bathroom with GFI outlets...
Thanks so much for sharing.
Well done both of you . I think it’s every electricians nightmare that something could happen on their jobs. We all try to be diligent but having seen a missed lose neutral at a D.B that had started to over heat . I can testify to being capable of making mistakes. The trade is not only demanding, but also comes with a lot of responsibility. Seeing what can result when things do go wrong is a very sobering thought . Regards from Mike
I came here after watching the Big Clive post-mortem. As I said on his video, it was the TH-cam equivalent of eating dessert before the main course.
This video is a great example of why the UK requires some fire-blocking where the cables pass through the wall. Had that not been there...
I bet the smell in there was wonderful I've had to straighten out a blowed up board before in your hands stink for days even wearing gloves Keep On Keepin On
Good stuff Nick, Feel for the client, glad you put this out there hopefully the general public view this and realise all these improvementsl/ costs and EICR (reports) not certificates do have a valid reason, and not just making jobs for the boys, Well done 👏 👍
Be interested to know insurance company's thoughts.
No way Adam "bro'd" you! The cheek of these youth today! 🤣
Also - wonder leads? Wander, wonder, same thing!
Great job though gents! Excellent work! 👍
Bigclive brought me here too :)
Big Clive sent me!
At least you are not in someones house in a cramped hall cupboard with the owners constantly bothering you with questions and watching - nothing worse than having a customer leaning over your shoulder putting you off!!!
🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕
The 2 of you have done a cracking job repairing that mess... 👍
Great work I'm doing a domestic Installers course at the moment and all your videos are always informative. Hope Adam realises how lucky he is to have someone willing to teach him and tech him the right way. Keep up the great work.
Surely that's the WHOLE point of an apprenticeship?
domestic installers courses are dangerous in my opinion, all tradesman should be time served its the only way you get the experience needed to be competent at the job, seen many jobs messed up with "electricians" who have done 6 week courses.
I served a 4 year indentured Apprenticeship plus an extra 2 years day release to get my HNC. Not a fast of these short courses I'm afraid.
Great video nick, as a firefighter currently retaining as a spark found this this interesting as go to 2 or 3 of these a year. Good to see gloves as that fire damage is full of carcinogens that will be absorbed by the body that can lead to cancer.
Great video and the finished job looked neat and very professional. I think the assumption that the fire was probably caused by a slack terminal is right and as another commenter had pointed out that there is an important difference between torque and tightness as over tightening can cause significant damage and stress on a terminal. I would point out that I am not an electrician but my life has been spent in the aerospace industry where instruction on torque tightening was a full 2 day course! The other point is that had the CU been a metal unit and sealed correctly then the fire would most likely have been contained and avoided a lot of the damage. My CU is in my attached garage and I have a smoke/heat detector in there for peace of mind. Keep up the good work and finally thank you for the effort you put in to produce some excellent content which we can all benefit from.
I was an electrician, now retired, In australia we used to use mains in 100A fuse, main breaker manual only, ELCB. for wet areas, 8A breakers for lights. 16 amp breakers for power points, 32 amp fuse for oven / cooktopm, 32A for hot water, plus others for Air Conditioner hot water boost element etc. had a problem with one circuit, the hot water service. the fuse holder had a badly treaded screw even though it was tight it wasnt gripping the wire 100 percent. the screw was missing about two turns worth of thread. the inital punn and jiggle the wires then retighten the screw didn't reveal a problem. It took about a month before it failed. Had to remove the fuse holder and clean up the wire hole in the fibreglass panel then refit a new fuse carrier and no more problems.
Great video and give Adam a payrise. 12 hour shift without complaining. What month was this done. you both looked cold. Do you have any more like this. BTW big clive Sent me.
Very relaxing to watch
Nice clean work. So different seeing not 120/240v 60hz. In Us branch circuits are going Combo arc fault/ magnetic overload breakers. Just a lower MA trip here.
Big Clive sent me here. Top shelf work, mates. Total pro!
Brilliant job guys, its great to say that a visible hatch is needed in that bathroom for the junction extentions, people would just tell the customer to plaster board it in. The water pipe that was hanging off the wall where you were working would have bugged me, dont ask me why but I would have been scared in case I snagged on it and burst it, so I would have secured it to wall. I feel sorry for the bloke of that house. But still a brilliant job you did.
Why does it need to be accessible??
Is putting everything on individual RCBOs the preferred way now?
Oh, and hi from Big Clive's channel!
Strongly preferred, but not essential. With Dual RCD, if one trips you lose half the circuits. John Ward does some good videos explaining the differences. See here th-cam.com/video/WNe1xHlI5i4/w-d-xo.html
I wouldn't get a consumer units without individual RCBOs as they are far less annoying as you only have to work out what's on that circuit that's causing the trip instead of losing half the house and having to work out witch circuit first is causing the tripping
@@leexgx I would agree and do the same myself, but there is a cost difference which means that dual RCD units are still being installed. Annoyance is one thing, but the person building the house isn't the one who will be annoyed. Imagine how much fun it must be in the older houses with single RCD protection...
@@gavinminion8515 Hands up, lived in an older house that was single except the new basement wiring, which was a different rating and had its own box for a while. Not fun. Was super grateful when our new box was individual.
What I don't understand is ours has dual but they put all the sockets and lights on one side, bloody moronic. Surely upstairs lights and downstairs sockets on one side, reverse on the other, would make more sense? That way if it trips on the lights you can always plug in a lamp while checking for the problem.
Very lucky they still have a house. Good work lads. Wouldn’t it have been easier to replace all the fire damaged cable, identify the rings with end to end test then install the C/U, liven up and identify the other circuits once live?
The fire service and DNO were involved, meaning until all the dead tests are done and you're ready to live test they will not put the fuse in. It's just the legislative steps you have to carry out after an incident like this.
I didn’t want to risk anything being live until I knew exactly what did what bud
Excellent repair. I have been a qualified electrician since 1982. Luckily I have not had to deal with any domestic house bashing electrics apart from friends and family 🤨. Fortunately I work on industrial repair and maintenance. I came across several burnt out installations just much bigger !! 🔌😎
@7:33 You can always tell a 6mm from a 10mm from the earth, 6 has the single solid core where as 10mm has the multiple stranded cores for the earth.
are you familiar with 6mm cable?
Hint, 6mm isn't solid core.
@@TheChipmunk2008hes refering to just the earth core in them 2 different sized cables :)
@@TheChipmunk2008 im clearly just talking about the cpc. Are you familiar with 6mm pvc? Or are you that unaware?
@@bluke5285 Don't know what your electrics are like, but you need to work on your English grammar. Your comment is ambiguous at best but in its current form it does imply that 6mm, 10mm and earth were different items. Lack of punctuation seems to be the problem. Just saying.
Have a look into cable identifiers (tracers), clip it onto a de-energised cable and walk around with a probe. Don't need to take off accessories either, saves a lot of time. It sends out a pulse on the cable and the battery operated receiver picks it up. They claim to be 100% accurate with no false positives.
I've got a relatively cheap one and definitely wouldn't say 100% accurate but if you've got access to the other end of the cable you're looking at, you can short it and if the signal disappears, you've found it. Connect the tester to a socket or lighting point, hold the receiver to the wires in the CU and if it picks up on several, short line and neutral one by one until the signal goes out.
@@Ragnar8504 Which one do you have out of interest, not sure if I misquoted the manufacturer but the one I saw was the Megger CI (Cable Identifier). They claim never to have false positives, but doesn't say anything about accuracy of not picking up the pulse on a dead cable.
Fantastic job guys; and great video too. Quite apart from the actual cause of the fire to start with, a great case study for why DNO's should be obliged by law to put a customer operable isolator between the cut out / meter and the board / service splitter ... customer very lucky to have got away relatively lightly but (assuming they were on site when it happened) with an isolator they could have removed the source of ignition before the service fuse went ..... might already have been too late to make the damage less than it was but on the other hand might have helped a bit.
Absolutely spot on one of the reason we have now under our code all external disconnects. I actually spent having them done.
I have an overhead supply with the DNO's supply cable running through my loft then dropping into the meter cupboard. The CU is mounted below the meter board so if my CU burned with the ferocity that the one in the video clearly did it would have set fire to the meter board destroying the meter, cut-out and the insulation off the end on the DNO's supply cable. So although I have an isolator switch, mounted on the meter board, it wouldn't help in the least with a similar fire. There is an in-line fuse in the cable just outside the house but its 30 ft above the ground and spliced into the supply cable, so not exactly convenient to pull in an emergency.
Yeah, but that might cost the DNO a couple of quid extra and that isn't going to happen.
They will merrily chuck in Smart Meters, running into ancient Consumer units, and then when that board finally is going to be upgraded, I have to call them back in to put a switch in - and they charge the customer around £50. I'm sure they must be paying the contractor more than that to come back and do it, so why not just do it as standard anyway, especially if the consumer unit isn't fairly new and is probably going to be changed in the near-ish future?
It's just a pain in the arse trying to decide whether to cut the seals on the main fuse when they have only been on for a couple of months, rather than having to wait a fortnight for them to come back and put a switch on so I can disconnect and replace the consumer unit. (And of course, we never cut the seals, right guys? ;-) )
@@Mr.MFuckingYTchangedmyname It isn't the DNO that installs smart meters, its the metering companies contracted by the energy suppliers.
@@davidfaraday3085 Gimme a break, I've only just got out of the habit of referring to the Electricity Board, haha!
Of course, I used "DNO" there incongruously, for the sake of brevity - really meaning "Them" (upstream of the consumer's installation) as opposed to "Us" (the end user or those of us needing to safely disconnect the supply whenever necessary).
I didn't really want to get into DNO/Meter Operator/Energy Supplier relationships and who does what, but at the end of the day, it's the DNO's network and they must have some sort of agreement with those they contractually allow to install equipment.
It's surely not beyond the wit of man to ensure that an isolator is fitted whenever new cutouts/meters are installed or altered, by the aforementioned "Them", so that a safe disconnection can be made easily and conveniently? Or, they should stop getting shirty about cut seals and pulled fuses!
Top video mate. Makes you realise the importance of tightening things up properly.
It's not a game we're playing, people can die due to sloppy installation.
Guy with Batman cap. Top lad! Great work in this video. Learning so much from you mate. Keep up the good work.
I'm glad we've always had metal enclosures in the US.
I love how neatly you have done everything.
I really liked this video, was cool seeing you two diagnose the mess at the beginning in almost real time. Nice little change of pace, especially having a camera guy for some of it.
I'm not an electrician, but I can see you guys took the time and effort to do a great job. You even went the extra mile by adding a light switch. Too many trades people just want to be in and out as quickly as possible or are too lazy to do the job right.
Its always the last one you try , when you find it , you don't try any more ..lol
Fire sealant is a must over here, good little fine in the mail if you get picked with a gap bigger then 5mm2 and then every job is checked for how ever many
A tone tracer can save you a lot of time on jobs like this, I'm surprised how few electricians have them or have even heard of them.
What wonderful work - a long day yes but starting from the disaster you were faced with at 8 am to finish with such a neat and safe job at 8 pm deserves a pat on the back. Just a pity you're too far away to be my go to electrician.
Great work Nick & Congratulations to Adam for learning his skills. Being an electricians is like artwork of cable management which done right, looks awesome to have some pride over it. Excellent video Nick... Keep them coming bro.
Brilliant bit of workmanship fantastic board well done guys
My college years learning as an electrician were cut short, but I've learnt more on site and helping along the way. I'm shocked at some of the so called professional work I come across and thats from from a novice like me!!
Enjoy all your work, its informative, professional and enjoyable to watch....keep the videos coming lad 😁👍
Did 5 yrs apprenticeship ,its when you come out of your " time " that you really start to learn because you don't normally have someone to fall back on .
I’m really glad we don’t have to deal with ring circuits in the US. But I do wish we would adopt the concept of fuses in plug heads. Seeing people chain multiple 16awg extension cords plugged into a 15 amp circuit always makes me cringe.
Things would be a lot better already if *just* extension leads were required to be fused.
Cor I know exactly what that garage stanks like! I did a rewire on a property that had fire damage throughout. Rank!
Great video 👍👍
Excellent job. If I ever need an electrician I hope I'll find one this good.
It's good Adam has seen fire damage and how to tackle the testing I feel this can only be done in the field as each fire damages are different, well done Adam good job
Agreed. I fix cars, and an apprentice hasn't truly learned until they have seen consequences and how things can go wrong. This one is a free-bee for Adam.
Great video, the white beads in the cavity wall (meter cabinet) look like expanded polystyrene - will damage the PVC insulation over time. John Ward has a video on the subject amongst others. Worth advising the occupier of the risk. 👍
Very scary and very lucky - could definitely have been quite nasty! Excellent job dealing with all of that, it cannot have been fun!
Not an electrician but I’m astounded by your professionalism! Meticulous working out of what was a horrendous s**t show!!!
You two are exceptional. Brilliant job, very compliant, my bullshit detecter meter was set to high, as I've been an electrical engineer for 43 years. You didnt trigger my meter once. You might be getting a phone call.
Looking at the fire damage it looks as if most of the damage is above the MCB's and RCD's so id make a guess that it was a loose connection on the neutral bar. Unless that's the remains of the main switch hanging down then as you say a possible loose connection there...
I torqued my MK one a few months ago and the main neutral connection was quite loose. Board installed 2010. Not something you think of checking. Maybe we need to have an "annual maintenance check" ... Oh yes we do it's the EICR :) but only on demand.
Ever since my mother ignited a chip pan in our kitchen and I saw the damage fire scares the cra* out of me. Keep up the good work BUNDY10....
Looking at the MCB the NSB type where recalled due to setting on fire. I’ve replaced a couple of these
This may sound stupid but wouldn't it of been easyier to just put new tails in than putting a Henley box🤷♂️ either way great vid never get used to the smell BTW 😂
Suppose it makes it easier to add a new feed for a vehicle charger at a later date?
I was thinking the same. Especially as Western Power would of connected it into their new isolator anyway.
not allowed to connect tails to mains must be done by power provider eg scottish power can only fit the consumer side
Liking the battery hover! I have one too. Handy bit of kit
Excellent job nick,
That looked like a fecking nightmare of a job. But you and Adam got it sorted , well done lads 👍👍
Fantastic video as always
Well done on doing a great job, Should suggest to the customer to fit a smoke detector in the garage. Another great video
Good idea
Heat detector for garage
why didnt you just run new mains tails ? the main board is just behind the wall
Good video guys, what a mess that was. Welldone for sorting your way through that and not just hacking it apart in a rush.
Just ordered some EnviroBurst and Intumescent strip for my shed DB... that looked a tough job to unpick and re-connect. Great job both!
Great work, neat job, staying late to finish it. You're good lads for others to follow. Adam is lucky to have you.
Mate that's terrifying, they were very lucky. Cracking job on your work.
Great job on sorting out that charcoaled consumer unit. Brilliant result at the end.👍🏼 Adam is doing really well with all his testing knowledge. 👏🏼
That new board is beautiful. Nice work.
There is something very distinctive about the smell of burnt electrical equipment. Great bit logical thinking sorting out the final circuits from a chard mess
What a lovely job you made of that unit. Very impressive work mate. A Real Credit to you. I bet the customer was made up with the result.
What a good example to show these fly by night so called electricians in London how they can effect someone's life with shoddy work. A big wake up to the owners not to hire said people as Cheap in not cheap in the long run....?? As to the final work in video above. You can be very proud of the work you have done. Thanks for sharing.
Very good work lads, that's probably the best Electricians video on TH-cam. Class!!.
I came here from Big Clives' autopsy of the melted board, he agreed with your diagnosis of poorly torqued connections on the main switch.
What a nightmare! Looks like the installers made some other bad joints around the building from the other high resistance faults that you picked up.
I watched bigclive also and fromwhat I"ve garhered in viewing most all the video's is on frame 927 in this video the loose neutral ground is the main fault meltdown - fire. Bad grounds are sneaky and inconsistent. Once the inconsistency of a solid ground heat begins to generateuntil this point when it goes poof...
I've worked on 500kW HF transmitters that "let the smoke out", but rarely seen a mess as bad as that! Plastic consumer units, who thought up THAT bright idea?!
I think it was to prevent electric shocks from older badly installed metal boards
This is definitely an eye opener, great job sorting out the mess. It should be a legal requirement that every installation has a regular eicr. I also hope that afdd's become more affordable, a belt and braces approach.
A customer called me the other day asking for an additional socket outlet in the kitchen, upon investigation, the kitchen sockets are on a spur. I said this needed to be a separate ring final as the current set up is not safe. The customer didn't want her kitchen touched, i walked away.
I think i made the right decision.
You could change to a 20A MCB if they don't want any destructive work done.
@@stevenbrooks8323 Doing that derates the only ring final circuit in the entire house, so not really an option.
Tbh a torque screwdriver would not necessarily solve the issue of a board fire. It might have helped but often the torque settings from the manufacturers arent good enough and you can still move the cables in the terminal. In essence not using a torque screwdriver isn't the main problem, its that a cable was loose in the terminal and probably arcing.
if something was brushing against them every day then every day was increasing the chance of an arc, thats the only way I can see it happening even when torqued correctly. tails don't move unless they're moved.
my guess is the family car door mirror was clipping it every day.
makes me kinda glad we never had plastic main panels over here in the usa and if there was ever a fire in the circuit breaker panel there is a secondary cutoff as that is how my moms house was designed that ya could get to if it was safe to get to it
Very clean job.
Nice job. Doing a great job with Adam. He is knocking out the park.
This is stuff being not to the right torque completely agree - however AC has a habit of undoing terminals so regardless if it was or wasn't torqued up it's important to have EICR's done at sensible intervals. Over the years I've gone back to sites I've done with a torque driver (commercial) and even 2 years later they've loosened up. Great job as always though lads!
Is it a requirement to check all terminal screws on an EICR? Thanks
@@richarddunn504 yes mate. Item 4.21 on the inspection checklist.
@@adamdavis3735 thank you, just bought a house which had EICR in August, garage fuse box didn’t appear to be viewed at all, document states 6a and 16a MCB but actually has old fuse box with 5a and 15a rating, cables stuffed in holes no grommets, unsheathed earth’s... non of it mentioned in report..🤔
@@richarddunn504 oh dear, sounds like it may have been a 'drive by' inspection. Theres alot of that going on, makes my blood boil! Was it satisfactory? If you're in any doubt as to the safety of your installation I would suggest getting your own EICR done by a reputable spark, tell them you want a full inspection and test with maximum sampling. Ie. Only if something is near on impossible to get to does it get passed over. They will no doubt find a fair bit of what may seem like scary stuff but at least you'll know whats what and can get it all sorted.
@@adamdavis3735 hi, appreciate the reply and advice, many thanks. 👍
Neatest fuseboard install.
Wow thats mad
Good video Nick/Adam. Looks a tails/ main switch issue to cause that sort of fire issue. Thank god we’ve gone back to metal boards. I can imagine the smell was pungent!
Disappointing that a modern board with supposably modern safety features can suffer from such a catastrophic failure.
Well done both of you, for a rescue of a electrical installation.
good work he really knows.
Hello from America, very interesting on how different we are when it comes to electricity. Enjoy watching your videos, just a bit of terminology barrier but I am learning.
I use a dentist mirror to check the bus bar is well located into the bottom of the mcbs.
This looks like a good fire !!!
Nice job Nick.
Only comment would be that you may want to check your fire magic as around cables it needs to be intumescent (expands when heated) so it fills the gap when the PVC melts
This is usually grey in colour where as the white fire magic is non expanding and designed to use around non combustible materials such as metallic pipes or conduits.
Keep up the great work.
This is gonna happen alot more with wylex boards as there main switch and rcbos have recessed screws that only the slimline torque screwdriver blades fit
Well done lads, that was a dirty one
Smashed that mate well done lads 👏👏 fault finding obviously it’s the last socket you check 🙈🙈
yep, dont know anyone who keeps on looking after they find something...
That’s a proper graft for a day’s work 👍🏻
That's a hell of a sexy new board you've wired up. Fantastic dressing 👍
That looked like hard work
Wow, nice job. I'm ok with basic electrics, wiring lights, sockets, pond switches, but even if I could I wouldn't touch it and leave it to the pros. Nice job. Surprised the householder us gonna leave the the joists like that, surely needs s light sanding
Great Vid, I’ve had a similar job in the past, guy tried to kill his family so it was arson, toasted the whole house, thankfully everyone was ok, but really weird environment to work in, house needed major refurb, that burning smell on your hands will be with you for days.
Wonder how far along the cables the heat was conducted. Nice and hot.
Firefighters wear medical gloves under GP gloves. This may help you when dealing with the crispy CU. Guessing the smell is horrendous. Will smell for a while.
Great job. Well done!
Yes burnt electrics smells fishy.
Pretty good demonstration of why consumer units belong in a garage or whatever where possible. Scary stuff - imagine that happening under your stairs or something. 32:25 can't imagine any reason why that install might have had an electrical fire..
Lovely work guys
Lol When Adam is testing the board with his bobble hat on and big Jacket, he looks like Kevin McCallister LOL The Job Looks great guys well done, perfect reason why EICR's are so important
Can't wait for Adam to start launching paint cans down the stairs like He did in Home Alone🤣
@@paultipton743 or when he electrocutes Marv in the 2nd.... Watch out Nick, you could be Marv if you tell him to get off his phone again 😉
Only a couple of vids ago he was still wearing the snickers shorts now he's looks like he's off on a ski holiday
So true. 😂 He’s in a garage though.
Strangely reminded me of John Carpenter's "The Thing"
Hey I've got the same vacuumcleaner from Bosch. Nice piece of kit.
A nice professional job - well done. Very neat and organised. The crimp system with junction boxes speeded up the job I expect, not like the old days where everything had screw terminals. The cause of the fire could be an interesting one. Clearly the fire started above the mcb’s and flames found all the cables going vertical. I would suspect the heaviest current circuit(s) or loose connection on the neutral side bus bar ?. I dare say the fault was there a while and no-one noticed. Perhaps the meter tails were never tightened up correctly ?, or never rechecked once they had been settled in ?. The fact that the system was extended also significant ? - two electric showers in use ?...