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Confessions of an Electrician...

Lisa Miles

So while we’ve not been able to log into the community (you can do so now if you didn’t already know) I’ve been keeping myself out of mischief Blush by going through some of the discussion topics on the old Wiring Regs forum and came across this one: Walking off site where some of you were sharing stories about your experiences with client's pets while on the job. 


So I thought it would be a bit of fun to ask you to share some of your funny/bizarre or just weird stories (keeping it relatively clean and protecting the privacy of others please!) from any jobs you’ve been on or done.


… And I’ll send some swag to the author of the story that gets voted the ‘Most helpful/liked’ from the community so don't forget to hit that 'Good Answer' link on any that make you chuckle! (Log in required)



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  • Two way switched immersion heater


    The house belonging to the lady who subsequently became my dear wife had an unusual arrangement to control the immersion heater. It had two switches, one downstairs and one upstairs, wired after the downstairs one. Thus limited control of the heater was possible on both floors, though of course it was not possible to switch the heater on if the other switch was off.


    The house electrics needed to be extensively rewired. I was too busy to take on this work myself so an electrician was summoned and I took on a "consultancy" rôle. I suggested to the electrician to rewire the immersion heater circuit as two-way switching. He was loath to do this, and pointed out that an immersion heater needed a two-pole switch, so this was not possible.


    Subsequently, when I was rewiring my own house, I thought again that two-way switching of the immersion would be useful. I scoured the IEE Wiring Regulations to see if there was any compulsion anywhere of wiring an immersion heater to a two-pole switch - even though I recognised this was usual practice  - but could not find any. Neither could I reason out any safety consideration requiring two-way switching. After all, nobody worries about using hot taps when the immersion heater is on.


    So I went ahead and wired the immersion heater with 20 A two-way switching. I even incorporated an indicator light at each switch. I constructed all this using grid-mounted wiring accessories.


    I have never seen a two-way switched immersion heater anywhere else. Does anyone think I  contravened some regulation; this was done around 1980? Shoot me down if you like.
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  • Two way switched immersion heater


    The house belonging to the lady who subsequently became my dear wife had an unusual arrangement to control the immersion heater. It had two switches, one downstairs and one upstairs, wired after the downstairs one. Thus limited control of the heater was possible on both floors, though of course it was not possible to switch the heater on if the other switch was off.


    The house electrics needed to be extensively rewired. I was too busy to take on this work myself so an electrician was summoned and I took on a "consultancy" rôle. I suggested to the electrician to rewire the immersion heater circuit as two-way switching. He was loath to do this, and pointed out that an immersion heater needed a two-pole switch, so this was not possible.


    Subsequently, when I was rewiring my own house, I thought again that two-way switching of the immersion would be useful. I scoured the IEE Wiring Regulations to see if there was any compulsion anywhere of wiring an immersion heater to a two-pole switch - even though I recognised this was usual practice  - but could not find any. Neither could I reason out any safety consideration requiring two-way switching. After all, nobody worries about using hot taps when the immersion heater is on.


    So I went ahead and wired the immersion heater with 20 A two-way switching. I even incorporated an indicator light at each switch. I constructed all this using grid-mounted wiring accessories.


    I have never seen a two-way switched immersion heater anywhere else. Does anyone think I  contravened some regulation; this was done around 1980? Shoot me down if you like.
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