Electrical Test Safety

Dansbell

I was recently working on a project where an electrical company employee was turning power back on at a residence. What I saw was him pulling the meter, licking his two fingers, touching the contacts in the meter box, and then pushing the meter back in place. He must have done something else to turn the power on because as soon as the meter was seated the power was on. I asked him what the licking the fingers and touching the contacts was about and he told me it was to make sure the meter did not blow up in his face when he pushed it back in. I assume he was checking the contacts on the house side. I was so shocked to see an electrical test preformed in that manner I didn't ask anything else. Can any one tell me what he was doing? What test was he performing and is it safe? What would have happened to his fingers if the test results had been different? This has just been on my mind for several days and I finally had to ask some more questions to someone who knows.

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Daniel S. Bell
Belbuilt, LLC
Install Cabinets Medford, Oregon
http://www.belbuilt.com

L. B. Condulet

I consider jamming a meter into a live socket to be a dangerous activity. I have done it a million times, but the springs on the socket are strong and it would be easy to accidentally let the meter rock over and touch the metal deadfront of the meter enclosure, resulting in an impressive display of impromptu arc welding.

I always am careful to keep the meter perfectly square as I push it into the spring clips.

As far as licking your finger and touching the contacts, it would be helpful to know which contacts he touched, if he used his hand to bridge between one line and one load contact (and the main disconnect was open), nothing would happen. If he bridged between two load contacts, nothing would happen. If he bridged between two line contacts, the pain would be great and would be followed with the proper stream of profanities.

In my opinion, they guy knew he had an audience and was show boating.

mdshunk

Agreed. The two load side terminals are dead until he slaps the meter in. He was just showing off by touching dead terminals. He's a retard.

MSSI

MSSI

I was working on a job in the city(phila) a couple years ago and a guy next door just seperated or moved 5 meters from the basement to the outside of the building.....I was working next door on something similar when his 1st meter went KABOOM right in his face no shattering glass but it scared the out of both of us....He just couldnt figure out why it happened...I yelled over and told him he had a 120v meter ,as they did back in the day in the city... Still shaking he told me to off, theres no such thing and spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what he did wrong..anyway... 3 more KABOOMS later I went over and slammed one of my 240v meters in...what da ya know no kaboom..He just gave me a dumb ass look and tried to explain his way out of being an idiot......

Sparky Joe

I bet he was intending to do "the dance", but couldn't bring himself to ruin someone elses day like that.

Celtic

LOL


Let's hear that doozie

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MSSI

something about....Well I am not using any 2 pole breakers/theres nothing 240 in the panel/the panels only wired for 120/ so it shouldnt matter if its a 120v meter..Bla Bla Bla...This cat was a bit Slooww I think he took a few volts to the head at some point

BigMikeB

Another guy that needs to stick with what he's good at, ya see em all the time.

Chris Johnson

I was working on a job one day and heard that (unfamiliar to me) KABOOM, the cable guy was drilling from the outside of the house in and didn't miss the panel, got it smack dab right at the main lugs...the KABOOM was the transformer on the pole across the street. That was a short day on the jobsite waiting for the POCO to fix that one.

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Chris

mdshunk

Here's one that a cable guy did too. Right smack in the middle of the SE cable. That's his drill bit sticking out of there:

Chris Johnson

How do these guys survive? Isn't there enough zap in there to stop the heart? Or at least give you some serious electrical burns to the hands?

I'm thinking these guys were using metric tape measures when they were checking dimensions.

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Chris

mdshunk

Well, consider the type of guy the cable company hires. Warm, breathing, and clean-cut enough to ring a doorbell without scaring people.

BigMikeB

I wish the company that sent the zulu witchdoctor to my house followed those rules.

mdshunk

That's funny

There's a power company in my area who's main trouble man has the dreadlock thing going on. He's actually a very knowledgable and pleasant guy, but if he was to ring your doorbell you wouldn't be immediately sure if he was there to buy weed or fix the power from the looks.

POOLMANinCT

sounds like md is selling weed out of his front door?

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......Less with the jaw & More with the paw.....