5. The BIGGEST Mistakes DIYers Don't Know They Are Making When Wiring

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[00:00:00] You're a qualified electrician. What does that mean? Well, to me it means that you know what you're doing and why you're doing it. There's so many DIY sparkies all over the world that think they know what they're doing. They're actually putting lives at risk. And in today's podcast, I'm going to go over five of the major common mistakes that D ROIs are making, not only to help you know where to start looking once you've been called out to fix it, but to help explain to customers how important it is to get things right by an electrician, along with some shocking stories that you wouldn't believe unless you were there.

[00:00:39] Welcome back to Toolbox Talks for electricians. I am Ben Polty, your host once again, and the mistakes detailed here are not only made by DIYs, to be honest, some of these have been made by qualified electricians too. So number one, do you remember back in the days when it was the old black and red cable?

[00:01:08] The harmonized colors come into effect in 2004, and this is in the uk. We sort of harmonize it with the rest of the world and the colors change to brown being live and bluebean neutral, and that's only on a two 40 supply. And I better say as well that that's two 40 AC as well, because DC was different.

[00:01:29] 24 volt all, all the different colors they harmonized with the rest of the world, so they all changed color. It got quite confusing, especially at the time when I worked in the DC power engineer where the cables used to be black and blue and then they changed to gray and blue and basically, The neutral or the positive side or the negative side.

[00:01:47] I can't remember now whether it got reversed. So that was it. It did caused problems. People blew it up because in D in DC Power, there's not actually a qualification to become a DC power engineer. The company whole worked , they had any Tom Dicken area that used to be a paint that used to be a plumber because DC power engineer back in the, I dunno, 2003, 2004, it was booming at the.

[00:02:10] but there is still so many houses all over the UK that are still wired in the old red and black colors to this day. And it confuses people wiring sockets the wrong way around. It can be a huge risk, especially if the property fitted with an old consumer unit. Cause that's not gonna drip the fuse. You're not gonna know, you're just gonna walk away unless you're experiencing, you're tested, see what you've done.

[00:02:32] But war in socket the wrong way around. Couldn't obviously cause reverse clarity when some appliance. They will still work on reverse polar, especially like a lamp or a light fitting maybe. But in most cases, it'll blow that computer up. It'll blow something electronic up, it'll ruin it. But obviously in a worse case scenario, it's gonna cause a fire.

[00:02:53] So it'll be a good thing to remember that red is now brown and black is now blue. I'll say it again on a 240 supply, only 240 AC. so onto the next common mistake that people make. And this mistake's obviously not just done by DIYs. Again, some electricians do it. Maybe if you get your apprentice or , your mate that's working with you to terminate when you terminate into a switch or a socket, and they don't really give it that extra little nick to make sure it's tight and it's in there.

[00:03:25] So sometimes they think like if as long as it's in there and it's screwed in, it's okay. Well, no, you gotta make sure, especially on sockets, that they're nice and tight because you never know that some Watson was going to plug into that socket. If it's loose and you plug it in a phone charger. Yeah, no doubt that'll work over time.

[00:03:43] But then later on, if they come along and plug a heater into it, that's gonna st draw in A lot of current on a twin socket with a couple of one kilowatt. Heat is plugged into it. That's gonna start pulling eight amps. And yes, I might hear you saying on a double socket, if it's a ring circuit on a 32 grams, eight ounce will be fine.

[00:04:00] But that wire, that cable in there will get a little bit warm, and it'll get warm and loose, warm and loose. So just make sure then terminals are tight, because over time if they get warm and loose and then it starts causing arking, that's where you're. because it's when a cable starts getting warm, it gets hot, cold, hot, cold, and then it becomes a little gap, and that arking will start arking across.

[00:04:25] An arking will get hotter and hotter , when it arks, things get hot. That's how it works. And then over time, that's gonna cause a fire. But the same thing goes for over tightening as well. I've seen it a bit, I've had lads work with me over time, but they think, ah, it's gone so tight. It spins. That's enough.

[00:04:41] Well, no, , I've even done it myself. I've tied it up so much. You think you're been strong, you wanna get nice and tight, but it's starts spinning. You've fried to screw well, that's it, ain. Never gonna go tight again. Now you gotta replace that socket or replace that switch. Whatever you are ruined your threads on, replace it cuz that's gonna cause you a problem a long time down the road.

[00:05:00] So when you're doing an installation and just make sure they're nice and tight and the cable's doing, give 'em a tug. Always give 'em a tug to make sure they come out. Cause nine times outta 10, sometimes they do come out the terminal and it's a nightmare. Later on, if you're testing, you think, well, that reading's a bit higher.

[00:05:15] Wonder why? Well, you'll know why, because that's a loose terminal. So tighten your connections up. Well, I was told Ft when I was apprentice, which obviously was effing tight but has too tight cause it ran to screw off. You've just, you test it, you've gotta try it out to find out , how tight you can do it with your terminal screwdriver.

[00:05:33] In this next one, no electrician should make this mistake. If you're an electrician and you've been through an apprenticeship or a training course, you should know your cable sizes and what cable sizes are used for what supplies. You've got an appliance that uses 10 kilowatts. You should know what cable size and what size views to put.

[00:05:54] But the most common mistake I've found by electricians and D I Y people, maybe the people that installed bathrooms and kitchens, is that isolated to the pool court, to the shower. Because when a bathroom fit has come along and it's had to install a new electric shower. Yep. Bar will install your new electric shower.

[00:06:11] Put your new , , electric shower in there. I included in the price. Cause that'll be easy cause that's what they can do to, cause that's the finishing touches in it. Put a new, nice, new Mara shower in there. But yeah, it won't work. You've put a 10 kilowatt fantastically power shower in there, which is great, but it doesn't work cause it's on a six mill cable and six mill cables can only carry up to 35 amps, which is 8.4 kilowatt.

[00:06:37] So when someone comes along and installs a new 10 kilowatt shower, And doesn't upgrade the cab in that cable's gonna get hot, especially when , that shower is trying to draw maximum current to do its job. It's what it's built for 10 kilowatt. It's what it's built for. So it's gonna draw maximum amount of current, especially on startup.

[00:06:54] And then over time that milks, the isolat always happens. I could not tell you how many isolaters I've been to replace for a shower, and every isolator is melted due to the cable sizes being too small and the shower's being too. I've even been to a job before where someone said that they've fitted a kitchen or the customers called me up because they've had a , fitted bathroom, and they've kept replacing.

[00:07:19] They had three new showers in there, but it keeps tripping. The fuse keeps doing the same thing and they wonder why. So they thought they'd call an electrician to find out, cause obviously the bathroom fit. , he stopped ignoring the calls in the end because , he didn't have a clue what was going. He replaced three showers.

[00:07:32] He tried his best, but he just didn't know. You got wrong size cabling. You've got six more cabling. He didn't even change a fuse cause obviously he was a kitchen fair, I suppose so. Fair enough. He didn't change a fuse cause he couldn't have caused a fire later on down the line. But he kept he, he did his best.

[00:07:46] He tried to change the shower. But end of the day, if you're gonna upgrade the shower, have a bit of knowledge or don't have any bit of knowledge, but get a electrician to do it. It's only the way it's gonna work properly. And you think a shower is something you want to get right? That's used every day, all day, especially a family of five.

[00:08:04] She's probably used five times a day, well, at least 20 times a week if they wash a lot, to be honest. Right. So number four, and when you're being told by a customer, when you turn up at the house and they say, yeah, yeah, I wanna supply to my garden. There's a big, thick black cable that goes up the garden.

[00:08:20] We want to use that. That's what we want to connect our new fancy dancing hot tub too. And so they assume, yes, it's gonna be chips. Chips. Like it's fine. But to a person that's to the untrained eye. May I say that that big thick black cable is Yeah. It's just a 1.5. Still wild arm, three core. It's not actually that thick.

[00:08:42] It's probably for a lighting circuit or a street lamp that was once in there. It's not. Gonna be any good for a hot tub. And I, after a bit of a conversation with someone early say this cuz this has happened a few times, that nine times outta 10, that customer has already had another electrician come round and say, yeah, you can't use that cable mate.

[00:09:01] It's uh, too small. It'll melt and not work. Maybe even trip a fuse. It's just not gonna happen. No person in their right mind will connect. A, silly little cable just cause it looks big a lot of the time they see it looks big. It's like a 20 mill diameter, but it's a, a steel wide armor cable. It's the armor around it that's thick and the cause inside are still small.

[00:09:22] So they, but the customer doesn't wanna pay for a new cable cause that's, Probably a, like a, a 50 50 meter run to the back of their garden. So they think, Hmm, how much is a new g them, when you say around 500 quid, they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But they've just went out and paid five grand for a new hot tub, but another 500 pound to get the electric electrical supply to it done properly.

[00:09:42] Yeah. , they don't wanna do that. They don't wanna fork out that you gotta incorporate the costs into installing something if you're gonna buy it. Cause otherwise you're gonna get a hot tub there. This is just gonna be a fancy pad. But the sorry thing is, especially over here in the UK and I bet it's the same all over the world, that if you want a job done cheap and dangerous, sooner or later you're gonna find someone willing to take your money to do the job.

[00:10:07] But I betcha that they, you won't better get old of them when there's a problem. When you say, excuse me, that's like melted and burnt me s down. Yeah. That 50 quid, they would've got a new phone. They're not gonna come. . So again, that's a perfect example once again is, is get electrician to the. They're trained in doing something safe.

[00:10:27] That's what we wanna do. We wanna do things safe and sound like Another huge mistake that I see, not just DIYs do, but people in domestic premises as well, what they do. So how many times have you seen an extension lead plugged into an extension lead? Just so , they can create more sockets. So they've got more sockets out there to plug more things into.

[00:10:49] But it's a basically a fire waiting to happen. If you're thinking of it. Coil it, uh, extension lead all called up. They haven't even unwound it so it can disperse the heat cuz that's what one extension lead needs. If you're gonna use extension lead, it's for extending it, not having it called up and then plugging a heater into it.

[00:11:07] Cause in effect it's, , well, it's gonna be basically a heater. If you think how a, a motor's wired, it's got the wind ding side. You are basically doing exactly the same thing with that extension lead. and that extension lead,, when it's called up, it can get hot and that's gonna cause a fire in the long run. I was called out to an insurance job one day, and , this family, luckily they're alive, to be honest.

[00:11:30] They had electrical fire and I was taken upstairs. They came in, they said , they just needed , The electric check-in to make sure that they could still live in the property and , they thought, they assumed, I suppose they wanted it to made safe so the house looked okay until it got upstairs, his one back bedroom, and laying on the floor of that underneath the window was two extension leads.

[00:11:51] Called up, but they had one plug on. For some reason, I more than likely got from my car sale, which probably weren't even Pat Test still or Safe? I don't know. I, I dunno. Cause it was black. It was, it was burnt sins, but they had two more panel heaters in there as well, so they had that too. Heat up the baby's room of all, it was the baby's room with a CO in there.

[00:12:10] The, luckily the baby weren't in there, which was a good thing, but it's to keep the baby warm in that room. They've got two panel heaters plugged in. It was just, if you saw. You could just see them that that's gonna cause a fire. And it did. The place was black and the customer, , it didn't have a clue to say like, oh yeah, this, I could see why this has happened.

[00:12:28] They just, cause I ain't got a clue why it went wrong. Just, uh, must have been a fault somewhere something happened. Faulty heater. Doubt it mate. , he assumed it was a matter of just replacing the socket fronts and like, yeah, that will all be fine. Because , it was probably heat of fault.

[00:12:41] So we're just gonna put a new socket front on and air if it'll be fine. Well, unfortunately for that guy, that part of the house was, it was just wrecked. It was smoke damage, it was melted, and you can't walk away just by putting a new socket front on and saying, yep, that's tested out. Fine. It it, even if it tested out fine, I wouldn't have been happy leaving it.

[00:13:00] That's gotta be damaged somewhere along the line. It might have tested it, but as soon as it moved, or soon as you draw the current, that could have caused a fire. So any fire damage did you rip the hole lot out and start again? But what sealed the deal for me as well is, um, they had a seller and that's where the fuse board was.

[00:13:15] So I went down and checked on the fuse board to say about like, let's just see if they, uh, fuse , done its job, blew the fuse, or tripped the fuse. It was an old wild board that had the re fuses. It was a 20 amp supply for the sockets, but when I pulled it out, it had been replaced with a 32 ounce fuse.

[00:13:33] It happens all the time. People just get any bit of fuse wire. If they put it in, it pops. They think, right, I'll put a bigger one in that ain't gonna pop. Don't understand how dangerous that up here. That's why Mcbs miniature circuit breakers came into effect cuz you can't just change them. , you've got a be electrician where you change, but you've gotta have a better knowledge.

[00:13:52] People don't like gonna view board electric kills. It won't gear. It can give you a little shock, but if you faff up completely, ask any gear, one shock will be your last. So not only did this property, he had the call up extension leads were basically two little heaters waiting for a fire to happen.

[00:14:12] That cable to that bedroom that he was plugged into was also heating up all the time and waiting for a fire to happen. It was just a mess and basically ended up having to rewire the whole. But I also made sure to that customer that I had to explain to him in great detail how lucky he was to be alive with how the place was wired,, of how, what went on and.

[00:14:38] Yeah. Every customer will say to, it looks like that when I moved in. How long you been living here? 10 years. Hmm. The thing is, , it could have been possibly like that when he moved in. I don't know. Who am I to judge? I'm just glad that no one was hurt and I won't go in there to sort of, I don't know, investigate a fire that was killed.

[00:14:56] Somebody that would be terrible. Now I can understand that some people may not have the money to call an electrician to come out and do any work to their house. , but it's when people go cheap and if they've got a quote off someone that's maybe 500 pound, but they're like, hang about, this guy says he'll do it for a tenor.

[00:15:13] Yeah, he will do it for a tenor cause he don't know what he's doing. You'll always find someone with a little bit of knowledge, ah, I'll give that a go. If you're gonna pay them 10 pound, they need that 10 pounds. So, They're gonna take it. And us as electricians we, I think we do. We're a pretty perfectionist.

[00:15:31] We take pride in our work, in fact, that we know what we're doing and why we're doing it. And when we walk away from someone's property, we're quite confident that that is not going to catch fire. I've had it before where people have phoned me up. I said, Ben, this socket, it keeps tripping. It keeps tripping.

[00:15:48] I am glad it keeps tripping than causes a fire. I will turn up a hundred times for that socket to be tripping and find the fault, rather than come round and be sued again. Put in prison cuz it's killed somebody. I'd rather it trip. That's a whole reason we do it like, cause I'd rather it not kill somebody.

[00:16:05] So if you're not sure about what you're doing, don't do it. Or educate yourself in finding out how to. There's so many horror stories that you see over time that I could probably tell you that you probably know these budge jobs that you've found in some people's properties. Oh, I've had to remove a main fuse before to a caravan site because someone had tried to bypass the meter and they've gone straight into the bottom of the head.

[00:16:31] I said, I am not touching that. Not a chance to neutral. The burnout and , the power had obviously gone off. It was feeding about 10 or 12 caravans. I said, I'm not touching that. Oh, go on. Just do it. You're an electrician. I'll give him a to. Said you do it. No, walked away. I pulled that fuse out cause I said, Please, please, like, dunno, care what trouble you get into, whether, whether you gotta pay for someone doing this, say someone else did it, but you've got to call the western power grid out because that's gonna kill somebody.

[00:16:57] So I pulled the fuse out and took it with me. Cause , I couldn't leave it like it. There's kids in them, caravans, there's families. , I didn't want to be responsible, but I found out like Ronda, they found someone to do it. Oh yeah. They, he run me up and told me, Ben, we've got someone to do it. Someone better than you.

[00:17:13] So they went out and bought New Fuse as well. Cause what's a new fuse from the wholesalers? I don't know, 50 quid from, I would've assume they would've got fined or someone would've been fined through that flipping mess that they did in that head. But it happens all over. That isn't the first one I've seen.

[00:17:34] If you've got horror stories yourself, jump inside of the toolbox for talk for electricians group and let me. It'd be good to start a conversation and sometimes you don't even know what people have done. You can't believe it. What people have done that are lucky to be alive. So until next time, I'll see you again.