The Home Improvements Thread (2)

[SAguy]

Cool, thanks guys. Going to see if I can't get it into the left corner.
It's just the granny flat, but I do want it to look nice.

Told my wife we should go "away" for the weekend next weekend and go live in our granny flat.

 

[APoc184]

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Anybody know where I can buy this type of light at a brick & mortar store in Pretoria today?

Want to install it in the hallway and I have the time to do it this weekend.

 

[xrapidx]

While back I posted about my irrigation pump being live, it's been unplugged since, today I spent the morning tracing back the cable, and not finding the problem.

Eventually, giving up and deciding to run completely new cables, opened this plug in my kids room to start from the beginning.

Workmanship courtesy the aircon installers.

 

[SaucePlz]

While back I posted about my irrigation pump being live, it's been unplugged since, today I spent the morning tracing back the cable, and not finding the problem.

Eventually, giving up and deciding to run completely new cables, opened this plug in my kids room to start from the beginning.

Workmanship courtesy the aircon installers.

WTAF. Name and shame company?

 

[xrapidx]

WTAF. Name and shame company?

It's not actually connected, just a loose earth wire.

Unfortunately for me, the aircons were installed a few years ago, and can't recall who did it, but going to try and find out, it was a recommendation from a friend.

 

[Tinuva]

Loose wire or not...you don't want a wire that can connect to something else it shouldn't like that. Hectic.

 

[krieg]

While back I posted about my irrigation pump being live, it's been unplugged since, today I spent the morning tracing back the cable, and not finding the problem.

Eventually, giving up and deciding to run completely new cables, opened this plug in my kids room to start from the beginning.

Workmanship courtesy the aircon installers.

I don't see a loose wire but it looks like you have a bridge from phase to earth. Also not sure if it is a shadow but your live terminal looks slightly burnt. There are also too many wires per terminal, you need to connect the incoming and outgoing with a flyleed to the plug or use 4 way Wago's. Lastly aircon should be on its own circuit preferably.

 

[WAslayer]

While back I posted about my irrigation pump being live, it's been unplugged since, today I spent the morning tracing back the cable, and not finding the problem.

Eventually, giving up and deciding to run completely new cables, opened this plug in my kids room to start from the beginning.

Workmanship courtesy the aircon installers.

Why are the Aircon installers messing with the electricity..?

They install the Aircon, you then let the electrician come out afterwards to connect it up...

 

[abudabi]

Got an add: 40m drilling + 3.7m casing pipe R13500. Obvious pump and extras must be added.

I would say that is dirt cheap.. Almost in the "Hang on what's the catch" kind of category. Care to share the add? At that price I'm also tempted to take a gamble if they're not solely NW based.

 

[xrapidx]

I don't see a loose wire but it looks like you have a bridge from phase to earth. Also not sure if it is a shadow but your live terminal looks slightly burnt. There are also too many wires per terminal, you need to connect the incoming and outgoing with a flyleed to the plug or use 4 way Wago's. Lastly aircon should be on its own circuit preferably.

That wire was loose, a piece of copper wire screwed into the earth sticking out about 2cm - and nothing was broken off elsewhere, so I'm assuming they just left it there when something broke.

And yes, the live terminal is burnt - I'd imagine from this wire shorting.

Why are the Aircon installers messing with the electricity..?

They install the Aircon, you then let the electrician come out afterwards to connect it up...

Their apparent electrician.

 

[WAslayer]

Their apparent electrician.

That's just incentive for the Aircon installer to make more money.. wouldn't be surprised if the electrician isn't even qualified..

 

[xrapidx]

That's just incentive for the Aircon installer to make more money.. wouldn't be surprised if the electrician isn't even qualified..

Yip.

Unrelated electrician - but I posted about this time last year where I used the insurance home-assist service to come replace my mains breaker which made a sparking sound each time the power came back on after load shedding - and when you manually tripped it.

The electrician they sent round only rocked up the evening - repeatedly flipped the mains breaker with everything else on - after being asked not to because he's going to damage something. I eventually had him leave (he also wanted something like R1500-R2000 for a second hand breaker he had in his car) - only to walk into the house and discover all my LED downlight dimmers had fried and the house was now a disco.

Massive fight with the insurance who wanted me to open a claim for the damages and pay excess - with the electrician blaming load shedding - fortunately thanks to power monitoring I was able to prove it had been months since our power had been off prior to his arrival.

The insurance sent another electrician to fix everything at their cost.

(couple of months later my LCD TV went - but can't proof its related).

Just about every industry these days is shocking - I much prefer trying to figure it out myself.

 

[TedLasso]

Yip.

Unrelated electrician - but I posted about this time last year where I used the insurance home-assist service to come replace my mains breaker which made a sparking sound each time the power came back on after load shedding - and when you manually tripped it.

The electrician they sent round only rocked up the evening - repeatedly flipped the mains breaker with everything else on - after being asked not to because he's going to damage something. I eventually had him leave (he also wanted something like R1500-R2000 for a second hand breaker he had in his car) - only to walk into the house and discover all my LED downlight dimmers had fried and the house was now a disco.

Massive fight with the insurance who wanted me to open a claim for the damages and pay excess - with the electrician blaming load shedding - fortunately thanks to power monitoring I was able to prove it had been months since our power had been off prior to his arrival.

The insurance sent another electrician to fix everything at their cost.

(couple of months later my LCD TV went - but can't proof its related).

Just about every industry these days is shocking - I much prefer trying to figure it out myself.

Have to say, in sort of related news , my geyser went kaboom a few weeks ago, and insurance company assigned a vendor called 'Johannesburg Plumbing' to do the job.

I was just expecting 'let's get this done asap': but man was I impressed which is not an easy feat.

The geyser that died was seriously old (no tray or anything) . They corrected this of course, with new overflow lines and I later found out, that they also replaced the main valve coming into the house (apparently they always have to do it). They could not electrically connect as the geyser location moved and the original electrical feed was too short so they had to get electrician to come in

After the plumbers left, went into roof and was just super chuffed by the quality of their workmanship. Even the main water valve they replaced, was done so neatly with a small overflow pipe (compared to the now what I call **** jobs done by previous two plumbers)


One of their electricians came a day later and then told me , what he found was not to spec, like the original geyser break switch , etc and we was going to correct it all.

My Sonoff was also in the line. He did the job reconnecting it all and left. Went into roof again and just amazeballs workmanship, he moved the Sonoff from my box into his own inline path. He had mentioned in conversation, that their aim was to ensure they did the job right first time and not to have any come backs.

Well these guys are definitely my new plumbers and electricians should I need any work done in the future.

 

[xrapidx]

Funny enough - before I started today, I decided to go through the entire houses db board, and see what was on each circuit.

I'm pretty sure these items aren't compliant, and we've had two CoCs issued from purchase, and once again when we did the kitchen renovations
1: We have 3x light breakers, and 7 plug breakers.
2. 2 plug breakers have nothing on them - even though they're wired up.
3. The geyser has a plug switch wired to it which goes to one of our bedroom plugs
4. Our kids bedroom light shares the same circuit as the plugs (the ones I had issues with today
5. The light outside our kitchen works, but isn't connected to any of the breakers - so when everything besides the mains is off - the light works
6. The driveway lights and garage roof light is on a plug circuit.
7. The one plug circuit has 13 double plugs on it - as well as the lights mentioned in 6.
8. The one plug in our dining room is wired to a light circuit.

 

[TedLasso]

****, literally describes some of the circuits in my house. Sellers must have got their sparky who did all the dodge work to issue his own COC. In my case, will need to fix but will do when I have to redo when install solar / inverter. Definitely going to have circuit breaker per room for plugs.

 

[SAguy]

Funny enough - before I started today, I decided to go through the entire houses db board, and see what was on each circuit.

I'm pretty sure these items aren't compliant, and we've had two CoCs issued from purchase, and once again when we did the kitchen renovations
1: We have 3x light breakers, and 7 plug breakers.
2. 2 plug breakers have nothing on them - even though they're wired up.
3. The geyser has a plug switch wired to it which goes to one of our bedroom plugs
4. Our kids bedroom light shares the same circuit as the plugs (the ones I had issues with today
5. The light outside our kitchen works, but isn't connected to any of the breakers - so when everything besides the mains is off - the light works
6. The driveway lights and garage roof light is on a plug circuit.
7. The one plug circuit has 13 double plugs on it - as well as the lights mentioned in 6.
8. The one plug in our dining room is wired to a light circuit.

Holy shirt that's a mess. It's scary that you're safer doing electrical work yourself and getting a CoC done afterwards than letting an electrician do the work.

I had an electrician fit my light in my inside braai. I gave him a porcelain/ceramic connection block to use and assumed he used it. A braai or two later the light went poof. He had used a plastic connection block which of course melted and ended up shorting the light.

 

[krieg]

Funny enough - before I started today, I decided to go through the entire houses db board, and see what was on each circuit.

I'm pretty sure these items aren't compliant, and we've had two CoCs issued from purchase, and once again when we did the kitchen renovations
1: We have 3x light breakers, and 7 plug breakers.
2. 2 plug breakers have nothing on them - even though they're wired up.
3. The geyser has a plug switch wired to it which goes to one of our bedroom plugs
4. Our kids bedroom light shares the same circuit as the plugs (the ones I had issues with today
5. The light outside our kitchen works, but isn't connected to any of the breakers - so when everything besides the mains is off - the light works
6. The driveway lights and garage roof light is on a plug circuit.
7. The one plug circuit has 13 double plugs on it - as well as the lights mentioned in 6.
8. The one plug in our dining room is wired to a light circuit.

2. I would disconnect those from inside the board easiest way to see if it feeds something.
3. Geyser pulls a lot of amps and needs to be on its own circuit, also check if there is an isolator switch within 1 metre from the geyser. Also check out that plug top for thermal damage. Max rating for a plug top is 16A.
4. Can cause issues seeing as most lights draw very little power, will probably burn before it trips the circuit breaker.
5. Follow the wire and see if it is directly connected to the main switch.
6. Again oversized breaker.
7. I think it is five plugs on a breaker but depends on usage. You need to split those in the middle and run a new cable from the split to the DB.
8. Just need a new wire from that plug to the next closest one.

 

[xrapidx]

2. I would disconnect those from inside the board easiest way to see if it feeds something.
3. Geyser pulls a lot of amps and needs to be on its own circuit, also check if there is an isolator switch within 1 metre from the geyser. Also check out that plug top for thermal damage. Max rating for a plug top is 16A.
4. Can cause issues seeing as most lights draw very little power, will probably burn before it trips the circuit breaker.
5. Follow the wire and see if it is directly connected to the main switch.
6. Again oversized breaker.
7. I think it is five plugs on a breaker but depends on usage. You need to split those in the middle and run a new cable from the split to the DB.
8. Just need a new wire from that plug to the next closest one.

Unfortunately checking and tracing any cables is almost impossible thanks to our flat roof, and some rooms being inaccessible in the roof.

You mention the geyser isolator, this was fitted by my previous insurer after a claim and they moved the geyser outside, they also completely stuffed up our one bathroom, so much so that we had to redo it. (It's on my list to replace)


The insurance ombudsman found no wrong doing even with reports from other companies.

 

[krieg]

Unfortunately checking and tracing any cables is almost impossible thanks to our flat roof, and some rooms being inaccessible in the roof.

You mention the geyser isolator, this was fitted by my previous insurer after a claim and they moved the geyser outside, they also completely stuffed up our one bathroom, so much so that we had to redo it. (It's on my list to replace)


The insurance ombudsman found no wrong doing even with reports from other companies.

That is some shoddy work. That looks like outside, unfortunately that switch is not rated for outdoor use. I would also put glands in for the cable preferably underneath. That cable will also erode in sunlight, some flex conduit will make it a lot nicer.

 

[xrapidx]

That is some shoddy work. That looks like outside, unfortunately that switch is not rated for outdoor use. I would also put glands in for the cable preferably underneath. That cable will also erode in sunlight, some flex conduit will make it a lot nicer.

Yip, outside...already bought everything to redo it... About a year ago