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Safety
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Miscellaneous
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The wire to the
left of this main electrical shutoff switch is
the system ground wire. It is supposed to be
connected to the incoming water pipe for the
house. This should be corrected immediately for
safety sake so that a short to ground in the
system will blow a fuse or trip a breaker
instead of energizing the device box or the
housing of the device that is connected to it.
The correction should be done by a qualified
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This clothes drier
electrical plug has no metal box to contain the
wire connections. A person reaching for the
laundry soap (blue and white box in the picture)
could electrocute themselves. The correction of
this problem involves less than $10.00 worth of
parts. A small price to pay considering the
alternatives.
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This is an Air
conditioner electrical supply cable hooked up to
the 'street' side of this home's MAIN power
disconnect. There is no way to shut off the
power to this cable. It is a fire hazard that
must be corrected immediately by a QUALIFIED
electrician.
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This picture is of
knob and tube electrical wire. It was used in
pre 1950 homes and will, if still active,
attract insurance issues regarding price and
even availability.
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This electrical
panel is mounted directly on combustible wood
paneling. There is supposed to be a sheet of
drywall (considered non combustible) between the
electrical panel and the wood paneling. This
oversight, which is relatively simple to
correct, was found on a TWO MONTH OLD home.
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This house was being used to grow marijuana. A
grow house consumes a lot of electricity. This
is the patched foundation under the electrical
panel where the grow house operators drilled
through it to get unobserved access top to the
underground hydro wires. This allows them to
steal the electricity for the grow operation
before it read by the hydro meter on the outside
of the house. It is important for a home buyer
in this situation to be absolutely sure that
Hydro is completely satisfied regarding any
outstanding amounts owed for electricity at this
home. It is also advisable that Hydro be called
in to dig up the wires and ensure that they are
properly repaired after they were cut into by
the grow house operators, for safety sake.
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The wires shown in
this picture are the incoming electrical service
cable at the top of the hydro mast on this
house. The connections on the power lines are
supposed to covered with a proper insulating
material. This semi exposed connection is so
close to the bare ground/neutral wire that it is
obviously arcing across (probably in rainy
weather only) and pitting the ground wire. If
these two wires ever touch each other, (say, in
windy weather) they will short and burn through
each other, giving off a light show that the
neighbours will remember for a long time and
this house will then be out of power, possibly
along with half the neighbourhood. The local
hydro utility should be called in to correct
this problem. Since it is the local utility's
responsibility for the service cable connections
at the top of the mast, there should be no
charge to the homeowner for this urgent safety
correction.
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This is a picture
inside an electrical panel. At the end of the
top row, you can see the side of a GFCI
(personal safety) breaker. At the end of the
bottom row, you can see the badly burnt and
exploded side of the lower GFCI breaker. The
breaker literally blew apart in the panel.
Fortunately, it was at the end of the row. It
may have caused a lot more damage if it had been
placed between other breakers. This breaker
provided personal safety protection from
electrocution to the master washroom whirlpool
tub. The question is: Is this just a GFCI
breaker failure (+/- $ 150.00 to replace) or did
it explode because of some failure with the
whirlpool motor or wiring? This will require a
qualified electrician to investigate and find
out exactly what happened. Without taking off
the cover of the electrical panel, It would have
been virtually impossible to detect this
problem. There were no visible clues outside of
the panel, except for the breaker being in the
'tripped' position.
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