Friday, January 13, 2012

This is how Electrical Fires Start wheres the Bushings?


I was working in a brand New home yesterday trouble shooting a problem in a sound system my friend was having problems with he was installing in his brand new home they are finishing up the inside in Mt Lebanon Pa. . When I went into the basement to check connections and discovered these major Electrical code violations which could cause a fire.
In the picture at far left you can see a connector missing from the electrical box which allows the wire to be free and loose and which could allow objects to fall into the box causing a spark and large arc and also the metal pipe does not have on the end of it a metal or plastic bushing which protects the wire from again being abraded in the picture directly left you can also see wiring run down thru pipes to protect it but again the bushing s are missing and when these bushings are not used and wires become frayed an arc fault can develop and subsequent fire.
Now I am sure your asking your self . Hey wait a minute brand new house was it not inspected?
Well that was my question to the builder .
I asked him has the Electrical Inspector been thru for a Final inspection as I only saw a rough Wiring sticker on the panel he said he was not sure I told him the wiring is not going to pass and he needs to get his electrician back and correct things and showed him where. He did not seemed worried he said it was the electricians problem. I said no its going to be both your problems when the inspection does not pass and no occupancy permit and owner can not move in. It will be a bigger problem 3 years from now when home owner starts getting wiring issues and even bigger problem yet when the house catches fire due to sloppy wiring I spotted and neither of you did any thing about it. At which point I told him I do fire inspection and investigation. needless to say he changed his attitude and called the electrician to get there and get it fixed.
Which now has me wondering is there even going to be a final electrical inspection. With new construction your suppose to have two inspections a rough and Final a rough checks the service so you can get power on to the structure and final after all the devices wire is run etc.
But all too often the 2nd final inspection is never completed and electricians and owners do what ever they feel like and this is how the problems start and how a 10 year old home can burn to the ground.
Again it falls on the local code authorities to make sure all inspections including both rough and final electrical inspections are done but all too often they just go and hand over the temporary occupancy permit with things to be checked in 30 days and they never come back and check things where done and issue a permanent occupancy permit .
this is a very bad way of doing business but it happens every day here in Pa. and is why we lead the country in fires fire deaths and deaths of firefighters

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