There is a reason they require Shielded cables for certain Electronic Installations No wonder this one put in by big name integrator did not work

Yes it never fails to amaze me how company's go around pounding on there chests how great they are at installing cameras and card access systems and there work is total crap and not to workmanship standards in fact their work violates Electrical and building codes and often violates manufacturers warranty's and causes nothing but head aches.
Take the Card access unit below.

Besides being a mess they did not use proper shielded wire to insure there is no cross talk  on the readers where you present your card .They just used plain old straight wire.

http://www.newark.com/pdfs/techarticles/alphaWire/USC.pdf

As you can see in above picture shielded wire has an outer metallic shield and drain wire which is attached to  electrical ground  to keep stray radio and other signals out of the wiring  when this is not used there is nothing but problems and on the installation above this is very true .
Doors unlock by them selves cards some times work and open doors and some times none of the doors work all because the signal from the readers to the main control  are picking up stray noise whih causes the system to be erratic.
this same outfit who did this bad install and ides around Pittsburgh with there fancy mobile command post also installed card access equipment in a elevator control room which is a major violation of building codes but they could care less. I have also seen how poorly they install cameras where they work for a year then quit .But they go all over western Pa. telling everyone how good they are.
Yes this $20,000 7 door system is a total disaster they installed and now I must go over entire system and replace components and wiring all because if lack of surge suppressors and proper wiring .
But these hacks exist because customer instead of going after them just right it off as a loss and in this case tax payer money paid for this install in the way of a grant. what a dam shame.

Electrical Products still being sold which should have been taken off shelves years ago

Yes you can still walk into older Hardware stores and find in catalogs which specialize in products  for maintenance dept. electrical items which are no longer permitted to be installed  in new installs or are strictly limited to replacement use but not properly marked  as fore replacement only use.
I run across this almost daily . Despite efforts by UL and CPSC  to get them off shelves.

Take the add I recently saw in in a H&D catalog which is distributed to maintenance depts.  for a bathroom light fixture on right for $11.89

Since at least the late 80's Residential bathrooms etc have been required to have a GFCI outlet installed in
them . Prior to this the electrical outlet was found in the light fixture it self  used primarily to charge a razor
and not be used for Hair Dryer  .
As you can see this fixture has a outlet in it so it can not be used in a new bathroom  but you also see there is no markings in add  for replacement use only yes you could use this in an old bathroom  where permitted but not a new one  now professionals know this but not your average handyman or maintenance man who may well be called on to boot an illegal bath room in some where.  Some of these fixtures come with outlet not installed and plug knockout  you have to remove to install it and you could install it with out the outlet in a new bathroom if this is the case. But how many of these fixtures when you examine them and instructions have no markings of any type warning they are for replacement use only.

The next common items I run across are  receptacle taps used with common 16# gauge  lamp cord .
Items which should not be sold at all in stores most where never properly listed with UL or have since lost there listing after it was determined that  consumers where not properly using them and causing fries and injury's
In the Pictures below are 2 of the more common ones I run across still being sold .

In top picture is a 3 outlet  unit for end of cord and bottom picture a tap with outlet which could be placed any where along the line.
These units where meant strictly to power lamps or a radio nothing else and they where never designed to be used as a permanent outlets in a home but many where and contributed to many horrifying fire deaths which UL and others worked to get off the market but you can still walk into older hardware stores and find them new in the box and even in some catalogs  and as you can see in this installation several taps where put into this lamp line and when everything is plugged in and turned on its overloaded and burns.
but the problem is no matter how many bans you ut in place and laws they are still available including lawn jarts and other items because people do not care about the safety of others it always comes down to greed and the almighty buck.

When it comes to Energy sneaks wasting power Phone Company's are the worst - another successful electrical vampire hunt

I hate these type of service calls get called from customer and his tenant says the fire alarm keeps sounding off trouble outside his office. i check with central station and they see no problems so obviously its something else but I sill have to respond and customer is going to get a bill well it ends up as usual had nothing to do with the fire alarm instead its the power supply for a fiber optic T3  data line put in by Verizon Communications many years ago for a tenant who is no longer renting the space.

Seems the back up battery has gone bad and it was beeping o warn there was a problem since tenant is no longer in building I disconnected it and eventually this piece of now junk equipment along with a bunch of other useless and worthless phone equipment will be ripped out by myself and recycled.

There are rooms full of this stuff every office building  has  its share taking up space plugged in stealing power and doing nothing. There is a section in the National Electrical Code that requires abandoned wiring and equipment be removed but it is hardly ever enforced.
 But in the long run it ends up a gold mine for me when I recycle it as I get paid to remove it plus any thing I can recycle and reuse and sell is a bonus .
 Trick is to be able to tell what is active and what is not .  
and in this case there is no longer a 5 amp draw on power being wasted.  which is bonus for my customer.

Sticky Situation with False Fire Alarm Leads to finding a Fire Hazard with Space Heater

Yes this was a very sticky situation where lives where unnecessarily put on the line  because  when a fire alarm went off which was apparently false went 2 days with out being repaired.

I got called early Monday morning   from an American Legion I take care of Bartender could not set Burglar alarm and fire alarm was in trouble . I remotely bypassed fire loop and set  burglar system and was down to repair system later that morning when Janitor arrived.

After trouble shooting the system I found that a heat detector out in main hall was full of Mountain Dew Soda syrup  which shorted it out .
Seems upstairs banquet hall bars syrup lines  which supply the Pepsi and mountain dew etc had split and where leaking down thru ceiling.
what a Mess.

So I took out heat detector and put lines together till the mess can be cleaned up call post commander and he got Pepsi people there to fix lines.
 He tells me yea the alarm went of Saturday morning some one should have called you and said he would get to bottom of why I was not called  he was steamed about fact alarm system was down 2 whole days.

I then went into commanders office o check the remote keypad to make sure everything is reset and run across a space heater left on full blast with flammable materiel sitting right against it I shut it off and when commander arrives  I showed him the problem and he blew his stack seems one of them members was  in doing book work turned it on and left .
Needless to say they have problems here  as like many of the legions and VFW there losing members and having hard time getting people willing to do there positions of office properly .

Top view of heater with materials sitting right on it 

Fire Patrol an important service no longer provided by insurance company's you probably never heard of.

Yes in many big city's Like Philadelphia,Chicago and New York the Fire Patrol played an important role in the protection of building assets when fires would break out .
 Instead of fighting the fire these men would be involved with the protecting of the buildings valuable contents from fire using tarps,Physically moving items from harms way etc to limit water damage there by  saving insurance company's millions of dollars over the years and allowing a business to be back up and running much faster after a disaster.The last such of these Insurance company provided services ended in 2006 In  New York city

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Fire_Patrol

Now you would think with the extreme high cost of replacing ever more expensive and hard to replace electronic systems in business these services would be expanded but no bottom dollar insurance company's would rather you lose and they fight you all the way to court and a lawsuit from you getting paid for your lost and damaged  assets. let alone how Travelers Insurance screwed many Fire patrolmen out of benefits as well when they took over an insurance company .

The fire patrols also played a very important role of Fire prevention as well as detection of fires when they conducted patrols in the city's
and even to this day when fire suppression  and detection systems are taken out of service a fire patrol must be established some times by employees  of building involved  being given the duty or the hiring of a professional security guard service depending on what the local authority requires depending on risk.

While  Burglar Alarms and Sprinkler and Fire Systems have eliminated many places security guards where once used some insurance company's still require them at certain facilities  must have guards  walk around and   patrol the facility looking for fires and break ins etc.
so while insurance paid are no more they still exist  in one form or another just not on the scale they once where. 

Pittsburgh's residents have still not gotten it when it comes to getting a good job and getting ahead in life it requires a good education

Yes at one time it was true when I was growing up you could be the biggest screw up in school and life and be able to walk into a mill or factory and all you do was push a button  or other mundane job and make $18.50 an hour union wage . in 1970's
Many of the people I grew up with in Carrick took that exact path in life screwing around and partying getting criminal records etc and still when they left school even with out a diploma they could walk in a mill or factory and get hired. These where dead weight any one could do them jobs which required no skills or even thought. and basically that's who mills and factory's  hired to do these jobs because they where so boring.

But then came the death knell to the steel industry between 81-83 and overnight these worthless dead weight  jobs where gone.
You now had 2 choices get an education or work for minimum wage . Most of those I knew who worked these jobs  chose  not to educate and worked minimum wage and collect government benefits and did nothing but scream how badly they where treated by mills and government  for not doing anything with there lives.
I still see it too many times around here where young people are given the chance to excel and decide not to and all you still hear is the complaining there are no jobs while thousands of high skill and high tech jobs go unfilled around Western Pa. as people come in from out of state to fill them.
The reason the high pay  no need to know anything to do them jobs have disappeared is because of automation the know nothing jobs where eliminated altogether a machine or robot does it now.

Railroad switch mans job gone do to automation they would sit in these towers and lower gates when trains approached  

Take J&L/ LTV Steel  in Pittsburgh where my dad worked in 1920's when my dads neighbor started there where 20,000 men employed in that mill alone by the time my dad stated working there less than 10,000  and if the mill was built today less than 1000 would be needed .
Its the same reason you see so many self check out registers and self park and pay lots there's no human interaction  the machine is there a business owner does not have to worry employee will not show up or fool around not work or steal or file false disability claim .

Your going to see more of these machines as minimum wages keep rising why pay an employee when machine will do the work faster and better.
yes the vast majority of dead weight, dead end jobs are gone you either educate your self or you  work in a very meaningless job . If you get convicted of a Criminal Felony your life as you know it is over as well even minimum wage cleaning jobs are often out of reach of felons as well. this means you work construction or in a kitchen that's it.

These are todays rules when trying to get a job not in Pittsburgh but everywhere and the message is not getting to our young people .