Hole in gas pipe!

[IDCHAPPY]

power company was replacing a 3 phsae board in a block of flats I looked after, as the inhabitants had kicked the cover off as they left! I arranged with the estate agent not to have anyone move in on the day concerned, so of course 3 families were moving in. Someone threw the front door open, knocking the sparks over as he held onto one of the phases, which landed on the neutral phase, and a large explosion occured. I was outside the door which was shut and saw some of the flash, he emerged a few seconds later somewhat ashen, and tried to kill the prat who booted the door open. I was interupted pulling him off by the shop manager on the ground floor winging that something I'd done had caused a flood from above. Off I went and started ripping up the 1st floor to find the leak, didnt bother turning off the stopcock as I needed an instant way of finding it and hey presto 10 mins later found a smal hole in a copper pipe. The fact the 2 phases had crossed lead to all the earthed pipework going live, andleccie looking for another earth which became some old iron pipe and where it arced it blew out a neat hole. Made a hell of a mess and sw power had to cough for all the damage

Sounds like a Benny Hill sketch :lol:, glad noone was hurt though

 

[stevetheplumber]

ive drilled through several cables worst one was six cables running down the wall right where the flue was going luckily on circuit breakers so didnt even bugger the core bit
ive melted a couple of sds bits doing it

 

[Destroyer2813]

Also, then you put a machine bucket through them it warps and twists the metal, if a tooth hits it then it fuses the tooth to the bucket.

Watched a driver do exactly that on site digging trench for water when electric was already in the meters rushing around then bang he found the cable his boss was not impressed

 

[Roger Welton]

Feature in GasEngineer mag about this story.

 

[tamz]

Cored through an incoming cable that was dropped in the cavity while standing in the pouring rain.
Put every house in the street out, fkd a new 48mm core bit and a £600 bill to make me feel lucky :lol:

 

[AWheating]

the site im working on now had overhead cables at 11,000v running along the side of the land. About 2 months ago a bloke in a wagon came on site to collet some scaffolding and he use his lorrys crane via its remote control. He hit the cables and sent the 11,000 volts through his wagon and himself. Heset himself of fire. His wagon on fire and took out the entire village. all his tyres burnt away lucky for him he did not die.

 

[stevetheplumber]

if you want to see it before your own eyes do the following
remove top from an immersion heater
set multi meter to ohms instead of volts
test for live by putting one lead on the live terminal and touch the other on the cylinder
instant sprinkler system
not that i would ever do anything that stupid

 

[Roger Welton]

I good meter should have a fuse to prevent this

edit to add

not that i've had to replace in in my meter

 

[gassafe]

if you want to see it before your own eyes do the following
remove top from an immersion heater
set multi meter to ohms instead of volts
test for live by putting one lead on the live terminal and touch the other on the cylinder
instant sprinkler system
not that i would ever do anything that stupid

thats amazing if that works lol!!

 

[Killy Bing]

thats amazing if that works lol!!

Will blow the chunky fuse inside the multimeter doing it.

dont do it with a cheap one because they have a coil instead of a fuse that quite literally blows to pieces !!

imho always buy a multimeter with a proper fuse!!