We'll be adding photos and anecdotes of bad practice as we find them here. We have been careful not to identify clients as we respect their privacy. These are problems we were able to remove at the time.
Here's 4G extension lead. It has been damaged by heat. looking closely the socket on the right has the writing on the bottom of a plugtop melted into it between and below the line and neutral holes. The socket next to it also has heat damage to the line hole.
Sometimes an appliances cord isn't long enough to reach a socket. You could use and extension lead or a coupling. Using a piece of connector block and insulating tape is not the way to do it. To provide basic insulation the covering has to be removable only with the use of a tool. I was able to peel the tape off with my hands. Also, the sheath provides protection against mechanical damage and strain. Taping over the joint provides little mechanical protection and no protection agains the cord being strained.
After removing the tape by hand.
Here's a plugtop that was wrapped in insulating tape. That's always a worry as one can imagine problems that may be hidden within.
Once the tape was removed there were cracks all over the underside of the plugtop.
As soon as I started to undo the screw the whole thing fell apart in my hand. The only thing that stayed together were the terminals, and that was because they were attached to the cord. A new plugtop costs very little and should have been changed as soon as it was damaged.
Here's a plugtop that has a piece of the scasing cracked off. It's possible to see inside the plug to the terminals, which would be live when in a socket. There's no basic protection if you can get to the conductors when they are in use.
Here's a plugtop that looked fine from the outside. One of our inspections is to take to back off the plugtop to check inside and to verify the size of fuse fitted.
Inside the same plugtop. A very different story. As you can see there has been some arcing between the live (Technically the Phase) and Earth (Technically CPC). We immediately cut the plugtop off and fitted a new one.
Here's another plugtop. When it was plugged into a socket it looked fine but as soon as we unplugged it there was a tell tale discolouring around the neutral contact.
Once inside the plugtop you can see more evidence of heat damage around the neutral contact. Again we cut the plugtop off and replaced it with new. A quick check of the socket it was in also showed signs of heat damage arounf the neutral hole. The client was advised to have the socket changed as it's not clear which (Socket or plugtop) was responsible for damaging itself and the other.
This was powering a HiFi in a warehouse. As we say to our clients, and to you, the vast majority of the faults we pick up we do during the inspection which is done by eye. You too have eyes and are therefore equiped to spot many of the faults we find, all you need is to have an awareness.
In hte case of this cord the outer sheath has done it's job. it's supposed to get damaged preventing the insulators (Coloured wires inside) getting damaged. Unfortunately for the outer sheath it's sacrificial, when its done its job properly once it's only fit for recycling. We cut the cord back to past another cut in the sheath and fitted a new plugtop.
Here is another section of cord. As you can see the insulators through the holes in the outer sheath they are no longer protected. The outer sheath has done it's job but it's now only suitable for recycling. We cut the cord past the damage and, in this case, refitted the cord to the appliance.
