Replaced some outlets

[Viking]

We had the wife's brother over the other day to replace some broken electrical outlets. He works as a "professional" electrician, but I was a bit surprised to see that he didn't switch of the power, before doing it. He replaced 3 outlets, scaled the cables and and looked very confident about what he was doing.

I know very little about electric installation but is this normal procedure??

[Jollygoodfellow]

They had to rewire the wiring for the aircon in my condo and no do not turn off the power. The wires they used were 3 individual strands not like we use in Australia. They put up a square conduit stuck to the wall for this. I thought why don't they unattach the old wire one end, join new wires to it and pull it through from where it was but I said nothing as I know it would just fall on death ears.

[Old55]

5 minutes ago, Viking said:

I know very little about electric installation but is this normal procedure??

No, not outside Philippines. 

[Dave Hounddriver]

18 minutes ago, Viking said:

is this normal procedure??

I had someone do some welding once.  He used a razor blade to remove a bit of insulation from the wires coming from the transformer then wrapped the wire from the welding machine right on to the main wires, before the breaker box even.

I was shocked!  Good thing he wasn't.

To answer you question though, I used to do that kind of thing in Canada in my youth with 120 wiring and many others did too.  But that 230 or whatever you get is too rich for me.

[manofthecoldland]

1 hour ago, Viking said:

We had the wife's brother over the other day to replace some broken electrical outlets. He works as a "professional" electrician, but I was a bit surprised to see that he didn't switch of the power, before doing it. He replaced 3 outlets, scaled the cables and and looked very confident about what he was doing.

I know very little about electric installation but is this normal procedure??

I've experienced the same thing over the last several years, a few times.... which surprised me when ever it happened.

The house isn't that old, but I am surprised at the high failure rare of outlets, switches, circuit breakers, and even the drop line to our house. We always buy the more expensive replacement parts, but I think either the component quality, the tropical climate or the general systems control and maintenance systems all add up to short life spans for home electrical systems in many cases.

[hk blues]

1 hour ago, Viking said:

We had the wife's brother over the other day to replace some broken electrical outlets. He works as a "professional" electrician, but I was a bit surprised to see that he didn't switch of the power, before doing it. He replaced 3 outlets, scaled the cables and and looked very confident about what he was doing.

I know very little about electric installation but is this normal procedure??

Certainly not normal outside the Philippines but perfectly normal within.  That said, I definitely have seen "sparkies" work live in the UK and Hong Kong as well but not as the norm unlike here.  I used to work in a textile mill in the UK and it was often the case that the mill electrician would work live as it was not possible to turn off some of the machines once in motion - requires a lot of care and a steady hand.

As the old saying goes "There are old electricians and there are bold electricians but there are no old, bold electricians."

 

 

[hk blues]

18 minutes ago, manofthecoldland said:

I've experienced the same thing over the last several years, a few times.... which surprised me when ever it happened.

The house isn't that old, but I am surprised at the high failure rare of outlets, switches, circuit breakers, and even the drop line to our house. We always buy the more expensive replacement parts, but I think either the component quality, the tropical climate or the general systems control and maintenance systems all add up to short life spans for home electrical systems in many cases.

Agreed - the impact of the humidity, poorish installation and regular outages take their toll on appliances and installations.  I have only had occasion to hit the breakers a few times yet 2 of the handles have broken thus far and they weren't the cheapest available.  The plastic handles on our window screens have all become brittle and snapped in the past few years.  

[Viking]

5 hours ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

I had someone do some welding once.  He used a razor blade to remove a bit of insulation from the wires coming from the transformer then wrapped the wire from the welding machine right on to the main wires, before the breaker box even.

I was shocked!  Good thing he wasn't.

To answer you question though, I used to do that kind of thing in Canada in my youth with 120 wiring and many others did too.  But that 230 or whatever you get is too rich for me.

I was really surprised that he didn't cut the power before starting the work since it's so easy to do. I don't get what they gain not doing it???

4 hours ago, manofthecoldland said:

I've experienced the same thing over the last several years, a few times.... which surprised me when ever it happened.

The house isn't that old, but I am surprised at the high failure rare of outlets, switches, circuit breakers, and even the drop line to our house. We always buy the more expensive replacement parts, but I think either the component quality, the tropical climate or the general systems control and maintenance systems all add up to short life spans for home electrical systems in many cases.

I think you are right, either the climate is really hard on the equipment or bad quality or most likely, both!

4 hours ago, hk blues said:

Agreed - the impact of the humidity, poorish installation and regular outages take their toll on appliances and installations.  I have only had occasion to hit the breakers a few times yet 2 of the handles have broken thus far and they weren't the cheapest available.  The plastic handles on our window screens have all become brittle and snapped in the past few years.  

Plastic articles generally don't last as long as I am used to. If it's because of harsh conditions or bad quality, I don't know?

Today there's really good plastics available but maybe they would be to expensive to find a market here?

[Possum]

Having lived in S. Florida where the heat and humidity replicates the Philippines I believe it is just poor quality materials in the receptacles generally available here.

I brought some 120V 20A receptacles with me and when the electrician ran low on what he had bought locally I told him to install the ones I had. The first thing he noticed is they were heavier than the local ones. The wattage calculates out to 2400 at 120v/20A. So that equals at  2400 watts at 240v10A. Rule of thumb is you don't want to use over 80% of the capacity. They've been working fine since I don't use over 8A on one receptacle. Since then I have bought  240v  at a local electrical supplier because they seem to weigh more than the ones at Citi, Wilcon and Ace. I do not trust the ratings stamped on the cheap ones from China.

[Patryk]

It is not normal procedure to work with live wires, I believe he just didn't want to spend time to find which switch it is, it is rare that 220v electrocution kills you but it happens, especially when all other protective measures ( correct rated breakers, RCDs)  were bypassed or ignored.