# A warning from someone that use to work in some of the places being explored.



## HistoryBuff (Dec 22, 2020)

I received this from someone that came across the forum and just wanted to make sure all of you stay safe while exploring. Here is his message.....


Electrical safety​As a retired electrical distribution engineer I'm horrified to think of your members wandering around some of the places recently illustrated which have live or partly live electricity supplies, with no more electrical knowledge than "its volts that jolts but mils that kills".
Please advise that there are more than enough volts and mils at the switchboards and distribution equipment shown to burn you very badly or kill you stone dead if you touch any of the equipment shown if it is live.
Any domestic premises will have the possibility of 230 volts at 20 Amps or more. Any significant industrial installation will have available 440 volts at 50 Amps or more. Major industrial distribution systems in factories or works may well have 11000 volts at 50 Amps or more. It WILL kill you - unless you want to take the chance and prove me wrong, after I spent a career establishing procedures to ensure circuits were dead and stayed dead while persons were working on or near them.


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## FunkyMuffin (Dec 22, 2020)

Duly noted. Not that I flip switches or touch control panels when I'm exploring anyway but there are are a lot of loose wires about.


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## Wrench (Dec 22, 2020)

Thanks for the heads up although falling through floors is probably a bigger risk in most of the places we go but I will deffo take that advice on board.


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## night crawler (Dec 22, 2020)

Seem to remember things like that coming around in the past. few years ago a couple of metal minors fell foul of a live cable once and were killed. I feel it is just a matter of using your common sense if you go into a place that has that has live electricity, you just do not touch it. Thing is when most of you wander around with a Torch anyway. Saying that a surveyor was killed years back when he went through the roof of a derelict church in Bolton which was posted about here so even the so called experts are not immune. I take the message with a pinch of salt but that does not mean people should not be careful wandering around places. As I said* use your common sense *when exploring it can be dangerous. BTW I'm a retired mechanical technician and I've seen enough crap work done by electricians and engineers


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## Bignickb (Dec 22, 2020)

I have stated many times that if you find a distribution board - do Not switch it on! There could be exposed cables somewhere else in the building that could arc and start a fire! Or Kill other explorers or a copper thief!


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## kahlua (Dec 22, 2020)

I blame covid & restrictions myself for my awful newfound interest in before and after face transplant stories - some of the most horrifying ones are from accidentally touching live cables - or in one case kicking one away thinking they were wearing rubber shoes & it would be ok... The US firebrigade have frightening videos on electricity arcs - never heard of them before but OMG. Well warned & noted OP. Don’t google if you are vegetarian or have a weak heart/squemish.


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## night crawler (Dec 22, 2020)

I learned the hard way only I was working at the time, a customer asked if I would swap the poles on a Three Phase, I suck a screwdriver in to undo the screw only to get the biggest belt I ever experienced. It was still live, lucky for me it threw me off but not before the shock hit my chest. I do not like electricity and do not mess with it if I can


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## Darklldo (Dec 22, 2020)

night crawler said:


> Seem to remember things like that coming around in the past. few years ago a couple of metal minors fell foul of a live cable once and were killed. I feel it is just a matter of using your common sense if you go into a place that has that has live electricity, you just do not touch it. Thing is when most of you wander around with a Torch anyway. Saying that a surveyor was killed years back when he went through the roof of a derelict church in Bolton which was posted about here so even the so called experts are not immune. I take the message with a pinch of salt but that does not mean people should not be careful wandering around places. As I said* use your common sense *when exploring it can be dangerous. BTW I'm a retired mechanical technician and I've seen enough crap work done by electricians and engineers


Still, night crawler I think the warning is valid no matter what sort of electrician might have installed the original service.


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## Hayman (Dec 22, 2020)

FunkyMuffin said:


> Duly noted. Not that I flip switches or touch control panels when I'm exploring anyway but there are are a lot of loose wires about.


Regarding loose wires, I see Tesco has been fined £500,000 after a 10 year old child (sex unspecified) received a shock from a freezer cabinet. I worked for 7 years with a firm that installed chiller and freezer cabinets in cafes, etc. One day I got a 'tingle' from the steel frame of a cabinet someone else had installed. The live and earth wires had been connected the wrong way round on a connector block. This was because the cabinet was Italian, with Italian colour coding for the wires – so much for EU conformity – and the English installer had mistaken which Italian wire was which.. The 1988 Clapham railway accident was caused by a loose live wire completing a circuit that turned signals that should shown red or yellow to yellow or green. 

When my parents' house in Devon was being rewired in the early 1950s it was a common practice for an electrician to run a flat live cable from the fuseboard with, clipped to the cable, bulbholders with spikes that penetrated the insulation to light a bulb. The electrician would only plug in bulbs where he needed them, leaving the unused live bulholders exposed. One day, as an experiment to find out what an electric shock was like, I stuck a thumb or finger against the pair of bare live sprung pins of an exposed live bulbholder. I found out! That I was sitting on a wooden staircase might be why I'm still around to tell the tale. 

Talking of 11,000 volt substations, a mate in the army who was doing his national service and who'd had his CEGB career interrupted for two years told me of the time he was working on a live substation. He dropped a spanner that bounced its way down through several busbars, ending up a lot shorter than it started. Did the sparks fly!

I was told if you think something might be live, brush the BACK of your hand against it first.


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## Wrench (Dec 22, 2020)

Let's be honest.... Most of the places we visit have not seen electrictrickery for a long time so no need to get excited, as the thief who kindly spoke said


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## HughieD (Dec 23, 2020)

Well intentioned words of someone trying to help, so no harm in reiterating the message.

Stay safe folks!


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## missgreen (Dec 23, 2020)

Hayman said:


> Regarding loose wires, I see Tesco has been fined £500,000 after a 10 year old child (sex unspecified) received a shock from a freezer cabinet. I worked for 7 years with a firm that installed chiller and freezer cabinets in cafes, etc. One day I got a 'tingle' from the steel frame of a cabinet someone else had installed. The live and earth wires had been connected the wrong way round on a connector block. This was because the cabinet was Italian, with Italian colour coding for the wires – so much for EU conformity – and the English installer had mistaken which Italian wire was which.. The 1988 Clapham railway accident was caused by a loose live wire completing a circuit that turned signals that should shown red or yellow to yellow or green.
> 
> When my parents' house in Devon was being rewired in the early 1950s it was a common practice for an electrician to run a flat live cable from the fuseboard with, clipped to the cable, bulbholders with spikes that penetrated the insulation to light a bulb. The electrician would only plug in bulbs where he needed them, leaving the unused live bulholders exposed. One day, as an experiment to find out what an electric shock was like, I stuck a thumb or finger against the pair of bare live sprung pins of an exposed live bulbholder. I found out! That I was sitting on a wooden staircase might be why I'm still around to tell the tale.
> 
> ...


your last sentence is a ridiculous and stupid thing to post


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## mctownsend (Dec 23, 2020)

Yup, me and lectrick don't mix well! I leave it to peeps who understand it. Anything else I will tackle - as long as it doesn't involve spiders!!!


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## CridlingJimbo (Dec 23, 2020)

Hayman said:


> Regarding loose wires, I see Tesco has been fined £500,000 after a 10 year old child (sex unspecified) received a shock from a freezer cabinet. I worked for 7 years with a firm that installed chiller and freezer cabinets in cafes, etc. One day I got a 'tingle' from the steel frame of a cabinet someone else had installed. The live and earth wires had been connected the wrong way round on a connector block. This was because the cabinet was Italian, with Italian colour coding for the wires – so much for EU conformity – and the English installer had mistaken which Italian wire was which.. The 1988 Clapham railway accident was caused by a loose live wire completing a circuit that turned signals that should shown red or yellow to yellow or green.
> 
> When my parents' house in Devon was being rewired in the early 1950s it was a common practice for an electrician to run a flat live cable from the fuseboard with, clipped to the cable, bulbholders with spikes that penetrated the insulation to light a bulb. The electrician would only plug in bulbs where he needed them, leaving the unused live bulholders exposed. One day, as an experiment to find out what an electric shock was like, I stuck a thumb or finger against the pair of bare live sprung pins of an exposed live bulbholder. I found out! That I was sitting on a wooden staircase might be why I'm still around to tell the tale.
> 
> ...


You'd be an idiot to even brush your hand against something you think might be live. DO NOT TOUCH IT AT ALL.


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## Darklldo (Dec 24, 2020)

Hayman said:


> Regarding loose wires, I see Tesco has been fined £500,000 after a 10 year old child (sex unspecified) received a shock from a freezer cabinet. I worked for 7 years with a firm that installed chiller and freezer cabinets in cafes, etc. One day I got a 'tingle' from the steel frame of a cabinet someone else had installed. The live and earth wires had been connected the wrong way round on a connector block. This was because the cabinet was Italian, with Italian colour coding for the wires – so much for EU conformity – and the English installer had mistaken which Italian wire was which.. The 1988 Clapham railway accident was caused by a loose live wire completing a circuit that turned signals that should shown red or yellow to yellow or green.
> 
> When my parents' house in Devon was being rewired in the early 1950s it was a common practice for an electrician to run a flat live cable from the fuseboard with, clipped to the cable, bulbholders with spikes that penetrated the insulation to light a bulb. The electrician would only plug in bulbs where he needed them, leaving the unused live bulholders exposed. One day, as an experiment to find out what an electric shock was like, I stuck a thumb or finger against the pair of bare live sprung pins of an exposed live bulbholder. I found out! That I was sitting on a wooden staircase might be why I'm still around to tell the tale.
> 
> ...


Right on! the BACK of the hand means your fingers won't accidentally, when shocked, grab the wire.


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## Richard Davies (Dec 24, 2020)

One of my aunts when she was young licked a light fitting not knowing it was connected to the mains, fortunately she was wearing wellies at the time....

When a building was being demolished near to where I live it was late in the day when they found the main feeder cable was still live & it was cordoned off in a corner until it could be dealt with.


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## Ruggedscot (Dec 24, 2020)

I was told if you think something might be live, brush the BACK of your hand against it first.... really stupid thing to say. if you think somethig is live you do not touch it with any part of your body. or any thing not designed as an approved device to test electrics. Ive seen folk plated through stupidity. a current of 0.03A is enough to do you damge if it flows through you. Seriously if you dont know what you are doing... dont do it. Im an appointed person for HV certified to work on distribution and generation systems operating up to 11kV. A fault on an 11kv system could produce a fault level of 250MVA. that is serious amount of power. An electrical fault can develop temperatrues similar to the surface of the sun and also pressure waves that can damge your internal organs. unless you have the correct equipment there is no safe way to identify if a circuit is dead or not. and then you dont know if it is properly made safe and locked off unless you have full knowledge of the system and its operation. electricity along with other utilities should not be messed with !


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## Wrench (Dec 24, 2020)

@Angie is there a way to turn off notifications to a dull thread? 

Just asking for a friend


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## Hayman (Dec 24, 2020)

missgreen said:


> your last sentence is a ridiculous and stupid thing to post





missgreen said:


> your last sentence is a ridiculous and stupid thing to post


I did not suggest anyone should do it; it was simply something I was told. The reason being that the back of the hand will be thrown away from the switch, fuse box, etc – while touching it with the palm or fingers can make the hand muscles involuntarily contract and grasp whatever is being touched. I do not find that ridiculous or stupid. Likewise, never hold a carrot, etc in your fingers when feeding a horse, lest it bites your finger tips; offer it on the flat palm of an outstretched hand.


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## night crawler (Dec 24, 2020)

O yes I can delete pots and lock it if you like. Come on guys lets not get out of hand and start bickering or I will


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## HistoryBuff (Dec 24, 2020)

Tbolt said:


> @Angie is there a way to turn off notifications to a dull thread?
> 
> Just asking for a friend



Go to the top of the thread and click on UnWatch. That stops the alerts.


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## Wrench (Dec 24, 2020)

Ooooohhhhh thanks chuck


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## Electric (Dec 24, 2020)

If you've seen something that isn't right, call 105 in the UK for the local DNO (AKA the electricity board) and report a dangerous situation to them.

I'm an Electrical Engineer, carry a 'voltstick', keep away and have called asking for feeds to be isolated in case of accident or a fire starts.
Once this was an open and vandalised 11,000V substation on a site, and another a part demolished pub where the three-phase incomer was pulled out of the ground and left exposed on a picnic table - photo below for those who may be interested and haven't switched off!





PS: Love the new way of putting photos in. It's so easy I've got no excuse for not reporting!


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## Hayman (Dec 25, 2020)

Ruggedscot said:


> I was told if you think something might be live, brush the BACK of your hand against it first.... really stupid thing to say. if you think somethig is live you do not touch it with any part of your body. or any thing not designed as an approved device to test electrics. Ive seen folk plated through stupidity. a current of 0.03A is enough to do you damge if it flows through you. Seriously if you dont know what you are doing... dont do it. Im an appointed person for HV certified to work on distribution and generation systems operating up to 11kV. A fault on an 11kv system could produce a fault level of 250MVA. that is serious amount of power. An electrical fault can develop temperatrues similar to the surface of the sun and also pressure waves that can damge your internal organs. unless you have the correct equipment there is no safe way to identify if a circuit is dead or not. and then you dont know if it is properly made safe and locked off unless you have full knowledge of the system and its operation. electricity along with other utilities should not be messed with !


Considering this website consists in the main of photos and reports by people illegally or illicitly trespassing on other people's land or in other people's buildings, I am very surprised by the righteous responses to my single line retelling what I was told – by an electrician! The best thing to have come from it – and the responses – is that anyone reading my initial posting, and the results, is that such trespassers will be more aware of the potential dangers from electric shock when going around derelict properties. With a lot of old buildings open to the elements – and thus having water seeping into electrical fittings and making everything damp – if there are any live circuits then for anyone simply being in their proximity is a risk in itself. All risks are relative.


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## Ruggedscot (Dec 26, 2020)

Hayman said:


> Considering this website consists in the main of photos and reports by people illegally or illicitly trespassing on other people's land or in other people's buildings, I am very surprised by the righteous responses to my single line retelling what I was told – by an electrician! The best thing to have come from it – and the responses – is that anyone reading my initial posting, and the results, is that such trespassers will be more aware of the potential dangers from electric shock when going around derelict properties. With a lot of old buildings open to the elements – and thus having water seeping into electrical fittings and making everything damp – if there are any live circuits then for anyone simply being in their proximity is a risk in itself. All risks are relative.


yup wandered around a few places myself over the years.... just dont tell folks to do something that stoopid... thats all.


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## Hayman (Dec 26, 2020)

Ruggedscot said:


> yup wandered around a few places myself over the years.... just dont tell folks to do something that stoopid... thats all.


And where did I "tell folks to do something that stoopid [sic]"? Please show.


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## CridlingJimbo (Dec 27, 2020)

Hayman said:


> And where did I "tell folks to do something that stoopid [sic]"? Please show.


Well you posted the words, and you then posted again trying to explain why they 'made sense'.

Advice from some dangerously under trained or complacent domestic electrician.

At 230VAC you may be lucky and just get a tingle but there are multiple fatalities from such contact annually, many amongst electricians.


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## Dan1701 (Dec 27, 2020)

Ruggedscot said:


> I was told if you think something might be live, brush the BACK of your hand against it first.... really stupid thing to say. if you think somethig is live you do not touch it with any part of your body. or any thing not designed as an approved device to test electrics. Ive seen folk plated through stupidity. a current of 0.03A is enough to do you damge if it flows through you. Seriously if you dont know what you are doing... dont do it. Im an appointed person for HV certified to work on distribution and generation systems operating up to 11kV. A fault on an 11kv system could produce a fault level of 250MVA. that is serious amount of power. An electrical fault can develop temperatrues similar to the surface of the sun and also pressure waves that can damge your internal organs. unless you have the correct equipment there is no safe way to identify if a circuit is dead or not. and then you dont know if it is properly made safe and locked off unless you have full knowledge of the system and its operation. electricity along with other utilities should not be messed with !



Actually, you don't need all that much power to kill. Think about what you're likely to be doing when you touch something; one arm touching, one arm resting against a wall. What's right in the middle of you body?

Yes, your heart. Put a nice big voltage across your heart, and it'll stop. That's what a defibrillator actually does; it stops your heart in the hope that CPR and nature will re-start it all back in sync again. But remember, you're in an abandoned building, and you've not got CPR on hand right then and there; you've got at best your mate saying "What's wrong, was it live, what do I do, why won't you talk to me?"

One jolt and you may recover. One continuous discharge and that's you dead, stopped heart.

If you think the power is live, poke around with a voltage sensor, a plastic one, and bear in mind that this will only sense AC power. If there's still a rectifier going, or a bank of batteries, then there will be DC present and you won't detect that with a probe. Better, wear rubber gloves and don't touch electrical stuff and if the metal thieves have been in (or, worse, are still there), get the hell out and call in the police.


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## Hayman (Dec 27, 2020)

CridlingJimbo said:


> Well you posted the words, and you then posted again trying to explain why they 'made sense'.
> 
> Advice from some dangerously under trained or complacent domestic electrician.
> 
> At 230VAC you may be lucky and just get a tingle but there are multiple fatalities from such contact annually, many amongst electricians.


I did not TELL anyone to do anything.


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## night crawler (Dec 27, 2020)

These two photos are of an electrical distribution cabinet in the Rotherfield at Fair Mile, the contractors took me around the place before it was demolished, lot of wires in there which no doubt were not live but if it were WHY in Gods name would you want to stick your grubby mits in if it was live. One thing looking at they it's another poking around if you do not know what your doing.


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## Ruggedscot (Dec 28, 2020)

night crawler said:


> These two photos are of an electrical distribution cabinet in the Rotherfield at Fair Mile, the contractors took me around the place before it was demolished, lot of wires in there which no doubt were not live but if it were WHY in Gods name would you want to stick your grubby mits in if it was live. One thing looking at they it's another poking around if you do not know what your doing.
> View attachment 505092
> 
> View attachment 505093



Lots of things in here that could make money - there will be copper busbars and some of that switchgear could be pulled out and sold. Plenty of copper thieves know this. thing is that could be live it could be dead. And if its live you could be dead if you go about poking about in there. still some good pictures. Ive put a few of them in over the years and altered ones etc... thanks for sharing...


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