# Safety issues the supervisor puts off 'til later



## Frasbee (Apr 7, 2008)

We started work up on the 3rd floor of this school, and my company installed a "mini temp" that pulls off the 2nd floor.

Just like anywhere else in the building, there are way too many people pulling power, and too much time is spent going back to the board to reset the GFI, if not to the breaker box to reset the breaker.

So we have a total of 8 receptacles, 3 on one side being fed by 1, 20 amp GFCI, and 3 on the other side, also being fed by a 20 amp GFCI.

Now before this, I noticed that the GFI on the left wasn't doing it's job, and was shot from being tripped too many times, so the brick layers and their wet saw would trip the breaker, try to reset the broken GFI, give up and move everything to the right side, and likewise, trip that one too. I've been running up and down between the floors like mad, because I need power, too.

When resetting the breakers, I noticed the panel was getting pretty hot. Where if you held the back of your hand to it for more than 2 seconds it would burn. Not only that, but I could smell _something_, whether it was copper, aluminum, or the insulation, coming from it.

I let one of the foreman know, and he simply said "yeah they're pullin' a lot of amps from it."

I mentioned it to him again the next day asking, "it's still pretty hot, that's not normal, right?" And he said "No, it's not." And rushed off to attend to something else.

The next day seems like someone busted the button on the broken GFI and brass was now showing. I let the _other_ foreman know about both the GFI and the panel, and he said, "somebody else mentioned that to me too, we'll have to check amperage on the panel, and I'll get somebody to swap out the GFI."

So, today I grabbed a GFI and handed it to the first foreman to remind him about that GFI, but lunch time came around and the GFI I handed him was just sitting on top of the little temp board. 

By this time I was fed up with running up and down and waiting on "somebody" to do something, I swapped out the GFI myself. I turned off the breaker and tried to lock the panel but the master lock just wouldn't...lock, I so opened it back up, put some tape across the switch, closed the lid and while I quickly swapped them out, hoped nobody would get into the panel and turn it back on, and terminated as if it was still energized. 

They're supposed to be locked, for only the foreman to get into, but they trip so much they've left them unlocked, and _anyone_ goes in there now to flip switches.

I think technically, I'm not supposed to messing with power on this job, so I was nervous about messin' with the temp power. But the electrician I was working with wasn't interested in addressing the issue since he wasn't the one running up and down the ladder, and neither foreman had it high on their to-do list.

I'm still worried about the panel on the 2nd floor, but I think I saw one of the foreman messing with it as we were going home.

/end rant


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## BryanMD (Dec 31, 2007)

Frasbee said:


> By this time I was fed up with running up and down and waiting on "somebody" to do something, I swapped out the GFI myself.


In most companies this sort of initiative gets you noticed.
Sometimes that's good... sometimes not.


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## william1978 (Sep 21, 2008)

I like your lock out tag out.


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## mattsilkwood (Sep 21, 2008)

I understand that you had the best of intentions, BUT imo you went about it the wrong way. First off you shouldnt be doing any thing like that on a job without someone knowing. Any idiot should see a breaker with tape on it and know they should check it out before they turn it on, most idiots don't.

For what its worth i dont trust locking the panel either, there's alot of keys floating around out there.


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