Electrical Disaster

23 years ago

Intelligently conceived and enforced building codes are a necessity as too many builders, usually through ignorance, do something stupid.

About 25 years ago, when my ex-house was built in York county, PA, underground electrical service was just becoming into popularity. And it is much, much nice than those ugly overhead lines that are a problem. So the builder simply digs a trench, throws in the new wires, and fills it in as quickly as possible(scrap, beer cans, ect) - remember , time is money.

Now about 15 years later, I observe my nice wall clock running backwards!!

Yes, that and other damaging electrical "shorts and opens", then, no juice! Quite the mystery as to what really occurred to set this off. Turns out that the electrical supply company discovered that sharp rocks in the trench had slowly but surely cut through the insulation on two leads and that electricity was leaking from one wire to the other !!

In Lancaster county, the underground wires must be surrounded with sand, this is a good method of protecting the leads.

And this is just one more thing for home buyers to look out for.

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Comments (4)

Don_
23 years ago
earthworm, are you sure that clock is running backwards? The time did just recently change you know. Try this just to be sure - pull the plug from your clock out of the wall, rotate 180 degrees and plug it back in. Now which way is your clock running? I am really curious about this!
joed
23 years ago
I had an electric clock once that the motor would sometime run in reverse. When you plugged it in you had watch which way it was turning. Just pull the plug and put it back in and it would go the other way.
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earthworm
Original Author
23 years ago
I swear to God, this strange event did happen, I was sitting at my desk and witnessed it. It was strange and somewhat scary, the high quality clock was old, but not damaged - luckly. Other things were, even with the switch off!
earthworm
Original Author
23 years ago
Don, things are not functioning in a manner of which I am enured.
I pulled the clocks plug, rotated 180Âº, and had a hell of a time reconnecting it, never was spry, and at 62 am less agile !! So, as this was an exercise in futility, I decided to rotate the clock 180Âº(on the Z axis, using either the X or the Y yielded unsatisfactory results, but then it became difficult to read. Thus, I had to think some more, so, another cup of coffee, and back to plan4- reread the directions and try something effective, plug it in again- nothing happens - we have a blackout. BTW , all this happened ~12~ years ago, trusting my memory.