Electrical Fault Finding In A Shopping Centre 

The jobsworth was a real prat. I liked the way you disarmed him delroy, top job👍🏼

What a lovely guy you had to deal with! Well done for not snapping at him! I don’t think I’d be as nice as you Del🤦‍♂️

Sounds like you found more resistance in talking to the centres electrician than you would in that consumer unit if it had unscrewed connections.

I worked on this shopping centre doing a shop refit on Warren James. We had the same bloke and they wouldn't let us use any power tools?! He was so very rude and always thought he knew best. Good work here though Delroy, keep it up

17:57 now, that's important stuff. You should _always_ ask the clients for their perception of what's going on, as that can be a huge time saver when trying to pinpoint a cause. Remember to always take what they say with a grain of salt, though, as they might not have the same technical background as yours, and sticking up _too much_ to their perception can send you chasing many red herrings. Congratulations, mate! You handled the whole situation like a pro. Cheers!

That bloke even annoyed me sounding like his his the man because he rolls round a shopping centre with a bunch of keys the jobs worth. He come across arrogant and obnoxious

He did have a point about not leaving it open as you could take out all the shops and then he'd be the one that would get moaned at. Years ago we let the APC guy into the server room alone to replace or test the batteries. Despite being told he flicked the main breaker for the room and all the servers turned off instantly.

You are right del, those rcbo’s are for the 3 phase boards, I actually went to a job, whilst carrying out a EICR, I noticed the mcb was connected upside down, found out the landlord who attended some evening coarse, thought he was competent, lol

job like this i would be waking out with no hesitation, the other lad did sound if he owns the place

"you shouldn't be using that phone mate" "Well, how did I know it was here unless I was told to use it?"

Del you are correct 10k for industrial boards 6k are used on domestic usually. Good man keeping your cool with that guy he could have been more helpful after all we are in the same trade.

Maintenance spark is a KNOB END lol

Good way of dealing with it Del. Calm and courteous. Brings back headache memories for me. A lot of electrical work can be a headache. People don’t realise it.

Thanks Delroy--what a tangle-but you got it sorted, and dealt with all the people involved with the patience of a Saint--unfortunately there are “jobsworths” in all walks of life

Hi Del. I predominantly work in temporary electrical installs. In commercial premises, you can risk-assess sockets so as to omit RCD protection, as per the regs. The best solution in my eyes is a variable RCD / ELR. This means that you can quickly change the settings. If you have a single 32A load as a final circuit, you can turn it to 30mA instantaneous. Or in this case, set it at 100mA / 100ms or 300mA / 300ms. All at the press of a few buttons, or by turning a dial.

They are used in commercial boards Des. When you mount the breakers on a horizontal like you said. 👍🏽

Very interesting, really good explanation at the end.

Always an interesting watch Del.

You are a gentleman and so nice, to even a difficult mall electrician. With these mixed ON/OFF type RCBO's. the electrician gets confused, imagine a non-electrical staff member in this shop, who expect all the switches to be in the same position for ON or OFF. Good video. Those double RCD / RCBO set ups are a pain in the bud. Great talk about the RCD discrimination which is spot on. You can't have two in series with the same trip leakage currents.

I learnt so much watching this for the 1st time, I subscribed :)

You can always find those no nothing electricians working in those malls.That set up you will always have the odd trip and you always got to call some useless person .I agree with a previous comment try and find a 10mA rcbo at Kiosk end therefore any earth leakage will disconnect at Kiosk Keep up the good work Del

I love these videos, especially the way you tell stories; As a person who writes code it feels like home.

Well done del you handled that fool well, you have to humour these idiots and make fun of them rather than want to strangle them, your spot on with your answer to why the rcds are upside down, schneider domestic board and Schneider breakers for 3 phase boards.

I have no knowledge on electricy or interest in, but i am glad RU-vid provided this video on my main page as its totally interesting and fun to watch. Thanks for the content and keep up the great personality.

Well done you and being polite as always. Never let them get to you. I like your explanation. Keep it up!😊 👌

Funny how people just make life more difficult - you come across a really genuine guy

I allways find commercial fault finding even more interesting than domestic because there's usually more to go wrong

That guy has a superiority complex. Its hilarious when employees try to act like their grandparents were on their hands and knees building the business up

Your right Delroy the main issue other than the faulty motorized shaker/stirrer is the bigger selective coordination issue ( what you called discrimination) a time delayed RCD at the main board with a higher rating and trip current curves that don’t overlap in the range of loads used by that boba stall main RCD. It’s likely they did not do a full load survey of the stall when they set it up and didn’t realize the need for addressing the selective coordination issue. Wait till these boards are upgraded for AFDDs we have had these kinds of boards for years in the US - false trips will grow much more and coffee machines, microwaves A/C equipment with motors that create voltages and current spikes/sags are much more likely to blind many of the first generation AFDDs as these transients mimic serial and parallel arc signatures. Adding some kind of filtering including but not limited to surge suppression devices which can help limit in-rush and transients will be the way to go or programmable second third generation AFDDs to better discriminate loads that have large motor (inductive/capacitive) or heating (resistive) loads programmable AI/Machine learning AFDDs or AFCIs will be the way to go. However these are expensive. They have started to come here in the US you are only going to see these issue with power quality meters and higher sampling rated portable oscilloscopes.

Good explanation on the summary Mr James. 👍 shopping centres - hated working in them.

Great stuff Delroy, my the funny business going on in Lakeside's leccy!

Good video, the electrician mentioned it in your video that the fuse board was fed from the ceeform socket you had miss heard him,,you should have changed the actual sockets to RCD socket that would stop it from tripping upstream at the main board 👍🏽

What a absolute prat he was can’t be that good of a spark otherwise he would of done it. Fair play del held your cool, the prat’s we come across in this world no hood fair play del 👊

This was a great suggestion from RU-vid (for once), this isn't in my interest field but was interesting to watch. New subscriber.

Always easier to be a bit of a diplomat, as you said busy my arse!...busy drinking tea and playing cards

I love things that are installed in places to be used that are not allowed to be used.

Need to cover your backside around guys like that, they know everything until something goes wrong and then they know nothing but blame everyone! Typical glorified caretaker!

Love the video, you're a great guy

Great videos delroy! That guy had an attitude 😂

I worked in a shopping centre about 10 years ago and the main problem is now they are all contracted out to big facilities companies that pay their staff as little as possible. Before I was ( let go ) I was the lead engineer , but the company that took over though I was too expensive so my junior got my job on about half my pay . That is why most of the maintenance staff ( not saying all ) are useless. If the team can’t fix it they just call in experts and charge the centre extra, with them putting a fee on top

So glad I stumbled upon this channel. Susbcribed!

Goooood man

Every you said in the last section of the video, solid information love the know it all on site tech (not a electrician) think he was very close to wanting you banned from the store when you was questioning the reason why there is a normal RCBO feeding a consumer unit (but he is only correct unfortunately just because someone put the socket and plug on a consumer unit that really should have just been wired) and the you can't use the phone (how would you know to use the phone in the first place lol, also the longer he takes to come down to do his job the more you charge for the extra hours and you directly tell his boss why it's going to cost more because the building caretaker didn't want to just stay until problem is solved I would have said I was told to use that phone and I was authorised to use it and that's not your concern so we can move onto turning power back on as I believe I have found the fault, if it does trip again I will call your boss instead if you don't come down when you should be down here anyway (but your way works as well I guess) you should forward this video to them (your unlikely to get a call to that mall again anyway lol) problem is partially been created by the last electricians that didn't do their job properly and installed it in this way that causes nuance tripping in an inaccessible part of the building (you could tell how annoyed he was getting hinted of improper use of RCBO in the main unit and not wanting you to take a photo of it, other sparks probably told him that it should not be a RCBO but he was more focused on the 40a load on a 32a mcb previously) also upside down RCBO needs to be replaced immediately with correct ones (electrocution risk due to incorrect operation on is off, off is on and invalidates the insurance)

Ohhhh shopping centres...have to have that many passes. Had to go back 3 times just to fix a simple fault due to company i was working for not having right permits etc. All fun well done Del you were polite and friendly.😊 Not sure guy was returning the favour... 😈

The on site sparky really helped

Always remember Empty vessels make the loudest noise.. that lead caretaker was hollow nothing there at all

Exellent job sir

Another excellent video. These jobs seem to find you! I always thought the jobsworths who think they rule the world only targeted me! I have to agree with the previous comments, if they know the supply was overloaded why didn’t they do something about it and rectify the situation…. If I was these ‘electricians’ manager I would certainly be asking questions.

Nicely done! Typical jobsworth, sad when they are in the trade...

I pray I have your patience with people as I age because me and him would’ve had a real problem right from the start

The "on" position of the switches were written on the box in marker pen all along.

Agreed, mate. TD RCD at the main board. Any tripping would then be on the stall users board and not theirs. Poor setup.

Not sure about classifying that kiosk as an outdoor installation, but it probably would come under "uncreased hazzard", due to possibility of wet floors and surfaces, and due to the large contact surface to a persons hands and other body parts (reducing the contact resistance) on all those metal surfaces. Edit : Not sure about UK reg's on commercial, but I would think all those metalic installations should be bonded to earth.

Nice one del only down the road from me that good work also that so called sparky was a right tool 😂

oof what a day. I just had to deal with a non union EC that decided to under size the feeder wires and breakers for a load along with not using any washers/conical on the lugs and just gives me the this is how we have always done it excuse. They used 1/0 instead of 300 MCM

Good thing it wasn’t in the restaurant that’s sinking. Love the channel delroy.

that 1st guy you spoke to was either having a really bad day,,, or is just an a hole, i dont think i could compose myself like you did there 🤣🤣🤣

good stuff

Nice work! Do you have a light attached to your gopro or do you use a headlamp?

Maybe it's the bat phone that's only used to summon the lakeside batman 🦇 :)

So an rcd issue with the coffee stirer & an overload with all the heater stuff plugged in. The voice & attitude of the caretaker jobsworth didn't sound too good to me, i would have lost the job by walking away & told him to go sweep the toilets or get a new carrer as a "part time waste paper basket".

I got a chint from my supplier. Didn’t pay attention till I fitted into a domestic board. Was upside down. I accused them for Australian imports. Bit was a 3 phase 😂

Del, Do it the other way around, put 10mA RCD's in the kiosk board. Though without actual checking of the discrimination curves there could still be certain instances the upstream still trips, it should at least reduce the likelihood significantly.

They are for a 3 phase DB yes.

hi, electrical engineer from germany here. firstable: good work. second: the call from 1:37 --> from my personal experience, which I have collected over the years, you should be very sparing with technical information. most people are only confused. they call you because you have expertise they don't have (knowledge is power). means, they want to know at most, when the problem has been found and repaired (!) what approximately the fault was and who was responsible for it being in this condition (careful, in case of doubt just say you don't know, unless it was really grossly negligent and you have the suspicion that other electrical installations are of similar quality. reason: you put yourself in a difficult position if you denounce colleagues. this is just a little information on the side. the second --> 4:50 perfect reaction! in situations like this, there is no other way than to grit your teeth and de-escalate the situation. especially electricians who are permanently employed have extremely little to do and often do nothing the whole day (my experience). they are virtually on standby and accordingly have to justify their own presence for the employer and, above all, for themselves. furthermore, there are quite a few people who feel personally attacked when people from the outside intervene in their area of expertise! quite often already experienced. if there is then also a bad character, this can end very quickly in a dispute. keep it up! and best regards

Cosidering there is a spare way i think i would just seperate and lower the sockets to 20A 10mA rcbo's.

Whenever a maintenance engineer says they are really busy usually the total opposite. They are sitting down somewhere doing f all

Can you please quote the regs for the fact you can't use a s-type rcd at the mains when you got a commando plug? Thanks for video.

Would have liked to see you take the coffee mixer, to a different location with completely different feed and circuit to verify that the issue travels with the mixer.

Have they used the C curve RCBO for wiggle room? Most of the stand's loads seem to be resistive rather than inductive.

We're those rcbo for commercial 3 phase board that's why they seemed to be upside down.

If there was a note on the consumer unit from previous electrician / installer saying how the fuses were working then it would’ve been so much easer 🤔 I hope you’ve left a note on the consumer unit for the next chap in 🤔 You chaps should all try & help each other I’m here all day

Australian wiring done in the UK!

That’s it there for a 3phase bored your 100% right

I don’t think just because they’re using a 2P+E (commando) socket it suddenly counts as an outdoor socket. And it’s indoor in the mall. Mental. Good video though Delroy :)

Hey guys, sorry but i still dont get why the blender thingy was bypassing the stasnds fusebox? is it beacuse that socket was not going to that box and going to the main center fuse box?

I know this place. I was there this morning ) .

Those arrows on the fuse board, guess they are related to the switch direction. Possible the machine caused the fault in the socket as well given it tripped earlier.

Why did you not open the fuseboard first ?

"you could turn it all off" Security guard being thick as shit there. I think my response would have been "you know I'm an electrician, not a vandal?"

I only ever had £2,000,000 public liability and worked on contracts up to £600,000,000

I don't know about shopping centers, but I've spent my entire adult working life in movie theaters, and some of the older ones have 3 or 4 different vintages of wiring cobbled together and are often ground-loop & sneak current nightmares. I worked at one theater that, until a few years ago, was still running on its' the original 1913 fuse panels & wiring . The theater I currently work at was built in 1916, and I believe some of the house lighting still runs off its' original wiring.

Good one del stuff those guys just a couple of flogs

Not sure, but watching at the end, i think the mic is 90° off. It should have the Rode logo straight i think, to work 100%.

Wish the faulty appliance can be sent to Big Clive!

0:14 bruh what the heck, not too long ago I was watching "can't pay we'll take it away" Dope ass soft spoken black guy on there named Delroy too. Only ever heard that name twice too.

Maybe appliances where feeding power back into the curcuit

That shopping centre sparky would have figured out the problem if he had just spoken to the stall worker. Instead he was just hell bent on forcing his own belief that the circuit was overloaded. MASSIVE waste of time for you IMO. That said, you handled them all perfectly, well done.

I was wondering what you meant by "time delayed", took me a minute to realize you meant discrimination of circuit protection between boards.

the rcds /rcbos would be marked for industrial use again check your regs buy the books . you should Owen them if you are dealing with electricals

If the combo socket is connected via a plug to the main fuse board, which is protected by a 32a c type rcbo. The ccu at the kiosk is being overloaded, the rude jobs worth Sparky said they were pulling 40amps, so there is going to be discrimination on the circuit.

That combo socket need to be removed and then connect the cable directly into the board. Then you probably don't need a 30mA RCD on that circuit.

that guy would’ve had me spitting fair play to you times like that when i wish i could just reel off the regs and prove them wrong lol

what problem does an upside down rcb cause?

If you're gonna have to use different Breakers in a panel they should at least be together especially if they're going a different Direction, what a headache!

Where did u get buy ur coat from ?

I don't know anything about electricians just found this channel by accident but why was that first guy coming off so aggressive?

That's good diplomacy, sometimes you just have to bite your tongue!

The joys of bureaucracy

This is worrying me , as if the same upside down fuses were in the residential property supplying electric shower and one of our plumber decided to replace the shower and he thought he turned off the circuit , but in the reality he switched it ON.