Advice-Shower switch burnt/melted

Ginger83

Hi, I've a problem in the house. Its 3 years old and 6 mths ago I had to get the oven switch replaced, the wires behind the switch had melted. A few days ago we heard a sizzling sound coming out of shower switch, then it tripped out at fuseboard. When I tried to flip the trip switch it switched back immediately.

Got sparky out today to see what the problem was. He opened the shower switch and was horrified by the state of it. All the wire connections were loose, the wires were all burnt black, the connection unit had melted itself into 2 pieces and the front cover had started to melt from the inside.

He said he had never seen anything as dangerous in all his life, said it could have burnt the house down.He fitted a brand new switch and it seems perfect now.

My missus knows this guy and trusts him and he warned me to go back to the builder and have the wiring in the whole house checked for safety reasons.

Am I entitled to do this?
Does the homebond thing cover this?
I have the old switch and it looks a disgrace for a 3 year old switch.
I'm not 1 bit happy and she doesnt feel all that safe after this.

Advice please, thanks

pieface_ie

Sounds like loose connections alright. Id recommend getting the house re-tested/ a electrician to inspect the terminations in the house as like he said its a accident waiting to happen.

The house would of been tested and signed off when complete with you recieving a cert? RECI / ESCA would not take too lightly to this, and its very worrying that you have had two similar problems, im sorry i cant answer your questions im sure one of the lads will but its quiet worrying to hear of such serious problems.

Bruthal

Ginger83 wrote: »

He said he had never seen anything as dangerous in all his life, said it could have burnt the house down.He fitted a brand new switch and it seems perfect now.

My missus knows this guy and trusts him and he warned me to go back to the builder and have the wiring in the whole house checked for safety reasons.

Am I entitled to do this?
Does the homebond thing cover this?
I have the old switch and it looks a disgrace for a 3 year old switch.
I'm not 1 bit happy and she doesnt feel all that safe after this.

Advice please, thanks

Sounds like the connections were all hand tightened only, not good on heavy electrical items like cookers and especially showers, but should be tight on all connections. I would imagine home bond should cover it and you should be entitled for sure. Its probably not too likely to go on fire to the extent of burning the house down as the heaviest users of electrical power will only be used while your in the house and using them, but i would have it checked alright.

Bruthal

pieface_ie wrote: »

The house would of been tested and signed off when complete with you recieving a cert? RECI / ESCA would not take too lightly to this, and its very worrying that you have had two similar problems, im sorry i cant answer your questions im sure one of the lads will but its quiet worrying to hear of such serious problems.

The thing is though that the installations will pass the tests even with under tightened connections. Which it sounds like is a problem on this installation. Shower switches, especially pull chord ones are prone to burning out, if connections are loose, then even more so. Cooker switches dont seem to be as bad, i usually use cooker type switches for showers myself, they are better than pullchord ones i think anyway.

JonnyM

robbie7730 wrote: »

Sounds like the connections were all hand tightened only, not good on heavy electrical items like cookers and especially showers, but should be tight on all connections. I would imagine home bond should cover it and you should be entitled for sure. Its probably not too likely to go on fire as the heaviest users of electrical power will only be used while your in the house and using them, but i would have it checked alright.

theres no other way to tighten connections you are making off on a cooker or pull cord switch unless you use a torque wrench which would be too much for this type of switch.

Also the problem could be that the switches et could be and probably are of inferior make especially if the house s in a housing estate as the contractor would be buying in bulk.

the MK range of switches are probably the best but could well be the dearest.

M cebee

ya -it may or 'may not' indicate poor workmanship

Bruthal

JonnyM wrote: »

theres no other way to tighten connections you are making off on a cooker or pull cord switch unless you use a torque wrench which would be too much for this type of switch.

Also the problem could be that the switches et could be and probably are of inferior make especially if the house s in a housing estate as the contractor would be buying in bulk.

the MK range of switches are probably the best but could well be the dearest.

Well in fact i meant by hand tight as if tightened by fingers if you know what i mean, as in the screw driver was only barely turned until the screw was only beginning to tighten. Maybe bad wording by me, but i thought people might have some idea what i meant, you dont really think i meant get the torque wrench out do you? I mean a bolt hand tightened means with fingers, not with a spanner, but anyway.

bad wording by me looking again, but still, torque wrench?:)

Bruthal

JonnyM wrote: »

theres no other way to tighten connections you are making off on a cooker or pull cord switch unless you use a torque wrench which would be too much for this type of switch.

I know my bad wording led to it, but i still have to laugh at that, thats for the DIY man i think.

Mike2006

I would just have all the terminations at the consumer unit checked for tightness. This is where most of the terminations reside.

Of course it is also the part of the job that a qualified competent electrician most likely completed as opposed to getting the apprentice to connect up the individual sockets/switches so there may not be any issues here.

You could also have the heavy load items checked as well. i.e. shower, oven, immersion..

Mike.

Ginger83

Thanks for the replies guys.

I just find it strange that the oven switch and now the shower switch needed to be replaced within 6 months. Both switches looked a mess.

I bought the house from new and its only 3 years old at the moment.

Bruthal

Mike2006 wrote: »

I would just have all the terminations at the consumer unit checked for tightness. This is where most of the terminations reside.

Mike.

Id say most of the terminations reside outside the DB. A lighting circuit has 3 terminations at the board, but has numerous switches and light fittings on the circuit. Same for sockets. Even the shower has 3 terminations at the board, but 9 terminations from the switch to the shower itself. A 6 month old house with cooker and shower switches badly burnt would indicate all connections need looking at.

Kashkai

I too had my cooker and shower pull cord switch burn out within a couple of months of one another. When I took the faceplates off, the wires underneath were blackened and the plastic parts were melted. I could pull the wiring out of the connectors fairly easily as they were never tightened in the first place. They were simple enough to replace but they wouldn't have burnt out if the wires had been tightened properly in the first place.

I should have checked them earlier as the sparks who did my place was an eejit, e.g.

- he/his apprentice broke the wallplate on some sockets and instead of replacing them, they used caulk to stick the faceplates on. Naturally, when I first tried to pull a plug out of these sockets, the faceplate came off too.

- they left gaps in the plasterwork around the sockets big enough for my kids to stick their fingers into and touch the live wires under the faceplate

- lights and sockets stopped working and when I checked, it was because the wires had worked loose as they were never tightened.

- cooker and shower switches burned out due to loose wiring.

And to think this guy was registered with the ECSSA. When I complained to them about this shoddy work and asked that they send someone out to check all the wiring, their response to me was that I should call back the contractor who did the wiring in the first place. Now if he did a sh1t job in the first place, why would I have any confidence in him second time round?

Finally based on my experience, a bit of advice for noticing when something is going wrong with shower/cooker switches:-

If you smell ammonia near the shower switch, this is a sign that its burning out.

If the cooker switch starts to get stiff, this could be because the plastic parts are melting.

Bruthal

Nothing surprises me, the worst type of work i hate to have to do is fixing someone elses cowboy work, nothing worse. As i said before, an installation can pass all the required tests for certification and still be a shoddy job. The tests are of course needed, but they dont guarantee a good standard.

The housing boom meant houses were thrown up as fast as possible and dont worry about standards, just enough to get them passed, my one i had to fix 3 seperate leaks in roof due to cowboy work, the worst was one of the tiling battons was cut too short to reach the next rafter and the tiles weight bent the batton through the felt,

Connections on switches and sockets etc do tend to loosen slightly a while after first tightened. But if properly done they dont usually present any problems.

Their a bunch of cowboys Ted.

M cebee

i'm afraid that a lot of non-sparkies and clueless sparkies managed to get registered somehow or other

prob with ecssa-but i'm biased as i'm reci anyhow:)

Bruthal

There were some unbelievable ones, in the industrial sector you just had to be able to drill a few holes and put up brackets ad you were a sparks.

Irish-trucker

Ah stop , some serious muppets got involved with the electrical trade .

Crowd i was with went throught probabally 30-40 'apprentices' in my 3 years with them .

One lad got the sack- then went to find the painter/decorator to see would he take him on .

Trouble is there's still a serious amount of muppets in the trade ,chancing their arm and plenty of good lads at home pulling their hair out.

Bruthal

Irish-trucker wrote: »

Ah stop , some serious muppets got involved with the electrical trade .

Crowd i was with went throught probabally 30-40 'apprentices' in my 3 years with them .

One lad got the sack- then went to find the painter/decorator to see would he take him on .

Trouble is there's still a serious amount of muppets in the trade ,chancing their arm and plenty of good lads at home pulling their hair out.

Thats all true, but when a `Crowd`goes through so many apprentices, do you think its 100% bad lads and a great company to work for? There were plenty of absolute w*****s to work for out there.
Maybe the fella that got sack from electrical then went lookin to painters realised what a mugs game it can be.

Irish-trucker

I can see your point Robbie .

To be honest if you were'nt showing initiative and actually want to learn something (some lads did'nt give 2 fooks) they generally got the bullet .

I see where your coming from - I've always maintained that a good proportion of apprentices got 'short changed' with there apprenticeship - And were never given the opportunity to work alongside a qualified lads and learn elements off the trade by experience instead of reading a book - instead they were barely shown how to to the donkey work and expected to get on with it .

I'd agree also that plenty of Contractor's were W*nkers..Its half and half i suppose.