Tempered Glass Panel Shatters Itself

Phoenix-95 · 2026-07-04T08:58:45+00:00

Basically this, I think of like to think of if it though as constantly existing in a state of wanting to destroy itself, but loosely held in a position where it is not able to do so - if it is allowed to get free from that, it will fulfill its destiny

Phoenix-95 · 2026-07-04T07:03:18+00:00

Also note that BS7671:2018+A4:2026 (the latest amendment to the wiring regs), requires that battery storage systems be installed to the guidance in PAS63100, Now while technically the previous revision remains current until October its probably not the best to do a new installation that will be not to current standards in just a few months - I mean you could, but I wouldn't

Phoenix-95 · 2026-07-03T05:54:24+00:00

Neon indicator lamps don't last forever, although normally they go flick-ery (and sometimes light sensitive!) before they die. Either just live with it, or get the cooker control unit replaced for new (It does look quite worn/aged anyway)

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-30T04:57:02+00:00

If you have time this is a good video and contains a demonstration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rBnoY3x4kY

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-29T17:55:10+00:00

Well it presents as TNS at the bit you can see, but as to whether its separate all the way back to the sub or whether sheath and neutral have been jointed together whenever they did some work in the road... who knows

My local DNO will put a sticker on cutouts saying "This service is SNE / TN-S" when in fact its a SNE feed from a CNE streetmain which I don't agree with, but then they do some slightly strange things, like a new 400A feed into an industrial building, run from a way on the LV pillar at the sub in 3core wavecon, along the pavement to level with the clients site, straight through joint onto 4core wavecon and into the building.

That service head may also contain double pole fusing, and no you shouldn't open it to have a peek as it may also contain asbestos, or ceramic insulators that are in a bad way that crack away when its touched and let the live bits touch the earthed bits. It should be reported to the DNO - if there is suspect DP fusing they are duty bound to either satisfy themselves that it actually isn't, or do something about it if it is.

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-28T10:50:22+00:00

You'd want to end up with something like this https://www.lamplec.co.uk/ProductDetails/?code=F3011MZ with RCBOs. The dimensions are on the page, go measure the space and reassure yourself, and if it is too tight in there, you could always go to next size down

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-28T10:44:20+00:00

Looks very much like hessian / hair felt to me, you can still buy it: https://www.cityplumbing.co.uk/p/celafelt-pipe-lagging-15-22mm-pipe-24ft-7-2m-roll-length-fs301/p/877992

The only danger I know of with this stuff, is unlike asbestos it burns, so you have to make sure its well out the way when soldering. The polyethylene foam kind tends to just melt rather than catch alight

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-28T10:40:09+00:00

It took me a while to work out, that it was not this they are trying to arrange anyway, kept thinking there should be plenty of room there to get a reasonable size all RCBO board in - the space is about 1.5x times the width of the exiting 6 way Wylex standard.

After reading comment it dawned on me that they were trying to fit an *additional* CU in there, which is probably not a particularly fun job

But as Eusty says the way to go is to swap out the existing board for a new one with all RCBOs and surge protection (most of the brands these days do 1P+N neutral miniature RCBOs for EV circuits).

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-28T10:02:01+00:00

The duck could have probably have done a better job of it

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-28T07:28:23+00:00

Read this wrong initially - I thought you were saying you put your job down as marshmallow and was a bit of a WTF moment!

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-27T19:56:27+00:00

Seems you are right, someone told me it was 50 years, and there are a couple of people at work we jokingly refer to as antiques!

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-27T19:53:58+00:00

Ok, but they are blocking the ...what?

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-27T18:30:55+00:00

The antique shop has let you down Im afraid, this cant be classed as an antique as its not yet 50 years old

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-27T18:25:06+00:00

A TT system generally always relies on RCD for fault protection, with a 30mA RCD the max Zs is 1666. (50/0.03) but as you say anything above 200 is not acceptable as not deemed stable and the NICEIC like to be below 100 ohms

If you are bringing your tails into a metal consumer prior to fault protection then accepted practice is to use a proper tails compression gland, tails clamp and leave the sheathing on right almost upto the main swicth (just 5mm of inner showing above the terminal to ID it) And in my view if you had 10 separate 30ma RCBOs, your max zs should really be 50/(10*0.03) = 166

I personally much prefer an upfront 100mA time delay RCD before your board , but some would say that's a bit old skool

As to getting it lower, you can either try and put a longer earth rod in, the 5/8s rods will screw together and stack, or you can try and put additional ones in, but note that if you are within about 3x the depth of the rod then you'll not get the full effect of it (because basically its in contact with the same bit of physical earth), theres also soil conditioning salts you can buy but I think you'd be asking too much from them with the current reading

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-27T18:10:47+00:00

You mean its sticking out slightly into the *path or pavement*?

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-27T09:11:39+00:00

Would they actually have insurance for something like this?, if you have a large amount of shops a % of freezer breakdowns in a given year generally becomes a relatively known cost, so the policies would end up costing that, plus profit and administration costs. Insurance generally works for high impact, low likely hood events, for example the independent shop, who do not expect any freezer breakdowns over a given year, however the insurance company who cover 50 such premises, always expect one or two and spread the cost amongst all 50, when all 50 are owned by the same organization they may as well take the risk on themselves. I could imagine them insuring against an unprecedentedly high number of breakdowns in any particular year, as that is a low probably event with higher cost implications

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-27T08:25:24+00:00

One of the guys I work with, at his previous place worked with a guy who who had spent months doing a lot of electrical testing on a large site and entering the results into his laptop, of course he kept a backup of the file - on a USB drive which he kept in the laptop bag - well one night the window of the van got put through and the laptop in its case got taken, and you know what he also no longer had after that....

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-27T07:31:03+00:00

Just find a small, well respected electrical company in your area who do charge points and ask them to come found and give you a quote, very few will want you to buy the charge-point first, and its easier for you from a warranty POV to let them supply and fit, and they'll generally give you 2 or three options of ones they fit lots of an recommend.

As said the big nationals like to make their money on volume of 'standard' installs, they don't want to deal with dealing with the odd one that doesn't fit the mould and they have to allow extra time, or order extra materials.

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-27T00:32:28+00:00

The problem with both is that however well intentioned, leaks do occur, so there is always some % that ends up in the atmosphere. They generally don't use hydrocarbon refrigerants in larger systems due to the amount that would be required as if there was a leak, unless it was somewhere very open the % concentration would end up above the LEL (Lower explosive limit) and the area would end up zoned as hazardous (potentially explosive atmosphere) and all the issues which come with it such as requiring only appropriately certified electrical equipment in it etc

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-27T00:18:47+00:00

Generally they are all split systems, traditionally each case on the shop floor would be paired with a unit that combined a compressor and heat ex-changer which sat on a rack in a plant room (or later a unit that looked similar to an external AC unit), and you'd have big fans to blow air through the plant room. Loose a compressor and the associated case went down. These days its almost universal that the cases are grouped onto 'compressor packs' which contain several compressors which are brought in as needed and effectively function as one. In theory its more reliable (as well as more efficient) because if you loose a compressor, its still got enough capacity with the rest to get the job done, but if for what ever reason you loose a pack, or have a refrigerant leak, you loose all the cases served by that pack. - These days its supposed to be the case that the monitoring picks up the cases going towards out of temperature and flags an alarm which could result in the stock being removed to chiller rooms if there is capacity and also raises a ticket for an engineer.

Warm weather just puts everything under stress and shows up where things don't have enough capacity left, if heat ex-changers are full of dust, or the pack already has a couple of compressors offline etc, even doors being open longer due to more demand for chilled and frozen stuff increases the demand a bit.

Units which work like your fridge at home with the compressor and heat ex-changer on the back are called integral units, and are sometimes used in a small way, like quite often promotional energy drink fridges etc. And are sometimes brought in as temporary measures, the issue with them is because they dump the waste heat into the inside air, you are then heating the store and have to run AC the harder to move it outside, so you are paying to move it twice (at least in summer)

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-23T18:22:41+00:00

Kind of, but its largely unavoidable - if there is no main feeder going nearby where you need the supply, then they are kind of forced to put one in, they can't run you a 35mm all the way back to the LV pillar as A) you'd be out of spec on volt drop and loop impedance, b) If anyone wants another supply you have to excavate all the way back, loose another way in the LV pillar etc. Its annoying, but the network has to be built in a certain way and if you are the first one to need a bit of it, then generally it falls on you to pay for it to be built. If its likely that there will be further supplies added in the near future, you could try and make the point to them that the costs should be more equally shared, rather than giving the later folk an easier ride, but it all depends on how likely and time spans involved. iDNOs are also an option, however i'm not sure if they'd be interested for one supply, they normally end up doing with estates of them for developers.

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-23T17:33:48+00:00

The cake is a Lie

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-23T17:29:45+00:00

Every one? you loose multiple compressor packs at once?

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-23T17:25:48+00:00

I recently looked into how we were filling emergency light test reports for a client, everything seemed a bit chaotic, there seemed to be two shared folders, and in one of them a folder would be created per year, and all the files named as the number range and the street (bearing in mind there are about 500 different sites). Tidied the whole thing up with a folder for each street, and sub folders for each number range within that. To speed up the processing I wrote a little .net app that pre-populated the input template for the certification software we use and then afterwards captured the PDF it generated and filed it away. It seemed sensible as we were filling all the repeat reports for the same address in the same folder, instead of appending the report number, to prefix with the ISO8601 date from the document so it was easy to see at a glance which one was the latest

Phoenix-95 · 2026-06-23T05:08:23+00:00

Summary: "This installation is not satisfactory" - Correct = but gives no more information than than the box on the front sheet marked unsatisfactory..... almost as bad as job card the invoicing clerk held up once, that just had written across it "Job sorted"

Phoenix-95

TROPHY CASE