A Day With An Electrician
We thought it would be a great idea to get an insight into the daily life of an electrician. We contacted one of our friends, Mike and asked him if he would be interested in documenting his day, he was more than happy to help out. This is his story.
My day began at 6AM, this is a lot earlier than any other day, as I have been called out to an emergency blackout at a house. When I arrived at the house the owner was frantic, she had been awoken by what she heard a "loud bang" and couldn't get any of the lights on. My first thought was to locate the electrical box, and take a look inside. Once I had found it, I opened up and I had immediately saw what the issue was. Inside the electrical box, was a large rat that had been electrocuted and caused several fuses to blow. The smell was unbelievable! It didn't take me long to clean up electrical box and replace the broken fuses. Once I'd done that, power was restored and the owner was extremely grateful to be back with her lights on.
My next job was to go to a apartment complex that was being built. The company that I work for has been contracted to install all the power and lighting for the complex. I spent the next few hours there installing power for LED down-lights. Working in apartment complexes can be quite repetitive as every room is usually the same, this can be quite tedious if the complex has hundreds of rooms.
During my time at the complex I received a phone call to go to a breakdown at a factory. The only information I received on the phone was that a load elevator was not working. The drive to the factory took about half an hour, this gave me time to think over possible scenarios of what could be wrong at the factory. You don't always get this luxury as most times you're required to fix something as soon as you're informed about it.
When I arrived at the factory my first mission was to find out how the load elevator worked - was it run on hydraulics or was it run with a motor? I was informed that it was the latter which I was pleased about because hydraulics are not my forte. My first thought is to check the the motor overloads haven't overloaded – which they haven't. This tells me that the motor like most likely hasn't been operating at a high current – which is a good sign as a means the motor most likely isn't damaged. My next step is to check the schematic drawings for the load elevator to see how it's operated. The first thing I notice is that there are three sensors which are involved with the load elevator. I asked the load elevator operator where the sensors are located.
Upon being showing the sensors, it's immediately obvious what is called the load elevated to stop. One of the sensors has been covered by a thick layer of dust that has built up over time. After giving the sensor clean the load elevator is now operational. I'm pleased with this outcome as it is an easy fix and I didn't have to change over and motor like I thought I would have to.
After leaving the factory it was 5PM and time to head home, it been a long day but thankfully not too challenging.
Thanks for taking part in that Mike, we really appreciate it!
