It's Safety Monday; Are Your Squirrels Safe?

In the early 1980’s I was working for a contractor in the Los Angeles area name Bill Bowser who did mostly high end residential stuff in places like Beverly Hills and Bel Air. He also did smaller stuff but was pretty well recognized as someone who could work for high end clients and satisfy their every need. I had only been an electrician for a few years at the time and Bill was the first contractor who took the time to give me some solid training.

I had only been working for him for a couple of months when he took a job at a horse ranch somewhere in the Ventura area. It was a big beautiful ranch where they bred high end horses and they had built a large new stable. They hired Bill to run power to this new building and then install lighting and receptacles. As I recall the new structure was about 300 feet from the original stable area where the main service was. We rented a trencher and trenched in what seemed like maybe a 2-1/2” PVC conduit with 4/0’s in it and probably a #4 ground wire to feed a new panel in the new stable. Bill was old school and he liked to install junction boxes at least every 100’. If my memory serves me correctly we installed a total of 3 in this particular run between stables.

He brought each conduit up out of the ground with GRC 90’s and risers because he was afraid the Gardner would hit them with the mower and break them if they were PVC, then he mounted a metal junction box on each set entering and leaving. I can’t remember the exact size of the boxes but I can tell you this, they were too small. We pulled all of the wire in and broke it at each junction box. It was getting late by the time all of the wire was in and Bill told me “OK, go ahead and splice those wires up and then meet me back at the shop”. That meant, “I’m going to go buy some ice cold beer, and you can have some when you get there”. So I got to splicing those wires in earnest.

Now, that wire was stiff. Bill gave me a pile of curnies and rubber tape for the connections. I spliced the two hots together, then the neutrals and then the grounds, being careful to neatly wrap each one with plenty of rubber tape and then cover them with the cheapest black electrical tape we could find. I remember that when it came time to tuck the wires into the boxes, I had to use the handle of my hammer to force them in there and then fought to get the covers on, but I did manage to get them all spliced and closed up. Bill was waiting for me when I got back to the shop and we killed a little time socializing.

The next day we went back and installed the lights and receptacles and then energized the system and tested. Everything appeared to be in tip top shape so we cleaned up our mess and headed off to the next project.

Sometime later the lady that owned the ranch called early in the morning. I happened to be sitting right across the desk from Bill when the call came in and heard the whole conversation, which started off like this, “Bill?” “Yes” “Listen, it rained the other day and the ground is still wet. Whenever the squirrels run past those metal boxes you put in they die”. Holy crap I am thinking. Bill said “OK we’ll come take a look and hung up”.

Needless to say, that was our first stop for the day. We started by turning off the breaker feeding the new stable and opening the junction boxes. I learned many things that day and the thought of people walking past those boxes and dying still haunts me.

The first thing Bill did was introduce me to varnish tape which is very hard to bite through. Those wires I spliced, being very stiff, had pressed against the cover of the junction box and cut through the rubber and cheap electrical tape allowing the split bolt to come into direct contact with the metal box. The breaker feeding the new panel never tripped because although I spliced the grounds up really nice, I never connected one to the metal junction box. Instead, the wire energized the box with 120 volts and bled it off into the surrounding ground area through the metal pipes which transitioned to PVC 2 feet below ground. Once it rained and the ground became wet, the squirrels were being electrocuted as they ran past the boxes.

I’m not really comfortable killing anything through my own ignorance, but if I have to kill something, I guess squirrels would be a good choice. I often wonder what the outcome might have been if someone would have walked a horse past the scene or if the Gardner had been out weed whacking. That day I became highly aware of the responsibility of working with electricity and the possible consequences of making a mistake; Bill was kind enough to keep me under his wing. This is why I get really concerned when homeowners do their own electrical work.

I still remember a conversation I had in Colorado with a homeowner who wired his own swamp cooler and then wanted pricing to make it work for him. As we stood in his attic over his child's bedroom looking at the mess, I told him that some people in this world were not meant to do electrical work and I was pretty sure he was one of them. I think I have done everything wrong once in this trade and sometimes twice if I really enjoyed it. It seems kind of poetic to me now that I went on to lead 50 electricians in grounding and bonding operations on a military base in Baghdad during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

For those of you outside the electrical trade, the ground, that green wire, is the most important wire in the circuit. Yes, the tool or appliance will work without it, but your safety will be in serious jeopardy. Why don’t you all do Ol’ Dennis a favor and check the grounds on your cords and power tools today. If you’re not in the electrical trade, get Sparky to fix them up for you. If you are in the electrical trade, do everyone a favor and throw an eyeball at their cords today. If the ground prong is missing on a tool or cord, buy a new cord end and replace it. Grounding is critical; please make sure you get it right. Be safe out there today.