Large Customer Requirement
Well, this is John Dale from GlobileNet just talking about our customer interactions. This one is what turned out to be a large customer requirement, as they had many things to deal with as a new owner of a home.
Identifying Initial Electrical Needs
They had a very old switchboard, so that was number one. They had a few bits and pieces to do in the home, like changing and moving power points, fixing problems with lights. And they wanted to get a Tesla-capable installation because they were planning to buy a new EV.
Evaluating EV and Power Requirements
Anyway, so I evaluated the need. I had a good discussion with them about how we might get the service to the garage for the EV. And he wanted to, if he could get a three-phase. Unfortunately, in his premises, he could do that, but the car that he was buying didn’t really need anywhere near that capacity. So we ended up, from a cost perspective, reducing that down to a single-phase service with an ability to convert it to a three-phase later on. So the cable was run as a three-phase, but it connected as a single-phase.
Balancing Budget and Functionality
So his problem was solved in general to meet his budgetary requirements. And we met with all his functional requirements as part of the process.
Quoting and Switchboard Upgrade
Once we’d given him a quote, he accepted the quote in two phases as it happened. The first one was to get the switchboard done. When you do a switchboard, you never know what problems you can find because the installation sometimes does not work after you put the new safety switches in a switchboard. After you’ve changed it, we always have a clause to say “Look, we don’t know if there’s a problem in the house, but when we reconnect these circuits and we switch them on, that will indicate a problem if they trip.” Because over time, wiring changes might actually cross two circuits with one mutual, for example. It doesn’t happen that often, but they can.
Troubleshooting Lighting Circuit Issues
And so after we’d done the switchboard upgrade, which takes about four or five hours, typically, I did have a problem with two of the lighting circuits. When we tried to turn both of them on, the other one tripped. So we had to then have a look through the house, and that’s quite a difficult problem to resolve, actually.
Investigating the Bathroom Fan Wiring
But I’ve now had quite a lot of experience with these. So I first checked the bathroom because the bathroom fan here in the unit. We don’t know necessarily that it’s a common neutral problem. You can test it, but sometimes it’s just easier to work on a trial and error basis because a test will just prove that there is two neutrals connected together. It doesn’t provide for a particularly useful purpose.
Locating and Resolving the Cross-Circuit Fault
So at the bathroom, when we took the bathroom switch off, it was pretty clear that they’d wired the bathroom unit through a separate lighting circuit. So it was crossing the barrier there. It just happened to be in that position. They’d taken a very good, educated guess, and we actually resolved the problem quite quickly.
Verifying Outlets and Circuit Compliance
Once we’d set that, we go and verify all the outlets because sometimes the outlets can be crossed, if you like, neutral to the Earth to sometimes active and neutral across. So we test every power point, make sure it’s compliant. We do a trip test on the circuit breakers that we’ve just installed. We make sure before we leave that the ovens are all working.
Educating the Customer on Breaker Trips
We have a lot of discussion with the customer about, generally, how they should resolve problems when the circuit breakers trip in the future. Because many people think that just switching the switch off and leaving the appliance plugged in, for example, will clear a problem. But that is not the case. You really need to unplug all the appliances.
Preventing Unnecessary Call-Outs
We like to educate our customers in those sorts of procedures so that they don’t end up calling me, and me charging them for a call fee late at night just because they didn’t unplug a kettle or something.
Secondary Visit for EV Installation
The secondary visit was to put the EV installation, which he wanted to have as a plugin. He had a plugin adapter, so it was actually a three pin industrial style power point that we installed that could be converted to a three phase at a later date.
Final Outcome and Customer Satisfaction
So Leo was very happy with the outcome, gave us a very good review, and helped us really with a lot of things moving because they had a lot of stuff in the garage. But anyway, that’s a different question. So if you want somebody that’s going to work with you, not charged like a wounded bull, charged fairly and clearly articulates the potential problems, then why don’t you give us a call? This is GlobileNet. I am John Dale.
