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Panel swap gone sideways when the homeowner didn't mention the dog
I was doing a panel swap at this house in Riverside last Tuesday, all wired up and ready to power on. Right as I hit the breaker, their German shepherd came barreling through the backyard gate and yanked the main power cable clean out of the panel. Lost all my progress and had to rewire the whole thing from scratch, took an extra 4 hours. The owner just shrugged and said 'oh yeah he does that sometimes.' I charged them for the overtime but man, my back still hurts from crouching in that crawlspace again. Anyone else ever have a client's pet totally trash your install?
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sarah_hart15d ago
Not sure if you made a typo or what, but when he yanked the main power cable out you wouldn't have lost all your progress. The wire would just need to be reconnected, not rewired from scratch. Unless he actually ripped the whole cable apart or something. German shepherds are strong but they cant snap copper like that lol. Also crawlspaces are the worst, my knees are still mad at me from one last month.
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nora_walker5715d ago
Lose it at the detail about the German shepherd actually breaking copper wire - I've seen dogs do some wild stuff but that's next level man. @sarah_hart I gotta ask, what kind of power cable are we talking about here? Cause if it's one of those cheap thin ones from a hardware store I could maybe see it, but still feels like your pup must have been on a mission or something.
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the_hayden15d ago
Whoa, that's a wild story. I read somewhere that German shepherds actually have a bite force of over 200 psi (which is, you know, pretty insane for a dog). @sarah_hart, I gotta agree with you on the cable thing though. Unless the dog literally bit through the insulation and frayed the copper on a single custom run, I'm struggling to see how a clean yank would trash a whole rewire. Maybe the owner just wanted an excuse to charge you for the extra time? Either way, a dog ripping out conduit is still a nightmare scenario. Hope your back feels better soon.
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