The price of copper must be up again,copper thieves ripped off the power supply cable running up the pole to this fixture,luckily the connections separated and didn't damage the wires coming out of the fixture.The new wire is now in a conduit and should help deter future vandalism.
Thanks guys! Yeah they don't seem to worry about getting zapped,probably high lol.Looked like they had their own cutters with them and snipped the wire at the bottom,I wouldn't have thought the small amount of copper in a 25 ft piece of cable would have been worth the trouble.
People are desperate nowadays especially because of this bad economy, some guy killed himself in PA when he was trying to steal some copper and he accidently cut a live wire.
Nice pic Darren,I haven't seen a lot of copper theft here too but I read it's getting to be a real big problem. I've read about people stealing wires, AC units, and even copper roofing panels.
Thanks Joseph,in most cases they at least have half a brain and don't try to take live electrical wiring,most thefts have been phone cables and cable vision cables which don't carry high voltage but disrupt service to many people though.A few wire thieves have been killed trying to cut phone lines here in the past few years, as they cut the thick and heavy bundled cable all of a sudden all the weight and tension is released from one direction and the pole snaps taking the person down with it.
I can see now why people are stealing wire, we took in about 30 pounds of scrap wire (all legally obtained of course) and got $77 for it, not bad if you get 1000's of pound of it
My grandpa scraps. That's how I ended up with a collection of traffic signs in my back yard. I've asked him about streetlights, but so far he hasn't come accross any. Speaking of him, I'm wiring his garage this summer. He stores his scrap in his garage and waits for the prices to go up and then cashes it in. He lives in a sort of downtownish area, so he closes the door behind him and just uses a flashlight. He wants more light in there, so I'm running a line in 1/2 inch conduit underground from the house to the garage, which is separete from the house, and run two lamps to a switch and add an outlet for convenience. I'll upload pics of my plans and the finished job.
Nice, I've rewired my Dad's basement, I installed a new 20 amp circuit and sub panel (used to control lighting) and several lights and outlets. I also replaced the existing 15 amp circuit.
I have some projects for this summer around the house as well!
- First I plan to create a 20A 120/240V feeder circuit to the shed which will be converted into a workshop.
- Second project is the bathroom makeover. It implies a complete redesign of the circuits!
- Third and smaller project is to permanently connect our backyard light. It is connected using a plug at the moment, but my dad and I purposely left almost 2ft of loose cable when we installed the light in order to eventually connect the light to a 15A breaker. I should do that this summer!
Login
That pic is cool too!
Any droppings found on the light fixture?
- First I plan to create a 20A 120/240V feeder circuit to the shed which will be converted into a workshop.
- Second project is the bathroom makeover. It implies a complete redesign of the circuits!
- Third and smaller project is to permanently connect our backyard light. It is connected using a plug at the moment, but my dad and I purposely left almost 2ft of loose cable when we installed the light in order to eventually connect the light to a 15A breaker. I should do that this summer!