In part 1 I touched on the ugly and unsightly use of corrugated conduit visibly installed over ridge lines between roofs. The example used was at the Willowdale estate near Denham Court. Part 2 delivers another awful example of cost cutting in neighbouring estate, Catherine Park, which is near Oran Park and Harrington Grove.
We came across this installation while installing on a new Crystele Homes build. The house was directly across the road from our site, and the inverter station was just the tip of the iceberg. The install was done in 2018, so the DC Conduit down the outside of the cavity brick wall was totally unnecessary. The array earth has been cable has been brought out of the DC Isolator conduit under the inverter and just shoved in the AC Conduit and heatshrunk. The AC corrugated conduit has been run along the wall to underneath the meter box where it penetrates the wall.
While running the AC and DC Conduit on the surface is an acceptable method of installation, any electrician worth their salt would take pride in concealing these inside the wall cavity. What isn’t acceptable is the earthing method. The exposed earth going into a conduit via heat shrink does not maintain the ingress protection (IP) rating, and water could enter the wiring system. The earth cable could’ve found its way back to the board via another method and the AC Conduit could’ve penetrated the wall directly below the inverter AC Connection plug, removing the unsightly horizontal corrugated conduit.
When you follow the DC Conduit up the outside wall it exposes a much more sinister surprise at the top. Yes, hard to believe, but it’s true, that’s the DC Conduit coming out of an open tile. Amazing, how does that even happen?
This system has all the hallmarks of the major internet sales companies, SOLAX Inverter, Suntree Isolators, and a real shitty install
Disclaimer: my mention of the SOLAX inverter and Suntree isolators is not a reflection of these products it’s just a common item used by the lower end of the market.