Shoutout to that guy at the supply house who told me to check my ground blocks

I was grabbing some fittings at the Graybar in Nashville last Tuesday and this older installer started talking to me while we were waiting on tickets. He said he had been doing cable work since the 80s and asked me if I ever checked my ground blocks with a multimeter before I left a job. I told him nah, I just make sure they're tight and move on. He laughed and said he just spent a whole Saturday chasing a noise issue that turned out to be a ground block with a hairline crack you couldn't even see. That hit different because I realized I've been trusting hardware way too much without actually testing it. Now I keep a cheap multimeter in my bag and I check every block after I install it. Has anyone else found weird ground issues that looked fine but caused problems later?

3 comments

3 Comments

joseph_lewis9212d ago

Wait, you mean I should actually use my multimeter for something besides checking if batteries are dead?

diana5512d ago

@joseph_lewis92 hey, my meter's basically a fancy paperweight until something stops working!

ericjackson9d ago

That line about checking batteries hit close to home, how often are you testing your ground blocks now?