Posted on 07/18/2008 11:38:08 AM PDT by mojito
The number of fires and deaths caused by faulty wiring at U.S. bases in Iraq is larger than the military has admitted, The New York Times reports.
The newspaper said it obtained internal documents put together for congressional and Defense Department investigations on the work done by contractors. The documents show that many soldiers have suffered non-lethal shocks in their barracks, the report said.
The work was done by KBR, one of the largest military contractors and a former subsidiary of Halliburton.
Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth died from an electrical shock while taking a shower in January. The death focused attention on poor wiring.
The internal documents show there were 283 electrical fires in the second half of 2006. Two soldiers died in one fire in 2006.
One report said KBR self-reported a "systemic" problem with electrical work at bases in Iraq.
The Times said neither the Pentagon nor KBR would comment on the details of the reports.
The Army contracted a great deal of work themselves then did not supervise or provide QC.
There are many many places where KBR had a presence but did not have any contractual obligation or scope of work to inspect or repair the work done by Army contractors.
But as usual, KBR gonna get the bad rap.
However, I cannot comment about this specific case.
Interesting information in your post, none of which I had ever heard before.
If that were the case, then they should hire people that know how to do it correctly. There are many places in desert areas that use generators, where this is not happening. Unless someone is cutting corners on material and just not doing it right.
it all depends on how they go about “bonding” the grounds. sometimes it’s as simple as pooring a bucket of water over the ground rods.
From what I saw, grounding was an issue because the installers sometimes failed to connect the grounding straps, sometimes failed to actually tighten the connections, sometimes only put the rods into the ground a couple inches then cut them off to make it appear that they were driven in to proper depth.
Again, what I saw was work done before KBR got on site, work contracted directly by the Army.
You would hope someone would know that.
I drove one in the nice New Mexican soil for my greenhouse. Took about an hour and I thought my arms were going to fall off.
if this is true these A-holes should be strung up! a ground rod has to be in the ground a minimum of 8 feet!
My understanding is that the rods could be installed horizontally at about 8 inched depth.
i’ve never seen it done that way, but then again i’m in the peoples republic of kalifornia
Now you tell me.
A good, solid ground is an unknown necessary in electrical and electronic work.
I understand from others on this forum that getting a good ground in the “sandbox” is almost impossible at times in that region. You often have to detail people to “water” the ground rods several times a day, as if they are plants.
This is much deeper than an issue of “shoddy” work, and the Slimes is being its usual idiotic self in spinning the article this way.
This is a deep logistical problem. It is going to take serious resources to fix and is all he worse because explaining to congress why you need to spend $10k to drill a rod down to 200ft for a decent ground has got to be hard to explain.
I agree with all you’ve said. I don’t know much about electrical installations but the comments on this thread have been very informative.
I hope that the true situation is as you say, one of a serious logistical problem related to conditions, rather than one in which people were just sloppy, or worse.
The work was done by KBR, one of the largest military contractors and a former subsidiary of Halliburton.
BS to the author! KBR does Operations and Maintenance, not construction. This is by contract because of all the "little guys" who wanted a piece of the action and live off the government dole.
The contractors who do construction are third worlders and the military doesn't provide adequate quality control.
It's just too easy to blame KBR for all this BS.
Utah requires grounding rods to be sunk 8 feet deep in dry soils.
You heard anything about this?
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