This stuff scares me. I was hired to repair some electrical issues on a rental house. After I found a 25' run on a 15A circuit featured black, white, red, green copper wires of different wire gauges and spliced inside the wall with wire nuts or some places just electrical tape, I called the landlord with the news. I wanted to run new Romex but he told me to leave it as is, just make it work. I said I'm leaving the wall opened up and calling code enforcement. That house should had burned down long before.
A house I bought at a steep discount (solid structure, needing major repair) I found in the attic bare uninsulated copper with butt splices laying bare on the shredded newspaper insulation. Scorch marks all around.
And 12 ga. wire on a 30A circuit running the full length of the house (75') and open ground. Nickle coins stuck in the base of the fuse box. Knob and tube AL wire improperly spliced to copper. Took me nearly a solid month to chase down every electrical problem on that property. My guardian angels all have gray hairs.
Never had anything quite that bad, but did have a place with an “upgraded” panel that made me tear my hair out. When they connected everything to the new box, they had 6 different circuits that had individual pull cord light fixtures on them. The rest of the house was all tied into two breakers, that includes the furnace, washer, fridge, all the outlets, and garage. I ended up running a long, heavy extension for the fridge and mostly living by flashlight for a couple weeks while I ripped out the old BX and ran new lines everywhere.
What pissed me off the most was he seemed to careless about putting his unsuspecting tenets at risk. When the tenets came home and found the wall still opened up they got very angry with me. I got them calmed down by saying I likely just saved your life and here's how. Even the weather head was all screwed up. 100A service jury rigged by some clown. I got PG&E to fix that on their own dime. The utility workers just shook their heads looking at the cluster. They agreed that house could have had a fire at any time.
....unless the connection between the upper and lower sockets has been disconnected (split), as might be done if one socket is switched. Every darned room in my house has an outlet like that, as there were no ceiling fixtures. They expected that you’d have floor or desk/table lamps plugged into the switched outlets. :-/
I was called to a house where a plumber got zapped. The house, when built, had foil backed sheetrock and no central air. At some point they got a window air in the kitchen. The 220 plug was installed in the wall between kitchen and garage using a metal box. The wire was black white red with no ground. Some years later as A/C units improved, it was changed to a 120 volt unit. A new receptical was installed with a ground. Who ever did the work repurposed the red as the ground but didn't mark the wire. Eventually they got central air. To accommodate it they had to upgrade the panel. Who ever did it hooked that red ground wire to a breaker. That put current in the box and by extension in the back of sheet rock. The house sold and the new owners wanted to modernize the kitchen. They decided to relocate the washer and dryer to the wall that separates the garage. The plumbing contractor cut the slab for the drain. When he went to split the sheet rock he got knocked on his ass. I was the second electrician to look at it. Took the general contractor longer to tell me what happened than it took me to solve the problem. Ended up rewiring the entire house because the new owners were spooked.
This stuff scares me. I was hired to repair some electrical issues on a rental house. After I found a 25' run on a 15A circuit featured black, white, red, green copper wires of different wire gauges and spliced inside the wall with wire nuts or some places just electrical tape, I called the landlord with the news. I wanted to run new Romex but he told me to leave it as is, just make it work. I said I'm leaving the wall opened up and calling code enforcement. That house should had burned down long before.
ReplyDeleteA house I bought at a steep discount (solid structure, needing major repair) I found in the attic bare uninsulated copper with butt splices laying bare on the shredded newspaper insulation. Scorch marks all around.
And 12 ga. wire on a 30A circuit running the full length of the house (75') and open ground. Nickle coins stuck in the base of the fuse box. Knob and tube AL wire improperly spliced to copper. Took me nearly a solid month to chase down every electrical problem on that property. My guardian angels all have gray hairs.
Never had anything quite that bad, but did have a place with an “upgraded” panel that made me tear my hair out. When they connected everything to the new box, they had 6 different circuits that had individual pull cord light fixtures on them. The rest of the house was all tied into two breakers, that includes the furnace, washer, fridge, all the outlets, and garage.
DeleteI ended up running a long, heavy extension for the fridge and mostly living by flashlight for a couple weeks while I ripped out the old BX and ran new lines everywhere.
What pissed me off the most was he seemed to careless about putting his unsuspecting tenets at risk. When the tenets came home and found the wall still opened up they got very angry with me. I got them calmed down by saying I likely just saved your life and here's how. Even the weather head was all screwed up. 100A service jury rigged by some clown. I got PG&E to fix that on their own dime. The utility workers just shook their heads looking at the cluster. They agreed that house could have had a fire at any time.
ReplyDeletetenant
ReplyDeleteThat is an electrician's nightmare!
ReplyDelete........ed in wa.........
Didn't extend the ground connections..
ReplyDeleteFor you amateurs out there, you don't have to extend both outlets, doing just one will catch the other one too.
ReplyDeleteDaryl
....unless the connection between the upper and lower sockets has been disconnected (split), as might be done if one socket is switched. Every darned room in my house has an outlet like that, as there were no ceiling fixtures. They expected that you’d have floor or desk/table lamps plugged into the switched outlets. :-/
DeleteIt was backup. /s
DeleteAny wire connection has to have an accessable junction box, cannot be buried in the wall.
Deletedaddy-o
I was called to a house where a plumber got zapped.
ReplyDeleteThe house, when built, had foil backed sheetrock and no central air. At some point they got a window air in the kitchen. The 220 plug was installed in the wall between kitchen and garage using a metal box. The wire was black white red with no ground.
Some years later as A/C units improved, it was changed to a 120 volt unit. A new receptical was installed with a ground. Who ever did the work repurposed the red as the ground but didn't mark the wire.
Eventually they got central air. To accommodate it they had to upgrade the panel.
Who ever did it hooked that red ground wire to a breaker. That put current in the box and by extension in the back of sheet rock.
The house sold and the new owners wanted to modernize the kitchen. They decided to relocate the washer and dryer to the wall that separates the garage.
The plumbing contractor cut the slab for the drain. When he went to split the sheet rock he got knocked on his ass.
I was the second electrician to look at it. Took the general contractor longer to tell me what happened than it took me to solve the problem.
Ended up rewiring the entire house because the new owners were spooked.