Hey everyone;
This topic deals with my grandmother's house. Although it is in Nova Scotia, Canada and this topic may be moved, I think it is imperative that it has more exposure here because I really need answers quick.
My grandmother's home of now over 30 years was almost completely destroyed by fire in August 1998. This house is a two storey duplex with basement. The fire started in the living room on the first floor, causing the floor to partially cave in. The basement and first floor were gutted down to the firewalls and framing and the top floor had all of the floors torn up.
After three failed inspections, the house was passed in December 1998 and my grandmother moved back in.
The electrical was supposed to be completely replaced. I knew something was wrong immediately when I first say old NM with black outer insulation in the basement laundry room. Basically, there are points where this old NM is spliced to newer NM in junction boxes, etc.
The first real problem came when one of my grandmother's two switch-operated outlets in the living room literally started to shoot flames. An electrician was called in the outlet was replaced. Then after, the breaker would trip when something was plugged into it or whatever was plugged into it would be fried. Today, I took the cover off and a bunch of melted conductors, some aluminum, others copper. The tab for the outlet had not been broken off when replaced and instead, the whole outlet was (supposed) to be switch operated. The other outlet was rewired by the electrician to be totally switch operated as well.
Basically, what I had to do was shut the power off to this mess. When doing so, the breaker labelled "living room" didn't turn off anything in the living room. Rather, it turned off the hallway lights. However, the breaker labelled "kitchen" turned off all of the lights and receptacles in the kitchen, all of the lights and receptacles in the dining room and the disaster in the living room.
I am 100% certain that a completely gutted kitchen needs to be rewired with more than one counter-top circuit, let alone one not shared with the rest of the first floor.
Furthermore, the entire upstairs is on one circuit and random outlets throughout the house are on other circuits. Aluminum wiring passes through walls that would have been torn down, up from the basement to the top floor where aluminum is pigtailed to copper and then to the fixtures. Aluminum is present at every box I have opened up so far.
And even still, my grandmother says they she can't have her oven on at the same time as the microwave. That sent a few chills down my spine. My grandmother's previous house burnt down because the oven took power directly from the service conductors into the house, bypassing even the main breaker. I'm worried that she'll have a house fire for a third time.
Basically, she was told (and paid for) that all of the electrical in the house would be replaced. And it obviously has not. Either someone was reusing aluminum wiring (dangerous as is) or left damaged wiring in the walls. Either way, I'm pissed.
My grandmother isn't a wealthy woman. How strong of a case does she have, if any, and against who?
