ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion More sheet rocker woes . . .

wa2ise,

Yes, I know. Whenever I find them like that I replace them, and since I'm slowly replacing every device in the house, there won't be any when I'm done.

[This message has been edited by Mean Gene (edited 10-31-2003).]

Found out why I'd never fully re-wired the living room & dining room... until this summer.

Old waxed cotton covered rubber insulated wires still in the 1/2" (black) RMC. Couldn''t wiggle the far end of the line, so I'd left it in place. It's 12 gauge, so WTH. Years go by.

Get married, get "honey-do" list. Right at the top: Please install ceiling fans in dining and living rooms.

Still can't budge the wires. Opened all the 1900's in that part of the house - no dice. Still locked up tight. Hook a tone tracer to it, and find some hot spots.

Bust holes in the wall to find abandoned sconce boxes, stuffed with newspaper (dated December, 1943), and plastered over. (At least they taped the ends and the soldered joints.)

End result? I finally got new wire through the whole house.

The wife finally got her ceiling fans.

Doug, I feel your pain. Mine wanted ceiling fans in every bedroom on the second floor (4 rooms), no existing boxes. My only salvation was I had attic access to all of the ceilings, and I did it in the spring before the attic temps became unbearable.

They will usually get what they want, one way or another! LOL

The front and rear halves are held together with two small screws. I have only found them with one screw out, never both. Maybe the previous owners abused the heck out of them. The Leviton's are riveted together, and I have never seen one come apart.

Funny thing about that recept there.....
It looks like the GE's they sell in Wal-Mart & the grocery stores... I'm still with you on Slater devices being junk though. P&S bought Slater, I believe, in the 80's & discontinued the line. P&S has come a long ways in quality over the years speaking of which.....

hmm.. Now that you meantion it, Lost, the last house i lived in was wired by an electrician and EVERY SWITCH AND RECPT was the style you get at the grocery store. Even found a few of the peg cards with stickers on them from the local Giant. I agree with you, P&S's quality has definitely gone up.

Those Slater Receptacles really are junk. My aunt's MH was full of them, so was mine. Most of the recepts. in my house have been replaced. My aunt's house was demolished, and when we cleared it out, I snatched up all the switches and receptacles, except the ones that fell apart in my hands, those went to the dumpster.
Their switches, on the other hand, are nice. They are even easy to repair, just open it up, and move a few things around. Not that I will ever do that on switches destined for in-wall boxes.

As for that sheetrocker job, doesn't surprise me, saw it when my other aunts house had a sheet of drywall replaced.

Ian A.

I got a real nice one for yall. adding a laundry room to the front of our house, while removing the vinyl siding, we discovered an uncovered, unused outlet box, all the wires capped with LARGE RED WIRENUTS, only 2 runs of 12/2 in there, the one feeding an outlet on the front porch. This makes me wonder how many more forgotten outlet boxes/unplated j-boxes there ARE in this house.

At least they were CAPPED with something proper, not a few turns of duct tape or paper tape.

well, that IS true. lol. My uncle built the house, unfortunately the EC he hired at the time was a total boob, long story short, he had to fire him and get someone else better.