ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Most electrical fine in your new home

My house I built from scratch so no problems here, but when my son bought a house it was so bad that I had to rip out all drywall and start from scratch again. The usual problems like, no connectors on RX and BX wire. Open splice boxes, BX wire in plastic boxes. No wire nuts, etc.

My parents' house, we've lived here six years as of last week. 60 year old tract house in Levittown, previous owners were the family of a deceased handyman who used to own it and three neighboring houses... It never ends!!!

Handyman the estate owner's hired cut in new GFCI's in the bathrooms, ran 14/2 back to the panel then spliced it with the existing lighting circuit that the old switch/receptacle was tied to. Fixed in five minutes with another 15amp breaker.

Old fireplace had fans with a switch in the wall. There were two new receptacles on either side of the wall wired through the garage to the panel with 14/2. The guy who put the fireplace in used the original receptacle's ungrounded 14/2 spliced in the wall to feed the fan switch. I still haven't fixed that one since its buried behind brick on the house side and drywall in the garage.

Dryer circuit ran on the wall until it dipped into the wall next to the panel in the garage. Only problem, the wire on the wall was old cloth 10/3 and the cable coming into the panel was new orange 10/3. I ran a new 10/3 on the surface until I had a chance to rip the wall down. When I did I found the flying splice and still have it sitting in the garage. Now it's all run through the wall.

We pulled the range out to replace it and found the receptacle was buried in the wall behind a piece of paneling. It's screwed to the 2x3 stud. The cord goes through a hole cut in the paneling. I still need to fix that.

Now a few months ago I decided to tackle the switch at the top of the stairs that never worked. I replaced the switch and it turns out it controlled the receptacle in the back of my room. Only problem is, the receptacle box has the old cloth 14/2 while the switch leg in the switch box is newer white 14/2.

Not to mention all the wainscoting that was put on the lower half of the walls, none of the boxes were extended and some of the receptacles have nails holding them in the wall. And some of them are partially buried behind trim so I can't replace them without a chisel. There's also a few ceiling fixtures hacked onto old recessed fixtures. I need to take new pictures and submit them.

I've told my parents if they ever sell me this house they better kiss the interior goodbye because its getting gutted.

I forgot one, though this isn't so much a hack as it is time taking its toll. The lights started blinking throughout the house whenever the A/C or boiler would kick on. Peco wouldn't believe that the neutral was bad until the cable boxes smoked and the Comcast service to the house burned up since it became the new neutral! And why didn't the neutral just find its way to ground via the service ground? The original 1955 #10 aluminum wire water ground burned itself off the water line. They came out and replaced the taps at the house with ones that don't date to the 50s.