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Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 1,335
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Hey fellow sparktarians, my wife and I are moving into a new home, our first together. What is best and worst findings in the wiring in your new place? The worse for me was in this place thus far is the panel over the bathroom stool. My previous house was counter top receptacles were fed from the pigtail that was made up and plugged into the 50 stove receptacle behind the gas stove


"Live Awesome!" - Kevin Carosa
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 947
T
twh Offline
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A light wired with doorbell wire.


Joined: Jul 2004
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Likes: 32
G
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Worst?

All of the splices installed by the previous homeowner twisted and taped. No covers on the boxes in the attic and they were buried in blow in cellulose insulation.
I ended up abandoning every circuit that was run in "new" romex and rewiring all of them.
The dryer was on 12ga romex.
... that sort of thing.


Greg Fretwell
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 2,498
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I'd say an outlet wired with 0.5mm2 wire (20 AWG) on a 16A breaker was pretty classy. They also embedded conduit singles (single layer of PVC isolation) in masonry/plaster on that run. I didn't really like the totally frayed cloth wires outdoors either (there were covers on the junction boxes, but by no means weatherproof, the exposed copper was black and green with corrosion. Some Al thrown in there too for good measure.

Joined: Jan 2005
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Cat Servant
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Well, this isn't really 'fair,' since the house was built in 1957 .... but, here goes:

Found, in the past year, as remodelling progresses:
1) TO CODE, original: NO way to shut off power at the service. First opportunity after the meter is 20+ ft. inside house, as the panel;

2) REPAIR: attic fire damaged branch circuits, but somehow failed to damage the service. Branch circuits repaired with new wire and 'flying splices;'

3) Laundry room addition had extension cord disappear into the floor; under floor this was flying-spliced to some Romex, which fed an outdoor, handy-box receptacle;

4) Kitchen range circuit failed megger;

5) Added air conditioner circuit was Romex uside of flex where exposed; just Romex laying in the dirt of the crawl space for most of the run;

6) Air conditioner feed and dryer feed were triple-lugged onto the meter base;

7) For some unknown reason, virtually every receptacle had the drywall around it broken away, so that the faceplates did not cover the holes. Every (ungrounded) circuit had 3-prong receptacles; and,

8) No ground rod, and water bond missing (wire under house removed).



Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 1,803
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Previous owner had 'problems' with earth [ground] leaks tripping the supply, so he snipped through all the silly little green wires! That fixed it! Argghhh!


Wood work but can't!
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 1,803
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...upon investigation, my oldest son found the only earth [ground] wire in the house was actually....the telephone line coming in!


Wood work but can't!
Joined: Jul 2004
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My ground electrode was compromised too. The first night I was here I lit myself up on the electric cook top, standing barefoot on the terrazzo floor.

I found the ground rod clamp corroded almost off. I fixed it that night with a <YIKES> hose clamp and the next day I bought another rod a clamp and some 6ga wire.
I tightened up all the lugs and basically went over the whole service. That was when I noticed the separate service conductors were coming in their own 1/2" romex connector in the side of the panel.


Greg Fretwell
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 2,498
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A few weeks ago I read about a German guy who moved into a new flat. He set everything up and it seemed to work. After a while he wanted to move the coax to the TV and unplugged it. When he did, the TV lost power.

Upon closer investigation he discovered that the socket was earthed to the neutral (legal in Germany until 1973) but the previous tenant had managed to disconnect the neutral upstream of the socket (the feed was looped across the ceiling and when somebody took the ceiling light down, they broke the neutral connection). This had gone unnoticed, because the neutral terminal was connected to the earth terminal, and the earth wire from the plug was connected to the screen of the coax inside the TV (large class 1 plasma TV).

Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 806
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Range hood powered with zip cord scratched into the drywall and plastered over.

Front porch lights powered through a piece of bell wire.

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