Took a trouble call to a home with "a breaker that won't reset." Those always worry me because I wonder if the engine company will beat me in to the clients home. The bathroom fan light was wired with 14/2 NM. In order to provide continuous power to the receptacle by the basin the bare EGC had been sleeved at each end and used as a current carrying conductor. In order to ground the receptacle a single bare number sixteen wire had been run from the receptacle to the water pipe supplying the toilet. The receptacle outlet was a GFCI that had the supply wiring connected to the load terminals with the line terminals unused.

Of course the client was unhappy that I couldn't get it "working like before." I just told him that the wiring of that circuit almost arose to the level of attempted murder. If I can devise a way to fish it I will be pulling in new cable for the supply to the light / fan so that they can be individually switched. Wish me luck.
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Tom H

I have been on a few service calls to find that the eg of a 14-2 had been taped so it
could be a traveler on a 3-way circuit. It is hard to explain why you cant just change the brown switch to white without rewiring the circuit.

Tom, that is pretty extreme. Almost hard to believe someone when to that much trouble to devise something that risky. Did you by any chance take any pictures??

On an upgrade last Friday, I found an electric range and cooktop each fed by 14-2/G and the bare was used as the grounded conductor. Made the HO real happy when I told them I couldn't hook up the stove and it was going to cost more.

I went to a couple's house to rewire the ceiling fan in the bedroom. They were selling the place and the new owners had a home inspection done.

The inspector found the wire to the ceiling fan had a burnt place in it in the attic. The fan had been wired with 12-2 romex, but the light and fan were on seprate swithces. Whoever wired it used the ground as a hot wire, one of the staples in the attic had pierced the insulation in the wire and shorted to the neutral.

The rafter had a black charred place behind where the wire was. I pulled in a new 12-3 to the fan and told the homeowners just how lucky they really were that the house hadn't burned down.

Just curious how many of you have opened a 3 wire dryer or range outlet to find that the installer had "grounded" the neutral to the box! instead of wiring the outlet with the requisite 2 hots & a neutral... they thought it was 2 hots & a ground! I've found that at least 5 times! 4 of them were on service calls of a conduit arcing at the panel!!

-Randy

Quite a while ago......
Trouble call, 'funny smell' in a retail store
Had a thru-wall ac unit; put my hand on the EMT...it was hot (temp). Shut off AC; removed male cap, opened the 4" sq.
One conductor on the brass terminal of the recept; silver term had a short piece of #12 to a sht metal screw that also secured the box.

Guy said...it works fine, but occasionally it shuts down. Checked the EMT, ss conn were loose and had arc marks all over.

I went to the panel and cut the 120 feed (30 amp cb) Replaced the whole thing!

John

...Thats some "good stuff"..I recently responded to a call for ..."bathroom outlet quit working"..Opened up the box to find a metal 2-1/2"Gem box missing a side,and the wires brought in from there,as well as 2-Bx 14-2-wires,each conductor coming thru a different clamp knockout..NO GROUND at all..
Then to top it all off, the vanity light bar was wired to this same box..in 12-2 Rx,and again not grounded..the splices were horrific,and I asked the H.O. who had done this..?? "A handy-man" she replied.I then told her that it was a pretty big job to get this working correctly,and that because it (the outlet)was in tile,I would probably have to open the rear adjoining side of that wall in order to replace the broken box with one of more volume capacity, and terminate the wiring going into it properly...Her response..."It worked ALL these years,could it have started a fire"???I replied "Yes,and she's lucky her tenant wasn't injured,,or worse"....
Handy-men are my nemesis!!! They're like my arch enemies!! They have no business taking chances with other peoples safety and health!!
OK,I'm off my soap-box now..
Russ

I used to be one of those so called "handy men"...I, like those people you are refering to, used to attempt jobs that I had no business fooling with !...one in particular comes to mind as it was my only attempt at unqualified electrical work, but it's a doozie and anyone considering doing the same should beware !!!

The guy owned a gift shop downtown in a heavily populated strip on the main drag...lots of older buildings,and terrible electrical panels...anywho, they told me that they had bought several sticks of NEON from another store owner and would like it hung around the front of the building. Well, I knew everything so I said I could do it. I went to work that day by running down the street to see how others had their neon hung and went to get the needed supplies. I bought stand-offs, caps and wire. I began mounting the stand-offs (or insulators) and neon sticks, wired all of the sticks in series and capped the ends like the folks down the street. I must have made a mistake in measuring the needed wire to make the circuit because I found my self 3 feet short of the other side of the neon transformer which I mounted on the roof...in the open air...no overhead protection, box or insulation underneath. The owner stated that he had some more neon hook-up wire in the store and gave it to me along with a wire nut !!!
Well since I knew everything, I wire nutted the 3 foot piece of wire in and connected it to the transformer. I laid the wire on the old flat roof and went down to screw in the 60A fuse...waa-laa !!!...worked like a champ !!!...
Until the first rain storm...the owner called me and told me that during the day it rained, the neon was flickering and making a loud buzzing noise then just stopped working after about 4 hours !
I was in the area that day and stopped by to see the most incredible electrical display that I have ever seen...the bright blue and white light comming from the rooftop was amazing !...the wire had burned in half at the wire nut, (due most likely to the inch of water on the roof) and the wire end was arc welding what was then, a 6 inch hole into the top of his store !!! Thanks to the higher power of your choice, that place didn't burn to the ground and no one was injured. I learned alot that day and never forget to admit when I don't know what I'm doing...a lesson that could have killed someone !!!

Just a reminder to those who think they know "everything"...like I did..or in this case didn't ! How much will your next mistake cost ?

Be safe and work smart !!!

Mike

...Don't get me wrong,Mike,..being a handy man is a good job,and I'm sure there are many guys out there that could teach me a thing or two,..but the likes of this guy,and many more like him, that I've encountered drives me nuts..First, because it's dangerous to those who hire him,and secondly,it makes a real mess for me to clean up once he's gone and moved on to the next abortion..and try tellin' the H.O. that the guy they hired and paid good money to, almost cost them their homes,...or their lives,...and then, that you're gonna have to charge them a premium rate to undo the horrible spit and earwax job they already did and got paid for...It's a losing battle,..I always get the haggling and the passing of the buck,..It's enough to drive ya to drink!!
Russ

I do a lot of home inspector follow ups for realtors, so I see a lot of crazy stuff. Today was no exception as when I went to pull the bathroom GFCI to correct a reverse polarity I found the whole bathroom was wired with an old extension cord. At least they used a 3 wire 16 guage, the flat yellow kind. Maybe they thought the yellow made it 12 guage like the new romex. They tapped the bathroom behind it for power and ran to the GFCI, light over mirror, and fan.

Sorry no pictures. I had ldft my camera at home.
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Tom Horne

Well I managed to fish an entirely new supply to the receptacle. The fan light is now supplied by the original 14/2 WG cable from one switch.

Here is the kicker. The box that I fished the new supply from was a full inch back of the surface of the wall. So I put on box extenders to close the gaps but now the plate does not sit on the wall the same. The occupant is going to have the dry wall repaired but he was real upset that I couldn't put it back the way it was. I got a little snappish and said that the whole reason for having a box is to contain any sparking to it's interior and I was only trying to protect his family. I just can't win for loosing.
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Tom Horne

Well I managed to fish an entirely new supply to the receptacle. The fan light is now supplied by the original 14/2 WG cable from one switch.

Here is the kicker. The box that I fished the new supply from was a full inch back of the surface of the wall. So I put on box extenders to close the gaps but now the plate does not sit on the wall the same. The occupant is going to have the dry wall repaired but he was real upset that I couldn't put it back the way it was. I got a little snappish and said that the whole reason for having a box is to contain any sparking to it's interior and I was only trying to protect his family. I just can't win for loosing.
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Tom Horne

I once went to a service call, complaint was that every time they turned the new dryer on the lights house lights went out. When i opened the panel I could see why. the "maintenance" man that had wired the dryer had landed one of the #12's to a new 20a single pole breaker and the other to an existing 15a single pole with the lighting circuit. When the tenant asked him why the lights went out he told them it was because the dryer was new and because of that all the power would go to it first! Luckily, the tenants kept complaining to the property management company and they finally called us. We ended up rewiring the dryer, range and doing a service change. We also rewired a window AC receptacle to replace the 12-2 Romex run 1/2 way around and stapled to the outside of the house.