There is a glass mesh tubular braid slip-on wire insulation that appliance part stores sell.
An electrician on this forum came up with the idea.
An electrician on this forum came up with the idea.
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Yep, that's the first thing I did.
I know, that's mostly why I posted this thread. I know I could redo it and get it to work, but it might not be the safest or even easiest way.
Like I said, the home was built in the late 60's early-mid 70's and I've done other electrical work in the house, even in the kitchen installing GFCI outlets and this is the first time I've ran into this problem. The fixture is old, probably like the one that came with the house old. :laughing: It's rated for 75watts or lower and it had two 75's in it when I took it down. But it's very possible that it got warm up there once or twice over the years.
I'm pretty confident in my ability. I've done a fair amount of work in the past, but I'm hoping that it won't go deep enough to have to call a pro
Full Size Picture
You can see the three cables coming in there and all the grounds tied together. You can also see some of the insulation chipped away on the black wire that is in the bottom left of the picture and that is the wire that used to go down to the fixture. Also, I know that the box is broken on the side there and I planned on replacing it when I climbed up to do the wire work.
Heheh.. good to know. Without knowing your level of skill it's hard to know if you mean 2-wire [+G] or just 2 wires.
Wanted to make sure we're on the same page. (BTW - Like my tag says, I'm just a DIY'r, not an electrician, so some of the other guys may have better advice..)Yeah, definitely replace the old box and secure the cables properly. If you use a metal box, then also connect it to the grounds using an approved bonding screw. (Not sure if the bond screw on the fixture's bracket, if it exists, would meet the requirement.. hmm..)
The black conductor in the lower-left: you said that was wired to the fixture -- it's hard to tell, but it comes out of the "romex" (or whatever brand of NM) in the lower-left, outside of the pic? If the sheath of that cable is stripped outside of the box, that has to be fixed too. IIRC you need 1/4" - 1/2" of a cable's sheath extending into a box.
Because of that, you can't just re-insulate the conductor.
If you have some slack on that cable, you could pull it into the jbox so that you can cut away the damaged wire/insulation, re-strip, reconnect and you're done.
[Woops, just wrote another paragraph and then realized you said that the attic is right above there].
From above, you can just cut the damaged wire back a bit (1 ft, 3 ft, whatever). Run that old wire into a new jbox, and run new NM-B from the new jbox to the fixture's box. Connect black-black, white-white, gnd-gnd-box in the new box, and you're back to normal.
Oh, and from the looks of it that's a switch leg (?) and the white conductor is hot too -- if so the conductor should be marked with a color other than green anywhere it's visible in a box (using a sharpie or electrical tape).
BTW - I'm not old enough to remember those crimp-style wire connections. I assume they had plastic covers and looked like wire nuts before you started messing around?
Yes, that black wire comes right out of the cable.Heheh.. good to know. Without knowing your level of skill it's hard to know if you mean 2-wire [+G] or just 2 wires.
Yeah, definitely replace the old box and secure the cables properly. If you use a metal box, then also connect it to the grounds using an approved bonding screw. (Not sure if the bond screw on the fixture's bracket, if it exists, would meet the requirement.. hmm..)
The black conductor in the lower-left: you said that was wired to the fixture -- it's hard to tell, but it comes out of the "romex" (or whatever brand of NM) in the lower-left, outside of the pic? If the sheath of that cable is stripped outside of the box, that has to be fixed too. IIRC you need 1/4" - 1/2" of a cable's sheath extending into a box.
I'm not too familiar with the names for wiring configurations really, but I'll test them before I start ripping them apart and see what's what.
No, actually this is exactly how I found it, minus the e-tape that I wrapped around the wires. I've seen similar crimped copper cuffs around other parts of the house too and you can still buy them!
Yeah, I'm surprised too. Like I said earlier, I've torn apart other parts of the house and all the rest of the wires were fine. You can tell in the picture that the insulation is right up against the box (something else I'll fix while I'm up there). Maybe that has something to do with it? I have no idea.
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So, it sounds like cutting back the cable to a point and feeding into a J-box above with some new NB and a new fixture box is probably the safest, best way to go. Thanks for everyone's input! Very helpful! :yes:
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