[seephor]

As I finish my 10 year remodel (you know how it goes...). I'm slowly fixing electrical errors as I go. The worst issues I had found so far were plastered in outlets, FLEX conduit cut in half and the conductors connected with wire nuts and tucked between joists not taking into account this house uses the conduits as the ground therefore losing ground down circuit, live exposed wires in conduit resting on earth in the crawlspace, etc..

Today I was working on cleaning up the wiring in the kitchen attic space where they basically busted the ceiling box up into the attic and pigtailed wires into a can light leaving everything exposed. While I was moving around up there, I moved one of the FLEX conduits and saw a spark. Thankfully the breaker tripped so I went to see what had happened.

I found the idiots had connected the green ground wire that attaches to the body of the can light to the HOT wire! This whole time the body of the can light had been hot. The only reason it didn't trip the breaker is because the can body was not touching a ground point, until I moved the FLEX and made contact! I could not believe it. I should have taken a photo but I quickly corrected it temporarily until I can get back up there with a new box and clean it up. This one takes the cake. Glad I had been changing the bulbs in the light and not my wife.

 

[Windows on Wash]

Good Lawd. Thankfully you found it.

 

[Yodaman]

The house sounds like a candidate for immediate and total re-wire. People who have no business even touching a wire do some scary things with their home's electrical. They assume that as long as it works, everything is OK.


Glad you found some of it before something bad happened. But sure makes you wonder how many you haven't run across yet.

 

[BigJim]

I was helping a friend locate a 220 line in an outside whole house breaker box. The guy who lived there before had a camper parked next to the box and used it for power. The plug was legged off the whole house breaker box. We looked in the box and he had for some reason hooked that 220 plug up as a 110, he was using a red wire for a ground.

We pulled the entire plug wire and all out of there. His neighbor is an electrician so I left that alone and let him take care of it.

It is unreal for some things people, who have no clue, do which is really a bad idea especially with electricity.

 

[seephor]

I was helping a friend locate a 220 line in an outside whole house breaker box. The guy who lived there before had a camper parked next to the box and used it for power. The plug was legged off the whole house breaker box. We looked in the box and he had for some reason hooked that 220 plug up as a 110, he was using a red wire for a ground.

We pulled the entire plug wire and all out of there. His neighbor is an electrician so I left that alone and let him take care of it.

It is unreal for some things people, who have no clue, do which is really a bad idea especially with electricity.

That’s scary like my situation where a safety feature such as grounding is misused to cause a safety hazard.

Thankfully this kitchen is the last of the remodel so once I fix this, I’m confident the remaining wiring is safe. All the exterior facing walls were deplastered to install insulation and I took the time to inspect and correct electrical as I went.

 

[chandler48]

You find all sorts of violations in houses when remodeling. I've posted it before, but bears repeating. You can over capacity a box when you're not careful, or just stupid. There are 9 cables entering this round jbox. None of the wires were capped, just twisted and taped, and no cover. Scared the bejeebers out of me.

 

[Yodaman]

Found both of these splices in a crawl space, buried under the insulation. No boxes for either.