Ever run into bad house wiring?

[ctfjr]

We went over to a friend's house to watch a basketball game today. While there he mentioned that the entryway ceiling light was out. He had already changed the switch but no love.
So I climbed up on his shitty stepstool and took down the fixture.
I would have taken a pic but was not too steady on that creaky thing. The previous homeowner had apparently installed it (at least 20 years ago). The wire connections were just overlapping bare conductors wrapped with duct tape. wtf? duct tape?
It took 20+ years until one of the conductors actually pulled free of the tape. There were scorch marks where it must have arced as it separated.
Just damn lucky it separated quickly or could have been a sad story.

Anybody else run into truly dangerous wiring?

 

[Lil Foot]

My first house, (1971 built, 4bdrm, 2 bath, block home) was wired with aluminum wiring. I bought it in 1976, and then started hearing about all the aluminum wiring problems. Occasionally, you would plug in an appliance, and you could feel the outlet was warm. Aluminum wiring expanded & contracted with load, causing connections to loosen, increasing resistance. There were also electrolysis problems with dissimilar metals. A couple homes in the subdivision actually burned down because of aluminum wiring.

I talked to a couple experts, and remedied the problems. I put copper pigtails at each connection, (outlet, switch, fixture, whatever) and used special Cu to Al wire nuts, which were also filled with an anti-electrolysis grease. Lived there 13 yrs with no problems at all.

Just to highlight how things have changed, that house was valued at $47.5K, there was $22.5K left on the mortgage, and I gave the guy $1000 cash, and paid the closing costs, $322.
Payments ran from $226/mo to $278/mo.
Sold it 13 yrs later for $56K.

 

[Daren Todd]

The old lady that used to own our place had a son who was a "not so handy" handy man.

After moving in, I had some electrical issues one of the light fixtures. Climbed up in the attic and traced the wiring. Found a bare splice in the attic where the wires were just twisted together.

Started looking around and found more connections like this.

Had to run to one of the big box stores. Got a case of junction boxes and lids. As well as a jug of wire nuts and romex connectors. I then spent about 4hrs in the attic installing junction boxes and splicing the connections together properly.

None of the lights had mounting boxes either. So as light fixtures got replaced, I installed cut in boxes, and then mounted the lights. Installed supports where needed as well.

All the three way switches in the house were out of sync as well.

Ceiling fans were just attached using anchors. Only thing supporting the fans was the drywall.

 

[kubotafreak]

Had an open neutral show up. Odd run of outlets, but long story short, one never got the screwed down. Took 24 years to rear its head. Same circuit as garage so had plenty of load over the years. Scorched the copper and outlet. A testimate to copper wire, and good wall boxes. Simple easy repair. Just crazy it took so long to let go….

 

[jimh406]

I was going to move a 220V plug in my garage and reuse the wire in my garage.

So, I took off the sheetrock and peg board that was covering it since it was unfinished in any case. It was a 30 amp circuit with 14 gauge wire. It was between the sheetrock and insulation. Both were scorched black. Needless to say, I had to go to the store to buy some appropriate wire.

 

[torch]

My first house. I was crawling around in the attic (running wire for the TV antenna rotor -- remember those? <lol>) and burned my hand on something under the insulation. When I lifted the insulation I found a length of lamp cord spliced into some old cloth-covered wire. It was powering half the house. Turns out the whole place was riddled with aluminium wire, old wire, open splices, etc. etc. etc. There was a 200 amp service and panel coming in -- must have been added at the same time as the electric baseboard heaters. That fed the baseboards, the hot water heater and the original 6 fuse 50amp panel above the kitchen ceiling. One fuse for the well pump, one for the garage, one for the front half of the house and one for the back half. The final pair fed the stove.

I bought a copy of the "Guide to the Ontario Electrical Code" and started pulling new wire. That's how I found out the walls were insulated with old newspapers....

 

[lynnmor]

My first house. I was crawling around in the attic (running wire for the TV antenna rotor -- remember those? <lol>)

Yes, I still use one because they are more useful than ever. Today, most people have no clue that TV is available for free and think it is necessary to fork over money to the cable company.

 

[torch]

Today, most people have no clue that TV is available for free

If you live close enough to a transmitter. When they switched to the lower-powered digital system, we lost our 3 channels. It was satellite or nothing.

 

[Biker1mike]

Found a 1/2 inch bolt used as a fuse in a 30 amp breaker. Guess first owner did not want the breaker to trip.
Had electrician put in a larger breaker box and added circuits to ease over loading.

 

[leveraddict]

FIL's house had all two prong outlets! He had adapters everywhere! After his passing a daughter purchased the house. We found out the house was built with two wire cable and ground wire, but the original (cheap) owner used two prong outlets??? Probably had them from saved projects and too cheap to buy new ones??? Go figure!

 

[Daren Todd]

FIL's house had all two prong outlets! He had adapters everywhere! After his passing a daughter purchased the house. We found out the house was built with two wire cable and ground wire, but the original (cheap) owner used two prong outlets??? Probably had them from saved projects and too cheap to buy new ones??? Go figure!

Thankfully it's cheap enough to go through the house and update all the outlets. Just time consuming.

 

[fried1765]

FIL's house had all two prong outlets! He had adapters everywhere! After his passing a daughter purchased the house. We found out the house was built with two wire cable and ground wire, but the original (cheap) owner used two prong outlets??? Probably had them from saved projects and too cheap to buy new ones??? Go figure!

My 292 year old house has many two pronged outlets that were installed in the 40's.
Old style Romex and some BX,....... and I do worry a bit about the old style Romex.
The house is definitely not mousie proof, and it attracts lots of mousies in the Winter.
I do try to keep them well fed though.
I do not live there in Winter.

 

[nbking]

Had a weird problem, never got figured out. I can have multiple things running AC, dryer, etc. Turn on the spa jets fine, turn on the spa heat the main 200 amp breaker will trip not immediately but say trying to warm it up. The breaker for the spa will be warm and the main too. So if only the spa is on jets and heat it runs all day no problem. I thought just had too much stuff on and pulling too many amps. But have just been living with it. If we wanna get in the spa, cant have anything else running, but with the spa heat off, can have everything else running.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

friend had whole house rewired, PRO company, $$$$ spent...
3 months later ,it took me 2 hrs to finally figure out why the upstairs hall + bathroom lights ,were, 'funny'....

re: Thankfully it's cheap enough to go through the house and update all the outlets. Just time consuming.

no.. you also MUST rewire with 14/2..gotta have GROUND wire on 3 pin receptacles.

I passed on buying a house because 'all new wiring' was just new receptacles. My $6 tester proved that PDQ.

 

[Bmyers]

Yes. Our house is old enough that it has pictures of it in the Village museum.

Our house and garage has provided lots of challenges and we are still working on correcting them a little at time. The first thing we found was when we had to replace the sewer line, that there was a driveway that use to run into the basement. We found that out while digging up the to get to the sewer line. An older town resident stopped and told us that there was driveway (which also explained why we were fighting water in that part of the basement all the time). Years ago the previous owner had just bricked up the entrance to the basement and brought in a bunch of dirt. We busted that out, replaced the line and it also corrected the water issue.

When the main sewer line was being replaced, we found that our garage had a sewer line and water lines ran to it. We had no idea, because we haven't seen any drains our water lines in there. Although doing research our garage was at one time a show repair shop, a sewing machine repair shop, and hair saloon, which we found all that out from pictures in the museum.

In our downstairs shower, was looking up and noticed that there was a junction box, no lid, and that the wires were just twisted together. Needless to say having a junction box uncovered above your shower, isn't the best location, so that has been corrected.

All the outside lights were just screwed to the outside walls, no boxes, and the wires twisted together with tape. We have replaced those all and added boxes.

We have five switches in the house that we have no idea where they go to and currently they have no power on them. Some day we will eventually track down the wires and see where they lead.

In the garage we have four outlets with no power

When we replaced our water heater, the piping was never glued together, just stuck together. Thankfully, it never leaked.

As we have been upgrading various parts through the house, we have found that nothing has a ground wire. So, we have been replacing our outlets to GFCI to meet code without having to run all new wire through the house.

 

[85Hokie]

I had a house many years ago --- in one of my son's bedroom, and entire wall of outlets were out all of sudden, when through all the simple things..........

pulled cover plates, pulled receptacle's and could find no problems ............. other than the electrician USED the @#$#@$@# quick attach holes on the back.......


took me a while........... but found that an OUTLET in the living room was the beginning of the run, and the neutral wire had oxidized in the #$@##$#@ hole........

whoever thinks that is a good idea should be beachslapped..............

I teach household electrical wiring .......... I explain that single little point of contact like this :

you are hanging off a cliff ready to fall, would you rather me grab your finger or your whole arm????

the tangent point inside of those duplexes are so small that ANY corrosion will lead to problems!

I love the "new" duplexes that have the straight wire connection plates - cost more, but damn it is simple and just as good as wrapping a screw if done correctly.

 

[PoTreeBoy]

After we bought the house, we noticed that the bathroom vent fan would slow down for about a minute, speed back up for about a minute, repeat. I found the wires had been bent around the screw, but the screws were never tightened.
After that, I checked every device. About half had never been tightened and had been that way since the house was built 8 years earlier.

 

[bird dogger]

I was asked to help troubleshoot a baseboard heater that had been added to a room and quit working. Upon opening the junction box to check for power, the trouble was easy to spot! There was power present. But the wires hadn't even been twisted together. Nor were any wire nuts used. They had been paired up and each pair wrapped with a single "Band-Aid". After heating up a few times the Band-Aids had stretched until one pair of wires separated.

 

[Lil Foot]

My FIL's house has two prong sockets, but he was converting them to 3 prong outlets whenever he had time and could find used 3 prong outlets. (he was cheap)
Turns out he was just replacing 2 prong outlets with 3 prong outlets. Nothing else, just swapping outlets.

 

[motionclone]

I still occasionally see knob and tube wiring in some old houses and ive seen where new romex was spliced off the knob and tube to feed something new.

And then theres this: