I hate people who do electrical wrong

[reader2580]

My house obviously had lots of electrical work done by someone who was not an electrician. My father was an electrician many years ago and he was shocked the house didn't burn down due to all the electrical issues. My father and I rewired half the house to make it safe.

This weekend I was trenching for my solar relocation in my gravel driveway and started next to a retaining wall. I finished the section of trench and noticed something gray in the end of the trench next to the retaining wall. I realized it was a piece of UF cable buried three or four inches deep! I barely nicked the insulation with the trencher.

WTF? Who buries UF cable only three or four inches deep in a driveway of all places? I am not sure what the cable is for as I have accounted for all underground utilities in my yard except for my well feed. It would make no sense for the well power to go that way as the well is on the opposite side of the house. My father thinks it might be an old feed to the garage. Every single circuit going to the panel in the house is labeled and accounted for so it is either abandoned or the well feed.

 

[theoldwizard1]

WTF? Who buries UF cable only three or four inches deep ...

10/3 in my sons back yard. My buddy stuck his shovel in the ground and got sparks and smoke ! Now his favorite shovel has a bit missing near the tip !

The garage was wired with what I believe was automotive "primary" wire just wrapped around the joists !

 

[tyme2par4]

Sounds like exactly what I have been dealing with. I have found numerous in wall junctions and the best was the connection for the range hood. There was just an outlet hanging inside the wall with a plug barely connected.
They also ran NM cable underground all around the front yard to random outlets that are just in outdoor boxes sitting on the ground. That circuit was a dead short before I even bought the house, so it got disconnected right away.

 

[yeldogt]

My current project -- unbelievable. I bought it around 15 years ago and we used it for a weekend place for about 7 years ... in limbo for about 6 years .... before we decided to keep and gut it.

Opening the walls -- now understand why I could never figure out the light switches. Buried flying splices all over the place.


Some he was nice enough to put in boxes -- most just taped. The guy that owned the property prior to us reconfigured it in stages .... Unbelievable ..... plaster walls , custom milled moldings .... taped buried wires

 

[Noltz]

Found yellow jacketed 12-2 in the backyard of a rental house once. Not in conduit. Through the garden.

 

[CoogarXR]

My current house had a piece of white romex sticking up out of a round hole in the sidewalk. I assume it was an old lamp post. The other end was cut off in the basement, thank goodness.

The house before this one had the exact same situation, except the white romex laying on the sidewalk was LIVE.

 

[nadogail]

IMHO, every one of us, before we learned to do better, as done things that we are not proud of. That includes my self.

Let the person who has never screwed something up, cast the first stone.

 

[Shiftless]

IMHO, every one of us, before we learned to do better, as done things that we are not proud of. That includes my self.

Let the person who has never screwed something up, cast the first stone.

Well said!

 

[Jim greengo]

I dont know,some of us have managed to make a pretty good living over the years fixing the screw ups of wanna be hacks.
Just saying.

 

[pr3dict]

I was adding an outlet to my basement and there was a metal junction box that was added by the previous homeowner that T'd off a line to make lights int he kitchen. Well (My fault I guess) but I went to open the box and I got shocked when I grabbed it. The wire nut holding the ground wire to the ground feed somehow got loose but I don't remember why it was energized in the first place. I was pissed but also happy I found it instead of someone else in the future.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Found yellow jacketed 12-2 in the backyard of a rental house once. Not in conduit. Through the garden.

conduit would not have made it any better.

I don't know, some of us have managed to make a pretty good living over the years fixing the screw ups of wannabe hacks.
Just saying.

 

[PelicanPines]

One of my old houses... was hacked by an elevator repair guy... ran three conductor everywhere... electrified both red and black... then snipped the live red at the EDGE of the metal box... leaving it wired to a breaker...

I was moving an outlet... breaker was OFF for the exposed black that was wired to the receptacle.

Needed to shorten the BX, armored cable... that I thought was TWO conductor...

Sawing thru the BX... holding the actively grounded armor shield... BANG, across my chest...

I've been zap'd on a finger... no issue... get 120v across your chest and you don't realize you are being electrocuted... hurts.

 

[acer66]

The worst thing I remember seeing was when someone used 14/2 nm for a 3 way switch wiring.
They used the ground as a traveler and if that was not already bad enough,
instead of using a j box to splice the nm in the run the nm came out of the drywall
and was sorta mid air connected with wire nuts at around 6’ off the ground with the bare ground fully exposed.

 

[1Garageman]

I almost $hit my pants on this one.................

My old house had a 60amp main breaker box in it. Had one open spot for a breaker. I had my neighbor come over and put a 20amp breaker in there for the garage. So he turns the main breaker off, puts the breaker in there and then he notices the the top right hand screw isn't in there to hold the outer cover of the breaker panel. So he sees the screw laying on top of the breaker box, starts screwing it in there and............................................................................................................................................... BOOMB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That screw hit alive line, black wire, to one of the breakers going into the box!!!!!!!!!!! Big spark, total darkness, I thought he was dead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

about 10 seconds later, I hear, "Well I guess I know why they left that screw out of the panel!".

 

[Innovate1]

Years ago I helped my sister with an old house that had been added to. It had three fuse boxes side by side. Never really thought about it but each one was independent - no fuses in one box to feed the other boxes. The meter was on the other side of the wall. When we took the building down we found a big splice for the incoming feed in the wall where it broke out to each fuse box. Just clamps and tape buried in the wall behind the fuse boxes.

 

[exranger06]

Whoever remodeled my kitchen (when the previous homeowners lived here) hacked the **** out of the wiring. I was replacing a light switch, which I thought was mounted in a single-gang box. As soon as I removed the cover, I see that it's actually a 2-gang box, and they drywalled and tiled over the other gang.

They didn't even try securing one outlet box to the wall. The wall was sandwiched between the box and the tabs on the outlet, and that was the only thing holding the box up.

The microwave circuit is a mess: PVC conduit running from the panel, across the exterior back wall of the house (which is sagging and looks like ****), to an LB outside the kitchen. They used THHN wire in the conduit. They used an orange wire for the neutral, and one or more of those wires are also 14 gauge; I can't remember. (This is a 20 amp circuit). They then spliced 14 gauge Romex inside the LB and ran that to the microwave outlet. And they didn't bother connecting the ground wire to the outlet, presumably because it's mounted in a metal box. Except the outlet is NOT self-grounding.

There are 4 under-cabinet fluorescent fixtures (which I never even use; I should just rip them all out), which they connected to the closest outlet (lighting on a SABC is against code). And they used 14 gauge for the fixtures (20 amp circuits. At least they used 12 gauge for the outlets).

The dishwasher and garbage disposal (both hardwired) are also on a SABC.

There's a junction box on the floor right underneath the dishwasher. You have to remove the dishwasher in order to access it. Not sure if that qualifies as "accessible," but definitely doesn't sit right with me and I'll be fixing that.

There was one outlet box that had its box fill exceeded (duplex outlet and x3 12/2 NM cables in an 18 cu. in. box), although that was the guy who installed it when the house was new. I found three more boxes like that in my basement. I installed a Wiremold "starter" box on it to give it some more volume. It's a cheesy repair, but it doesn't look too bad and at least it's up to code.

 

[nadogail]

Whoever remodeled my kitchen (when the previous homeowners lived here) hacked the **** out of the wiring. I was replacing a light switch, which I thought was mounted in a single-gang box. As soon as I removed the cover, I see that it's actually a 2-gang box, and they drywalled and tiled over the other gang.

They didn't even try securing one outlet box to the wall. The wall was sandwiched between the box and the tabs on the outlet, and that was the only thing holding the box up.

The microwave circuit is a mess: PVC conduit running from the panel, across the exterior back wall of the house (which is sagging and looks like ****), to an LB outside the kitchen. They used THHN wire in the conduit. They used an orange wire for the neutral, and one or more of those wires are also 14 gauge; I can't remember. (This is a 20 amp circuit). They then spliced 14 gauge Romex inside the LB and ran that to the microwave outlet. And they didn't bother connecting the ground wire to the outlet, presumably because it's mounted in a metal box. Except the outlet is NOT self-grounding.

There are 4 under-cabinet fluorescent fixtures (which I never even use; I should just rip them all out), which they connected to the closest outlet (lighting on a SABC is against code). And they used 14 gauge for the fixtures (20 amp circuits. At least they used 12 gauge for the outlets).

The dishwasher and garbage disposal (both hardwired) are also on a SABC.

There's a junction box on the floor right underneath the dishwasher. You have to remove the dishwasher in order to access it. Not sure if that qualifies as "accessible," but definitely doesn't sit right with me and I'll be fixing that.

There was one outlet box that had its box fill exceeded (duplex outlet and x3 12/2 NM cables in an 18 cu. in. box), although that was the guy who installed it when the house was new. I found three more boxes like that in my basement. I installed a Wiremold "starter" box on it to give it some more volume. It's a cheesy repair, but it doesn't look too bad and at least it's up to code.

this sounds like somebody was trying to get the job done at the lowest possible cost with materials that might be "good enough".

 

[Zeke]

IMHO, every one of us, before we learned to do better, as done things that we are not proud of. That includes my self.

Let the person who has never screwed something up, cast the first stone.

IDK about that. I think most of those that didn't have a clue when they attempted electrical work got woken up one way or another at some point.

When you get bit for the first time all of a sudden you get a lot smarter if you're still around to think about it.

Way way back when, I mean easily 50 years ago (I was 25) I had some jerk come out to add a circuit so my only switched garage overhead light so I could have a constant hot for a GD opener. Since everything was in ridged, he simply cut one of the switch legs, tied it to hot in the switchbox and used the conduit for the neutral!!

He could have pulled a new wire and ran a new hot to the overhead box, however he seemed to realize I knew nothing so he pulled off this trick on me, took my money and disappeared. Imagine my frightfulness when I realized I was running around in the garage in bare feet using that switch! It must have had a plastic plate or I'd have been in real deep ****. Thankfully I managed to avoid hanging onto that conduit under adverse conditions as the walls were open.

Some 10 years later I moved away from house painting and took a general contractor's test. I had to know some electrical to pass that. So that was 40 years ago. About 20 years ago I began to earnestly study electrical code and worked my way into the trade as a adjunct to general contracting.

I still hire electricians for a lot of the work. And that's the thing: if you're gonna do homeowner electrical you should know an electrician you can call. We all know that there are many parts of this country where inspections are sparse. You can't count on an inspector to make sure.

BTW, I had a real sparky come in and do the whole garage when I needed to start adding lights and outlets. I started to learn right then and there but had a LONG way to go.

It's what you think you know when you don't know that will kill you.

 

[Ilikeike]

My house obviously had lots of electrical work done by someone who was not an electrician. My father was an electrician many years ago and he was shocked the house didn't burn down due to all the electrical issues. My father and I rewired half the house to make it safe.

This weekend I was trenching for my solar relocation in my gravel driveway and started next to a retaining wall. I finished the section of trench and noticed something gray in the end of the trench next to the retaining wall. I realized it was a piece of UF cable buried three or four inches deep! I barely nicked the insulation with the trencher.

WTF? Who buries UF cable only three or four inches deep in a driveway of all places? I am not sure what the cable is for as I have accounted for all underground utilities in my yard except for my well feed. It would make no sense for the well power to go that way as the well is on the opposite side of the house. My father thinks it might be an old feed to the garage. Every single circuit going to the panel in the house is labeled and accounted for so it is either abandoned or the well feed.

Well, is it Hot ?

I'd want it out.

And you have a trencher to do it right if it's something you need.
I'd trace it if it's live.

 

[tonyciambrone]

IMHO, every one of us, before we learned to do better, as done things that we are not proud of. That includes my self.

Let the person who has never screwed something up, cast the first stone.

There's a lot of people out there doing things they know are wrong, and pride never enters the equation. That kind of stuff I will freely pass judgement on

 

[Jim greengo]

The worst thing I remember seeing was when someone used 14/2 nm for a 3 way switch wiring.
They used the ground as a traveler and if that was not already bad enough,
instead of using a j box to splice the nm in the run the nm came out of the drywall
and was sorta mid air connected with wire nuts at around 6’ off the ground with the bare ground fully exposed.

California 3way.

 

[Jim greengo]

I almost $hit my pants on this one.................

My old house had a 60amp main breaker box in it. Had one open spot for a breaker. I had my neighbor come over and put a 20amp breaker in there for the garage. So he turns the main breaker off, puts the breaker in there and then he notices the the top right hand screw isn't in there to hold the outer cover of the breaker panel. So he sees the screw laying on top of the breaker box, starts screwing it in there and............................................................................................................................................... BOOMB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That screw hit alive line, black wire, to one of the breakers going into the box!!!!!!!!!!! Big spark, total darkness, I thought he was dead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

about 10 seconds later, I hear, "Well I guess I know why they left that screw out of the panel!".

Been there,done that!

 

[Jim greengo]

IMHO, every one of us, before we learned to do better, as done things that we are not proud of. That includes my self.

Let the person who has never screwed something up, cast the first stone.

I have no problem with people learning on their own stuff,its the craigslist hacks learning on other people's stuff I have problems with.

 

[andyvh1959]

Right. I bought my current house without an Home Inspector report. This is my 3rd house I've owned, and I've done wiring, plumbing, roofing, framing, concrete, etc on both previous homes. Not claiming I'm any kind of contractor, but both previous homes sold with no issues. This home, did my own inspection, and I found a bunch of stuff that would have kept the home sales from going through. So I lowered the offer accordingly and got the home. I was told by the original owners, their uncle was an electrician so he did the wiring. Yeah right, I found live unended, non boxed wires under the south and west decks, and other examples of less than "professional" wiring in the house.

But then, before my brother sold our parent's house, I repaired/corrected 75 items of my dad's wiring projects to get the house ready for inspection. Dad simply would not spend the bucks for an electrical box, or covers, clamps, etc. Nothing ever burned down, but it wasn't near code. I did too, get one hell of a shock correcting some wiring in an oversize double deep junction box. My brother had turned off all the breakers I thought was on the circuits I was working. Not so, got a jolt that made me hum.

 

[MikeF2316]

The main lights in my basement were wired by the previous owner of my house. There was a switch at the top of the stairs that was a switch loop. There were (still are) 5 cans across the front of the basement. The breaker box is on the far side of the basement, close to can #5, so that's where the power feed is connected. All cabling is 14/2, can #5 to can #4 to can #3 to can #2 to can #1 to the switch. Those of you who've done this kind of circuit know that the mid span cables need to be 3 conductor for this to work. So an additional wire was added, a wire that normally would be used in conduit. But these wires were not run beside the original cables, they took a completely different path from light to light!

At least he didn't use the grounds as current carrying conductors!

 

[reader2580]

Well, is it Hot ?

I'd want it out.

And you have a trencher to do it right if it's something you need.
I'd trace it if it's live.

It turns out the cable was cut off. My father was helping me today and pulled on the cable to try and move it out of the way and the cut end pulled out. It was still buried way too shallow.

I didn't try to fix it when I had the trencher rental as it was already well after dark on Sunday when the cable got exposed. At the time I didn't know if the cable was live or what it might go to. It is pretty hard to make a game plan on the fly to replace a cable that you have no idea what it even powers.

 

[Miss the Pontiacs]

Reader you beat me to it. I was thinking it might be a piece of scrap cable that did not male it to the recycle bin. When tearing down our old cabin there was something that looked like a kinked up piece of cable. Actually it was a length of 1/2’ copper that somehow was backfilled in the dirt when the addition was built.

 

[reader2580]

I do pretty much all of my own electrical work, but I research the heck out of everything to make sure I am following code and doing things right. I get permits and have my work inspected. I haven't failed an inspection yet.

I read the NEC code book to make sure I am doing things to code. I refuse to cheap out on electrical parts and I buy the right parts. I don't do hack things like do installs without electrical boxes to save a few bucks. I trench underground utilities to the right depth instead of burying the cable a few inches deep like I found recently. I even use the red caution buried wire tape that code requires.

 

[reader2580]

Reader you beat me to it. I was thinking it might be a piece of scrap cable that did not male it to the recycle bin. When tearing down our old cabin there was something that looked like a kinked up piece of cable. Actually it was a length of 1/2’ copper that somehow was backfilled in the dirt when the addition was built.

It was only cut on one end. Part of the cable was under a 3x3 concrete slab I removed so I am pretty sure it was really only buried a few inches deep.

 

[b-boy]

What about this one? It was buried under a ceiling in my basement. The 2 wires that are 'plugged in' were powering about a dozen outlets.

Add to that 4 live wires that were clipped and stuffed back up into the metal grid drop ceiling and you have yourself a real party. Every time I took out a ceiling panel, live wires would drop down like cobras, ready to strike.

 

[CoogarXR]

^^ I've heard of a back-stabbed outlet, but that's the first front-stab I've seen!

 

[b-boy]

^^ I've heard of a back-stabbed outlet, but that's the first front-stab I've seen!

At least they got the polarity correct.

 

[WisJim]

One of my sons bought a house and discovered that a stairway light didn't work. My wife was helping clean up and when the vacuum cleaner was as plugged into the receptacle on the landing, the light came on when the vacuum was switched on.

 

[JP Chestnut]

IMHO, every one of us, before we learned to do better, as done things that we are not proud of. That includes my self.

Let the person who has never screwed something up, cast the first stone.

I’ve screwed up plenty of stuff, but nothing that would kill the next guy to touch it. If it’s that critical and I don’t know exactly how to do it, I don’t.

 

[nh_yota]

WTF? Who buries UF cable only three or four inches deep in a driveway of all places?

My dad and me, at least not in a driveway. His excuse? "You and I are the only people who dig in this yard and we both know where the wires are buried."

His houses have always been out in the woods with lots of trees and shrubs around so digging trenches by hand is hard work and he's not going to rent a trencher. The most we have ever buried was 12/2 UF for lights and outlets around the yard, not a feeder for a garage or shop.

When he had the new addition/septic/well installed 10 years ago he had our excavation guy bury some extra runs of black irrigation pipe (they use it for well plumbing and conduit around here) so we re-ran UF through that and pulled up the shallow stuff. Hell that's better than most people do out in the country.

 

[ddurrett896]

IMHO, every one of us, before we learned to do better, as done things that we are not proud of. That includes my self.

Let the person who has never screwed something up, cast the first stone.

Not proud of something is like cutting a 45 degree angle for basedboard in an old house and caulking it to make up the difference, not burying a junction in a wall. Totally different.

 

[nadogail]

IMHO, every one of us, before we learned to do better, has done things that we are not proud of. That includes my self.

Let the person who has never screwed something up, cast the first stone.

I was referring to the many times I thought I was doing jobs correctly, but was ignorant of the proper way to do them.

I am still adding to my education.

 

[acer66]

California 3way.

Good one, that was in Los Angeles.

 

[tdkkart]

One of my sons bought a house and discovered that a stairway light didn't work. My wife was helping clean up and when the vacuum cleaner was as plugged into the receptacle on the landing, the light came on when the vacuum was switched on.

Well, see, it did too work.......

 

[tdkkart]

One of my sons bought a house and discovered that a stairway light didn't work. My wife was helping clean up and when the vacuum cleaner was as plugged into the receptacle on the landing, the light came on when the vacuum was switched on.

Well, see, it did too work.......