Is There An Electrician in the House?

Arthur Shapiro · 2006-12-20T19:38:59+00:00

I knew I had a problem yesterday morning when the furnace didn't come on at the usual 6:30 time where it progresses from the thermostat's nighttime setting into the waking time setting.Investigation revealed about half the house was without power, and half normal. I quickly ran extension cords to power the critical items (furnace, refrigerator, computer) to working outlets. Clearly one leg of the 120v supply was out. After cycling all the breakers, including the master, without success I decided it was time to pick an electrician out of the phone book, and the firm promised someone within an hour.While waiting outside for the electrician, a neighbor came out with exactly the same complaint. I knew then that it was a utility company problem, but having commited to the service call decided there was no harm other than a few $$$ in having the issue confirmed. (Turned out to be a burnt wire in an underground connection vault, and it took them until 10:30 in the evening to restore full power.)The gentleman was quickly able to confirm my hypothesis, but then pointed out some alleged issues in my breaker box. I personally choose not to fool with breaker boxes, other than tightening the screws on the blasted aluminum wire once every year or so; I'm comfortable with wiring and conduit manipulation and the like, but feel breaker boxes are left to pros.He pointed out one breaker which had two wires going into it. Being copper, I knew this was a circuit I had had (professionally) added in the past, but being on the nonfunctional leg neither he nor I could determine what was being powered from this breaker. He claimed that was highly dangerous. Now that I have power again, I'll be able to ascertain what's being powered from that breaker, but my question is: is this automatically a Highly Bad Thing, or are there instances where two wires into one breaker is a legitimate installation? He wanted $450 to correct this, which given the triviality of snapping two breakers...

Dec 20, 2006 140 Replies

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Jim Redelfs 19 years ago

Given his words,a verification of his service record, to some degree a matter of PUBLIC record, would convince a reasonable person of his veracity.

Of course, I am convinced that no manner or degree of corroboration and/or authentic documentation would shake your stance. For you, I could probably not produce adequate proof that the earth is not flat. Yours is an unfortunate demeanor.

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