Time to break out the assault rifle!

[Eigenvector]

I continue to be depressed and angered by the "quality" electrical work done on this house.

The outlet that I was working on because it stuck out from the wall, uncovered even more quality work. Here, I'll showcase it below.

Who need's an outlet box?

Oh, there is one in there. What quality construction. Mind you this is ORIGINAL work - as in the contractor did this. Wonderful, stablock components to top it off! I removed it and wirenutted the circuit closed until I can fix it. Preferably after the Christmas vacation. By the way, ALL the outlets in my house are on a single 15A circuit - that's nice to know.

I have a long long battle ahead of me. Update the panel to 200A service, once I get a larger panel, re-wire house separating the circuits out, re-wire the oven circuit, re-wire the dryer circuit, re-wire the.....

[Speedy Jim]

LOL (not funny for you, I suppose...) Great pics of the "deed" though.

What keeps me awake nights are the things I *haven't* discovered.

Jim

Eigenvector wrote:

[Eigenvector]

Appearently the contractor had forgotten his drill on that day. My GOD! that chiseled out channel for the wires floored me. I'm glad I shut off the power prior to digging it out, I actually cut the wire insulation with the drywall knife because the hot wire was tucked UNDER the drywall where it had fallen out of the channel.

[Nate Nagel]

Sounds like what I spent today doing. The girlie was a good sport about playing fish tape operator on Christmas day; I separated one circuit into three - clothes washer, hall lights, and one recep. in the kitchen

- I left the washer on the orig. although I will rewire with romex and a GFCI later, put the hall lights on a 15A breaker (I figured since it appeared to be 14AWG that that would be appropriate) and put the recep in the kitchen on its own 20A breaker since the microwave is plugged into that one.

Now I'm all fired up to hang the new ceiling fan in the kitchen... yeah it's kinda sick but hey, whaddayagonnado. Oh, and I need to run a circuit for the range; it's now running off an extension cord until I can run a circuit for that too. (yes, it's gas, don't worry.)

nate

[Nate Nagel]

Is there enough slack you can fix it with a nail plate and an old work box?

nate

[Charles Schuler]

Good luck.

How did this pass inspection? Are your photos of modified wiring that did not require inspection?

Reminds me of a case in a college town where a greedy landlord added circuits to a rental unit using TV ribbon cable. There was a fire and only his crafty lawyer kept him out of jail.

[someone]

After you kill the guy that wired the place, take his wallet and use the money and rewire the whole house. Till then, dont plug in anything that exceeds one watt.

[dpb]

...

That wouldn't have passed an inspection so I assume either there was no requirement for one or the builder somehow got away w/o it.

Oh, I've got an idea -- appears the box being on the wrong side of the stud meant it got covered by the door casing. If so, I'm guessing the trim guy(s) did the "fix", not the electrician and was after the electrical was inspected. Also, looks like a lot of the grief could be attributed to the drywall guys altho the box may have been set too shallow.

Stablok were listed and code-compliant at the time unduobtedly, so can't fault the guy _too_ much there even though it/they turned out to be a "better idea" that wasn't necessarily better, just faster, therefore cheaper.

That goes back to my mantra on the thread the other day on PEX -- "cheaper and quicker" isn't synonymous w/ "better".

[Eigenvector]

I can only presume the inspector didn't pop the outlet cover off this one to see what was underneath. You would have had to have removed the outlet to see it. The only reason why I discovered it was because I plugged in a tight fitting plug and when I pulled it out the outlet came with it. But as I said, this is original work done in 1959 when the house was built.

[badgolferman]

Isn't there another expression similar to that? Someone correct me if I'm wrong:

"Speed, Quality, Cost. Pick any two."

[David Nebenzahl]

badgolferman spake thus:

Yes. The version I've heard most often goes "Fast, accurate, cheap: pick any two.".

[Eigenvector]

There isn't ANY slack in that wiring that I could find - but I'm not dinking with it today. After 8 years of never having holidays off I'm not doing anything constructive. Sitting at home, surfing the web, slacking off.

I'll see about putting a box in Tuesday or Wednesday, I don't think there's that much slack though the wires looked pretty taught coming into the old box. I'll take a drill to it and feed them through, but I'll have to open up the wall quite a bit more to do that.

[someone]

You could always raise the outlet a foot or so. Drill thru the stud and feed the cable to the other side.

[Oren]

Was the outlet mounted to the stud where it is chiseled? Can you mount a new box on the left side of the stud; away from the trim and abandon the old?

We just left off some door trim on a house and the electricians were called back to move the outlet box. The site next door; the light switch was behind the swing in door of a closet...

-- Oren

"Well, it doesn't happen all the time, but when it happens, it happens constantly."

[Eigenvector]

As a matter of fact, that's what I'm gonna do. Personally I don't think that particular location needs an outlet, but as someone I know has said, better to have the outlet and not need it than to have to use an extension cord... I'm not totally convinced of that logic but he knows more about electrical than I do.

[Toller]

You will have to go some to compete with my house having three 20a circuits connected to a single 50a breaker.

[someone]

Ya never can have too many outlets......

Merry Christmas

[Nate Nagel]

Update: I got all three circuits hooked back up and working correctly. Ceiling fan is hung and works, even wired up a wall control for it (I have an aversion to pull chains for some reason.) Only casualty is that the tip of my ring finger is purply blue because my aim was not so good trying to drive in a cable staple at an odd angle... oops...

Merry Christmas. Believe it or not it feels damn good to be working on my own home. 1st xmas ever doing that.

Now I just got to run a circuit for the range before the girlie gets PO'd at the ghettofabulous extension cord...

nate

[Eigenvector]

Oooooh, can't have too many circuit overloads now can you? Was the previous owner Dr. Kevorkian working on his next suicide machine - toaster in the bathtub?

[Dick Adams]

If this is new construction, how did it pass electrical inspection? And why are you doing this work since you already paid for it to be done right by the contractor?

Dick