OT: Weird wiring

J. Clarke · 2021-03-21T20:33:14+00:00

Please forgive me--this is a bit of a rant.I went to put a new fixture at the top of the stairs--the old one isphysically too small to hold anything bigger than a 60w incandescent(by physically I mean you can't put the globe on if anything bigger isin it, and that includes CF and LED that are larger than 60Wequivalent and in that location a 60 just isn't enough light.Well, went to kill the power to the circuit and discovered chaos. First: Turned the switch off Checked socket with a voltage sensor Still voltage on the circuit Par for the course in this house Switch is in the neutral leg Add to list of stuff to fix.Next: Screwed adapter into socket and plugged in tracer Traced signal in breaker panel Not one, but _two_ breakers showed signal Turned both off Went back upstairs Checked for voltage again No voltage--good Flipped switch--checked again Voltage--not good Back to the panel Identify third breaker, turn off Now no voltageReplaced fixture, turned breakers back on, everything works, I didn'tdie.But now I have the real mystery--how is this effing light managing tobe connected to not one, but _three_ separate branch circuits?Every time someone tells me that wiring should be done by a"professional" I run into another example of egregiously bad wiringinstalled by a "professional".Well, I know now how I'm going spend some part of my vacation. And Ihate to admit it but I'm getting too _old_ to be rolling around infiberglass pulling wires for fun and no profit. I know, I should hirean electrician but then I'll have to watch him.

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pyotr filipivich 5 years ago

Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> on Tue, 23 Mar 2021 17:28:08

+0000 (UTC) typed >> This is sounding like one of Those Projects. Where it turns out

Ah, the new classics.

My wife would like to take a bath, but the house has no bathtub, just a shower. In what appears to be a bathroom added on, a long time ago. Shortly after the asteroid arrived. (Sometime before the Ice Age, a third bedroom was added. That's reasonably sound and even 'up to code". Hard to visualize but the main house is 26' square, with a

5' square bathroom, and a third room, both off the back. This leaves a "notch" about 6 ft wide and 13 ft long which is where the garden shed pile is right now. But the Bathroom has sagged - badly. Simplest solution to all this is to take a chainsaw and expand the notch to six by 18. Put down a slab and "add on." The corner has to come off because the toilet is held up by the drainpipe, and the flooring by force of habit. The first question is: tie the new roof on the add on into the existing roof, open that up and tie in to those rafter/joist, or put all new trusses up? And / or tie into the main, very steep pyramid of the main house?

Of course, if we're doing a major roofing job, might as well get the rest of it.

While we are at it, might as well pull the old chimney out, add those to my already impressive Pile O' Bricks for an eventual Project. {BBQ / Fire pit, raised flower beds, brick patio, "art", etc} So, seal off that hole in the roof? Or add a hood over the stove in the kitchen and exhaust out the old chimney route? Anyway, that gets resolved before we redo the roof. Might as well, we're already up there. Oh, but what about the porch roof? Ask not about the roof, but rather ask "What about the porch itself?" I can see where a corner it being held up by cinder blocks, and I remember nailing that board over where the edge broke when I stepped on it. I do not want to look under there, at all. Now, we're getting old, and we are going to need a ramp. Could include that in the Porch rebuild, but - well two trees need to come out, and I'm loath to just chop down a Japanese Maple. Oh, and while we're making money like a successful bank, lets fix the wiring and panel before adding more to this pasta dinner.

All this before adding some central heat, insulation, repainting it all ... did I mention the parking place, leveling the yard, and landscaping?

As I said, I think I'll just take the front screen off and put a new house behind it.

Sometime in the next couple years, I'm sure.

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pyotr filipivich 5 years ago

snipped-for-privacy@notreal.com on Tue, 23 Mar 2021 12:47:11 -0400 typed in rec.woodworking the following:

I know the feeling. Only I'm thinking to take the front porch screen door off and put it on a new porch, on the "new" house.

"You can buy yourself a 'new' car / house all at once, or one piece/ project at a time."

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Clare Snyder 5 years ago

An "edison circuit" sharing the neutral HAS to be across line - in other words the lives have to be from opposite sides of the service otherwise you are overloading the neutral. A "shared neutral" can NOT be used on 2 circuits on the same side under ANY code -The only way you would get high voltage on one side would be if you had a hneavier load on the other side and an open neutral.

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Clare Snyder 5 years ago

That's what I was getting at with checking where the neutrals were connected and making sure they were not just connected to each other without a solid connection to the actual neutral

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Puckdropper 5 years ago

Michael Trew snipped-for-privacy@ymail.com wrote in news:s3dcvf$onu$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

You can also get handle ties and tie two ordinary 120V breakers together. Might be a good way to go if you've got two unnecessarily overpriced breakers (AFCI, GFCI) breakers and don't want to spend another $100 to replace them.

Puckdropper

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russellseaton1 5 years ago

I've heard here in the USA the real estate market is on fire. Burning up. Now might be a good time to sell and start over in a new house. Sometimes logic is applicable.

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Leon 5 years ago

The market is hot but a new house is way inflated. Prices on new homes goes up as often as twice weekly in the Houston area This is going to be another bubble.

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pyotr filipivich 5 years ago

I'm suspecting we're in multiple bubbles: housing, real estate, stocks, bonds, credit cards, loans, entitlements, government debt, artisan foods, cable / streaming videos - you name it, the numbers have been inflated by the monetary policies over the last fifty years, as more money has been created than 'value'. (This was called 'devaluation' back in the day: each 'dollar' is worth less, each dollar buys less, you need more 'dollars' to buy the same thing: It still takes a half hour to buy a Big Mac - regardless of what the numbers are.) When it can no longer can go on, it will stop. In a cascade of collapsing bubbles, and destruction of "wealth", both "on the books" and in real terms. And the currency will "collapse" - aka "hyper inflation" where the devaluation takes place faster than new currency can be printed.

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pyotr filipivich 5 years ago

" snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com" snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com on Wed, 24 Mar

2021 01:21:16 -0700 (PDT) typed >> Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> on Tue, 23 Mar 2021 17:28:08

The "five year plan" is to be in a "retirement community". Which means that any "projects" have that as a timeline, not just for doing, but for "payoff". tangenting, we have a house, it is our home. Anything we do to it is an 'expense' not an 'nvestment' (save that it is cheaper to fix now, than have something fall apart). The question is "Will this help us 'now'?" not "Will this improve resale value?" Because there is so much which needs 'fixing', replacing, upgrading, overhauling - all of which takes more time, money and effort than I've got, especially in the time frame we have.

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krw 5 years ago

What's this "pass the savings" thing?

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krw 5 years ago

Is it a "brain transplant" or a "body transplant"?

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krw 5 years ago

You got that right. SWMBO was talking to an agent in the next county over, who said that there were only 27 homes on the market (a week or so, ago). There are three (of 70) houses in my development that went on the market and were sold in days. Agents are screaming for inventory but they're going as fast as they come on the market. I have agents sending letters begging to sell my house; "We have a buyer who wants *your* house right now.". I wish I were ready to sell but then I'd have nowhere to live and no chance of buying what I'd want.

The zEstimate for my house has gone up 25% in the last three months. A consumer advocate (Clark Howard) was saying that 60% of the homes, today, are sold sight-unseen. Nothing more than the photos and video walk-throughs. Last year it was 50% and the year before 30%.

It's silly season. It *has* to burst. I bought this house for 1/3 of what it would go for today, at the end of the 2008-2012 collapse. It was a foreclosure so got a good deal on it. I was thinking of a way to do it again, for profit. The opportunity will be there, and sooner than anyone wants.

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krw 5 years ago

Gold & off-shore investments.

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krw 5 years ago

If I move into a retirement community it would kill me. We lived in an apartment for a year, between "permanent" jobs, and I was contracting. I absolutely hated it. If it weren't for the fact that we lived in Amish country and their woodworking was so phenomenal, I would have gone nuts. It's a good thing they were paying me outrageous money (and overtime on top). While Amish furniture is relatively cheap, it's certainly not free. A cherry dining room and bedroom did take a chunk.

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