help me understand this scary electrical problem?

[Ole Anderson]

I started to try to make the repair tonight, and wasn't able to strip the insulation off the wire (even after cutting off the burnt part, of course) - I'm guessing the heat fused it on, even a few inches back. And, I can't cut much farther back because I don't have much wire length in the box to play with. If anyone has any suggestions on this, I'd love to have them. As it is, all I can think to try is scraping off the insulation with a blade, although I'm not wild about this as it might damage the wire.

Ken

The old axiom, "nothing is ever easy" seems particularly true for having to get into an old electrical box when the previous installer didn't leave enough wire. One suggestion is to use a stripper that will reach into the box, a v-notch tool typically does that. Now you have a wire that may be too short to easily use a wire nut, but a stab style wire connector doesn't require as much room to install. You might first try loosing the cable clamp in the box and see if you can pull more into the box.

[Chuck Wintle]

This has continued to be a very interesting discussion, folks, thanks for all the contributions.

For those who were wondering about the wire gauge, I'm not certain. I'll have to round up some samples tomorrow and compare. I can't tell by just looking.

I started to try to make the repair tonight, and wasn't able to strip the insulation off the wire (even after cutting off the burnt part, of course) - I'm guessing the heat fused it on, even a few inches back. And, I can't cut much farther back because I don't have much wire length in the box to play with. If anyone has any suggestions on this, I'd love to have them. As it is, all I can think to try is scraping off the insulation with a blade, although I'm not wild about this as it might damage the wire.

Ken

Ken,
If it was me I would run a new length of wire back to the electrical panel. As you stated the wire near the plug overheated and the insulation is damaged and it unusable.

[Lee Schierer]

Even though it is a 20 amp breaker, check the wire size to insure it is #12 wire. I've seen two houses now where there were 20 amp breakers in the box, but some clown used #14 wire in all or part of the circuit to save a few pennies when they added a recptacle.

[Ken Platt]

Checked against some new, yes, it is 12 gauge. Got the repair completed, thanks all.