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Thread: Old Electric Wiring :-(

  1. #1

    Old Electric Wiring :-(

    What a day I woke up and turned the bedroom light on. The light started to flicker. No big deal, I thought. I go eat breakfast and was ready to leave the house when I remembered that I forgot to turn the bedroom light off. I went back to the bedroom and turned the light off and heard a sizzeling , zapping sound. I thought " What was that?" I turned the light back on . Same flickering light and then the flickering stopped. I turned the light off and the sizzling , zapping noise I heard again through the wall. My house was built in the mid 1800's and the light was , I would say , made around 1900, if not older.

    So, I got out my tools and unhooked the light from the wall. I pulled the wire out and then ZAP!!! WOW !! That HURT!!! I went down the basement to turn off the electric to my room. I go upstairs and grab the wire again. ZAP!!! (Electrician did not wire the house correctly , it seems ) I go back down into the basement and turn off all of the electric this time. I get back upstairs and I smelled something burning. I go back into my bedroom and knowing that the electric is off , I grab the biggest hammer I had and proceeded to smash a BIG hole in the bedroom wall where the light once was. After getting a 2 foot by 2 foot hole broken through the wall, I see the extent of the damage (Not my damage, That don't count! ) Wireing almost as old as the house, frayed , split, bare , exposed and burned up!!.

    Well, down to the hardware store I go and buy a roll of wire, a new lamp, and a bucket of plaster.


    The JOYS of owning an OLD HOUSE

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    Ks. City, Ks.
    Posts
    113
    Bob, surely that's an opportunity to buy some more tools that you just have to have to do this job. Wish you well.
    Feel the wind and set yourself a bolder course

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    South Windsor, CT
    Posts
    3,304
    Spend the $10 dollars and buy an inductive voltage sensor. It's a little, battery operated probe that will beep and flash when you put the tip near a wire that's hot. I've been "bit" before and am careful about using it to verify that a circuit is dead before I start grabbing wires.

    The correct protocol is:
    - verify the probe is working on a known hot wire
    - check the wire(s) you need to
    - reverify the probe is working on a known hot wire to validate that the battery didn't die mid test.

    Rob

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