Striking Sparks

[learnteach]

No, not driving to Nevada for combat, or a new romance...
Went to replace the light fixture in the front room again. Looked at the wiring (vintage 1944) and saw that I had it misconfigured; one of the disconnected wires clearly went to positive power. The switch is off on the wall, so I tried to connect it to the what I thought was the correct connection.

Spark. Pop. Breaker gone. Ok, go reset the breaker, come back and look at everything. Hmm. Don't really need that connection, everything seems to be working. Cut it with the linesmen pliers, grab the light fixture, wrap the ground in with the other two grounds, start to tiewrap it into plac

Spark. Flash. Pop. Whole front of the house dies.
Now, the original wiring was post and conductor, so where it enters the box, it has thick woven protection. Some of the wiring must be worn through, and if I stir it wrong, it grounds out and trips the breaker. This time, however, even after returning the breaker, the front room isn't working right.

Gonna have to bite the bullet and rewire the place. I've been avoiding this project for almost two years! Damn.

Comments

[anthraxia.livejournal.com]

Re-wiring - muchos sympathies. when we did our place, the electrician was very quiet as he pulled out huge amounts of wiring from the ceiling cavity. when we asked - everything ok, he just nodded "Sure, sure". It wasn't until my mother said - "Look, can I stop warrying that the house is going to burn down around their heads" that he lightened up - and went on to tell us just how horrendous the wiring job was - everytime the previous owner had updated the wiring, he'd taped the new wires to the old ones. The oldest were from when the house was built in 1908 and consisted of bare wires that originally would have run along ceramic holders. Urk!

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

I remember those ceramic insulators -- when my dad "volunteered" me to help him rewire the house when he was building the addition, we pulled out all that stuff.

MUCH of the wiring in this house is weird/wrong/bad. After fixing one light switch (turn off the breaker, open the plate, discover it's wired backwards, fix it, replace the switch), I've been avoiding fixing the one in my bathroom, which is a vernier control. I've got a new switch, but I'm just leery of opening it up, even tho it's been out for about a year...

[finickynarcane.livejournal.com]

Wow. You have breakers. I'm still on fuses (and I know where my spares are).

[ermine-rat.livejournal.com]

I remember renting an old house where the inside of the breaker box was a colorful diagram of guesswork with the phrase "good luck" used with great repetition at different points of concern. It didn't burn down while I was there.... Old wiring with cloth covering and glass or ceramic poles in the attic.... ah the fun.