House electrical wiring

[Whitenuckler]

I finally got around to adding anaother overhead light in my old furnace room above my battery and UPS system. There was one light and one switch in the room and it worked OK since I've been here (older 1970's house). I found the breaker and shut it off. Tested the light ect and no power. I unscrewed the fixture from the box and grounded each wire to the box to make sure they were dead (this is required in case you only used the switch to remove power, as I have seen people swap the black and white). I noticed that the wiring was not electrician quality (wires cut too short, they were switching the white wire and had the hot directly on the fixture). I thought I should fix that as I am adding two more wires to feed my second new light. I fixed it, and added the new wires and went test it. It no longer worked. I flicked the switch and heard that sound of a short circuit. Breaker tripped. Took the light switch apart and the guy had used a 3 way switch. He had all 3 wires Black White and ground landed on the switch. I put a standard switch in. I have seen bad wiring in the garage also. I wish people would ask for help if they don't know what they are doing. I make mistakes, but at a more advanced level.

 

[EbS-P]

Reminded me of this

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[semipro]

I make mistakes, but at a more advanced level.

I think I'm going to steal this for my own use.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Hey, you wanna talk about bad found wiring, check out my OP in this thread ... https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/electrical-horror-show.191254/

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I have a couple places in my house that I had to draw out on paper to figure where the lines went and what I was looking at. I brought the paper to an electrician and he was like, Nah, that can’t be right! He looked at my ceiling and said, it is right! lol. It wasn’t bad wiring, but it was weird. It’s like the builder spent extra time trying to figure out how to use the least amount of wire possible.

 

[Whitenuckler]

I have a couple places in my house that I had to draw out on paper to figure where the lines went and what I was looking at. I brought the paper to an electrician and he was like, Nah, that can’t be right! He looked at my ceiling and said, it is right! lol. It wasn’t bad wiring, but it was weird. It’s like the builder spent extra time trying to figure out how to use the least amount of wire possible.

I know what you mean. When you get into these 230V double breaker,110V loads using the same neutral it can get confusing. Luckily for me most of my panels must have been wired by a more basic electrician back when copper wire was not so expensive. I do know that during the WWII or right after there was a huge boom(baby boom) in the economy and houses were being built while supplies were still low. The last 1942 house I had was a mismatch. Some aluminum wiring, some copper ect. Weird cable too like they got it from another house.
I really like getting my new cable and wiring up extra NEW circuits. It did screw up a 240V heater wiring lately, but with the help of a member Gthomas785 got it fixed. That guy's pretty sharp.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

My house was built in ‘46. I didn’t know there was a shortage then but it makes sense. That does explain some of the things I’ve found and that my father found before me.

I was told the whole house was on 2 circuits, 1 for the outlets, 1 for the lights. Enough things were added over the years that the wiring is quite the rat’s nest. I went through with a roll of tape and a sharpie and labeled lots of wires so I could someday split them off into something that makes sense.