DIY: Dealing wth an electrical problem v. Keeping your house from burning down.

Builds
1

I’m aimlessly wandering around my house tonight, minding my own business, when I notice a bulb is out in the chandelier above my kitchen table. Being Johnny On The Spot though I am, I have more bulbs on hand so I grab one, turn off the chandelier, swap it out, turn the chandelier back on, and the light is back on again.

So I walk over to the trash can to throw away the bulb when I hear ZZZZZT and swing my head around just in time to see a small shower of sparks come raining down from the chandelier, followed the all the lights in the chandelier going out and a small smoke cloud rise up from the newly installed bulb.

:wtf:

So I pull out the new bulb. Sure enough, it’s cooked:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b76/BikerFry/1-1.jpg
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But ALL the lights on the chandelier are out… I go check the breaker in the basement and nothing tripped. Back upstairs. I look at the dimmer switch on the wall. The switch has a little glowing bulb in it telling me that the switch is still seeing 120 volts. (If I was smart I would have noticed that before I went to check the breaker.)

I grabbed one of the “good” bulbs out of the chandelier and threw it into another light and it lights right up. So the bulbs are good but they’re not getting juice in the chandelier. Hmm… The switch is seeing 120VAC but the chandelier isn’t.

I pull the switch out. Someone who owned the house before I did was an even bigger hack than myself. Multiple wires are connected without wire nuts. The switch’s neutral falls out easily. Not the cause of my problem, but something to fix while I’m in there.

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I grab my multimeter and check for continuity across the full travel of the dimmer. No continuity. I disassemble the switch to find the reason that the circuit breaker didn’t trip: The switch didn’t give it a chance to:

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OK cool, that’s why the chandelier isn’t seeing power, but that’s not the cause of my problem. That open circuit is a result of a current spike, not the cause of a current spike. Better keep digging. If I don’t positively identify the reason that I let the smoke out of my light bulb then there’s a chance that my house will burn down from an electrical fire soon. Not a risk I’m willing to take.

Back to the chandelier. I pull the socket out to find a nasty corroded mess.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b76/BikerFry/5.jpg
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The wire insulation was extremely brittle and falling off, so when I changed the bulb I must have put the last straw on the proverbial camel’s back:

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Good. Positive identification of the cause: The insulation fell off of the old nasty wires, shorting Line to Neutral and spiking the bulb with current before the switch melted, opening the circuit again. Now I just have to decide if I want to deal with the pain in the ass of pulling new wire through the chandelier or just buying a new chandelier. I better think this one through:
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b76/BikerFry/6.jpg

2

didnt you see the “danger to manifold” warning ?

your lucky your floorboards didnt fall off …

3

I’m just happy I didn’t fry any piston rings.

4

then theres no reason to hire the mad scientist to do your repairs

good deal :tup:

anyways, any idea how hard new wires would be? if the center section comes apart it should be to hard, only one 90* that you have to fish the wires past, then its smooth sailing to connect them all and run them out the top

id say try putting this one back together if you have the stuff around, unless most of the sockets are uncleanable or melted

5

Eh it should be pretty easy. It looks like the thing comes apart in a few places. The only thing that would keep me from just running new wires would be if my fiance decides she wants to buy a new chandelier. Not that that’s ever been known to happen… :stuck_out_tongue:

6

typical on old houses check the box the light hangs from… but if its and eash fish replace it, but you will find most of your house is wired that way

7

fuck

fix this one before she notices its damaged, once you get into the home improvement store your credit card might not make it out alive

“honey, i REALY like this chandelier, but it doesn’t match the wall paper …”
---->>> insert downward spiral here <<<----

8

uh oh… you let the magic smoke out… its really hard to get back in… GOOD LUCK!!

9

when i moved in, i put up all new fixtures.
no 51 y/o lights for me.

they were all original. and i REALLY hate old wiring. no grounds and cheap wire.

so, your going to fix that switch board right :smiley:

10

You and your damn genny light.

Working on your house is always fun, especially when you start finding stuff that obviously was done by an idiot. Every time I repair something in my house I can almost instantly tell if the previous job was done by the previous owner or a professional.

11

Probably a good idea. The house wiring looks OK. Well, I’m trying to ignore the complete lack of ground wires, but that’s another project for another day. The chandelier just had real shitty wiring.

12

I’ve seen that and worse in the house I’m in now; between the previous owner and myself about 95% of the house is rewired due to problems. Hell I had 2 hallways, the living room, family room, and a bedroom all on 1 15A breaker when I moved in… The fun of electrical repairs…

13

Yikes. I’m guessing that popped once in a while?

I’m kind of baffled by the lack of ground wires in my house. Positive and Neutral are the only wires run to any of the lights and outlets in my house. I’m not really sure what to make of that. Anybody have any thoughts?

14

What year was your house built? 2 wire systems are pretty common in older houses.

15

yup.
2 wire is normal.

it sucks, but it’s normal.

thank god the former owners of mine, upgraded to breakers from fuses.

16

1952 IIRC. House hasn’t burned down yet so I figure there’s no real need to run ground wires. Thanks for the input.

17

The thing is you really already have grounds in the house; the metal shielding on the outside of the wires in the walls acts like ground. I’ve got the same type of wiring in my house; or at least what hasn’t gotten replaced with 12/2 romex.

my house is a 1940 vintage…

18

Yeah, it only gets bad when you start trying to install GFCI outlets. I’d suggest if you ever need one to contact an electrician. Other than that I don’t see any reason to make big changes.

19

I see. That makes sense. When I was in my circuits training class at work I learned something new too: Apparently those polarized AC plugs (the ones you can only plug in one way) are done that way because ground is tied to neutral.

:gotme:

On a side note, $20 bucks for new sockets, wire, etc or $50 for this chandelier and not having to mess with the old one seems like a decent deal:

http://images.lowes.com/product/725916/725916102975.jpg
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I’ll have to ask my fiance if it goes with our house. :mamoru:

20

thats true, if your house was wired with that armoured cable.
if so, you can wire the ground to the box