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"I also had some "fun" issues with unpermitted electrical work." Ca. 2004, we bought a house in a new-ish subdivision of Cedar Park, north of Austin. Built in

"I also had some "fun" issues with unpermitted electrical work." Ca. 2004, we bought a house in a new-ish subdivision of Cedar Park, north of Austin. Built in the mid '90s, it wasn't extremely high-end, but it also wasn't the lower end with the failing drywall joints that were very common. Later, I was replacing a light fixture in a bathroom and discovered that none of the fixtures had electrical boxes behind them---the fixture was attached to the drywall with Romex just going off into the wall. My current house was built in the 1950s and subsequently remodeled and added-onto at least twice. The custom oak kitchen cabinets by a previous owner are pretty nice. The custom wiring and plumbing less so. Back when I was trying to use ethernet-over-power, I had a fun game of, "Will this outlet get signal?" We had a plumber install a new kitchen faucet and he had to re-do the drain and supply lines in the cabinet---he took the "Device", the prior drain piping, back to the shop to show the rest of the guys.

bleepblorp 6y ago
Incompetent electrical work can be "fun." I've encountered: Permanent lighting fixtures wired up using lamp cord. A light switch mounted directly to drywall without an electrical box. 14 fixtures, including receptacles, on a single circuit with a wire length of >100 feet. A 40 amp continuous load connected using wire rated for 32 amps in continuous duty. A 60 amp breaker "protecting" a wire rated for 30 amps. Indoor-only, dry-location, cable used outdoors where exposed to weather. Indoor-only, dry-location, cable buried underground. Receptacles connected using 10 AWG wire despite the fact that the connecting screws are only capable of securely connecting 12 and 14 AWG wires. Building ground consisting of a copper wire buried in a deep hole instead of connected to a ground rod. Neutral wires from four 15A circuits connected to a single 14 AWG pigtail in the service panel. Multi-wire branch circuits wired with both hot wires connected to the same leg at the service panel. Illegal, and very dangerous, as heavy loads can overload the neutral wire to twice its rating without tripping any breakers. Worst of all, the most dangerous work was done by allegedly qualified electricians who were trained to know better.
- kls 6y ago
  My house was destroyed by Hurricane Irma and I had to gut the interior. I found an area where, I am assuming the previous owner repaired as I cannot in my wildest dreams imagine a licenced electrician would do it, anyway the area, was an area where the romex did not reach the other side of the romex, so the person took speaker wire twisted them together, to be about the size of the romex wire and linked the two stands of romex They did not strip the plastic shielding from each strand of wire, just joined them at the ends. So I had 120 running thru basically a single strand of speaker wire.

bleepblorp 6y ago

Incompetent electrical work can be "fun." I've encountered: Permanent lighting fixtures wired up using lamp cord. A light switch mounted directly to drywall without an electrical box. 14 fixtures, including receptacles, on a single circuit with a wire length of >100 feet. A 40 amp continuous load connected using wire rated for 32 amps in continuous duty. A 60 amp breaker "protecting" a wire rated for 30 amps. Indoor-only, dry-location, cable used outdoors where exposed to weather. Indoor-only, dry-location, cable buried underground. Receptacles connected using 10 AWG wire despite the fact that the connecting screws are only capable of securely connecting 12 and 14 AWG wires. Building ground consisting of a copper wire buried in a deep hole instead of connected to a ground rod. Neutral wires from four 15A circuits connected to a single 14 AWG pigtail in the service panel. Multi-wire branch circuits wired with both hot wires connected to the same leg at the service panel. Illegal, and very dangerous, as heavy loads can overload the neutral wire to twice its rating without tripping any breakers. Worst of all, the most dangerous work was done by allegedly qualified electricians who were trained to know better.

kls 6y ago
My house was destroyed by Hurricane Irma and I had to gut the interior. I found an area where, I am assuming the previous owner repaired as I cannot in my wildest dreams imagine a licenced electrician would do it, anyway the area, was an area where the romex did not reach the other side of the romex, so the person took speaker wire twisted them together, to be about the size of the romex wire and linked the two stands of romex They did not strip the plastic shielding from each strand of wire, just joined them at the ends. So I had 120 running thru basically a single strand of speaker wire.