How Not to do Electrical

We bought this place knowing it needed to be restored.

A.  Lot.

We spent  four hours with the inspector and received a 40+ page list of stuff that needed to be fixed.

We spent several hours with an architect friend determining what things might cost (he was remarkably accurate) and what needed to be done (also remarkably accurate).

We bought it anyway.  We've had fun at every step of the way.  And if I had it to to over again, I'd still do it.

Now, I'm certain it was no surprise to the previous owner that the house needed a lot of work.  We've run into her on occasion since buying the house (both before and after the story I'll tell in a moment).

We'd approach and ask how she was doing, etc.  Usually her first reply was, "I'm surprised you're not mad at me and still want to talk with me..."  We're always puzzled by that.  We have no anger towards her.  And if she wants to see the house sometime, I'd be glad to show it to her.

Now comes the story of how not to do electrical - otherwise known as the day where the difference between life and death is less than an inch.

Seriously.

(Oh, yeah.  Here's where I should mention that normally this blog is meant as a light-hearted look into the process of restoring this house - it's not a personal attack on anyone and if you don't see it that way, then don't waste your time reading it.  The rest of this post is deadly serious.).

I was doing the demolition in the carriage house.  I'd taken out the cabinets behind the ladder in that post's picture and was getting down to the studs in that same area.  Being smart enough to know that you don't use a reciprocating saw willy-nilly (you never know what pipes and live wires are in a wall, duh!), I was taking down the sheetrock by hand.  When I pulled a piece off, it came off completely to the floor and there was a flash and a loud "crack" sound.  My foot tingled as I stood there stunned, wondering what had just happened.  It was a sunny day and no thunderstorms were in the forecast.

I looked down and there was the end of a 240-volt circuit wire, bare ends exposed, laying loose near my foot.  The smoldering burn mark on the floor was less than an inch from my shoe.  Lots of bad words were spoken as I carefully backed up so as not to touch the wires.  I gently laid down the piece of sheetrock before walking over to the electrical panel.  Sure enough a breaker had popped. It was labelled as an electric baseboard heating circuit, but didn't identify where the heater was...

Making sure it was no longer a hot circuit, I investigated more closely.  I hadn't pulled it loose from a heater or a junction box.  Someone had just left the thing loose in the stud cavity; bare wire ends and all (like the picture at right - note this is a staged photo; I had a computer crash and lost the actual photo of this incident).  There was enough wire that it could flop around when I pulled the sheetrock off.  So this thing's been a fire hazard, lying "hot" and loose in the wall for years, waiting for some unsuspecting soul to run across it and electrocute himself. This could easily have been me (beware - graphic image).

If you're going to dead-end a wire, do it properly - get it into a junction box fixed to a stud, staple the wire down, and wire-nut the exposed ends.  Someone's life might depend on it.