bubba wuz here

Accidentaly got the bid to bring this house closer
to code than what it was. Here are some shots of the
basement, the panel in the closet, and some general
problems. Actually I really don't mind this kind of
work too much even though it is dirty and can be a
real PITA. Too much of it would sure get old
however.

Reminds me of the place where I used to work. Took 19 years to get that mess under control! But that mess was started when the steam power generator was installed sometime around 1900 and it grew from there!

I'd tell people this is where the Three Stooges plumbing and electrical episode was filmed! LOL

I've done a few of those jobs. Fixing what you can see is pretty straightforward, but I always wondered about what was hidden that I couldn't find!

Is this before or after pictures? TDF

I know that feeling. Had one about 6 months ago. Had a light with 2 wires, neutral and switched wire. Took out the switch and found 2 wires, hot and switch leg. Never could find where the neutral and hot came from but I had a few guesses.

Reminds me of a business building we bought. Whenever using the vacuum on this one outlet, the vacuum would cut out now and then. It was next to a door, so I pulled the paneling loose and exposed the wiring. Instead of putting in a length of 4' wire they spliced, or just twisted and taped two 2' pieces together. Replaced it, but always wondered what the rest of the wiring was like.

Yea, been there and fixed that. Some of the things I found doing rewire and service calls in homes would keep you awake at night.
Have you ever run into a "farmer's 3-way"? It is sure an experence in engineering.

Not familiar with the term, is it the one with a hot and neutral as the travellers and the common of each switch to the socket, or just using baling wire?

Lol. You got me there

At least he used some wire nuts and electrical tape.
Better than using no wire nut and masking tape...seen some of that.

(quoted from post at 18:53:57 04/29/14) At least he used some wire nuts and electrical tape.
Better than using no wire nut and masking tape...seen some of that.

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Sounds like my BIL was there.

Neighbor single mom was redoing the inside of her house. Gotta give her credit. She was pulling out cheap paneling that had replaced plaster and lath and sheet rocking. She had a guy, married to her best friend doing the sheet rock with the women helping. The addition went good but when she got into the living room she didn't think the wiring looked very good. She called me and I took a look. Told her that not being licensed I couldn't touch it but it kinda looked like the pictures. Local guy just starting out in his own electrical business that she went to school with did it at nights for the cost of materials. They have been married about 10 years now. Thought that wiring job took a long time!
Rick

Yes kinda like that. Problem was 3 wires to barn, need to be able to turn on/off light from house or barn. However must leave an outlet hot/working at all times. It takes me a while to figure it out but was switching hot and neutral. NOT acording to code. joe

My friend worked in a psychiatrists house and when he took down the dining room fixture the good doc had used band-aids for wirenuts. At least the splice was sterile.

I did industrial maintenance for about 6 years and saw plenty of that kind of mess around some of the older plants. One incident I remember was tracing a wire while trying to get a remote panel working that operated a pump down at the wash out pit from either the leg of one of the silos, or from the control room. The one wire I was tracing changed colors at every junction box it went through, which was quite a few. Heck we even had one 120V circuit that we never figured out where it was fed from. Stopped in to visit one day several months after I left and they had a contract crew onsite doing some electrical work for them. They asked me if I knew/remembered where the circuit fed from as they had spent several hours looking and come up with nothing. Guess they had to do work on it live like I did every time there was a problem.

Now I"m on the equipment side of things and bad as I hate to say it, some of the stuff I"ve seen on equipment makes what your showing in the pics look like it ought to be in top tier nuclear plant. I mean you can always tell when an "electrician" has been working on the wiring when you find wire nuts, split bolt clamps, etc used on a machines electrical system. Once worked on a machine that had an extra alternator installed to charge a single 12V battery because the guy adding the cooling fan (bought from a auto salvage yard) had no idea you could pull 12V off of a 24V system as long as the hot and ground both came off the same battery.

I would have to say, "Yeppers, Bubba was there."

I'd be afraid to flip a switch around that place.

Worked in a shop for a very short period where the so called foreman thought it was perfectly fine to have a 3 phase welding machine spliced to a power cord about 30' long... laying across the floor spliced together with Mar connectors and electrical tape. To add to the problem, the extension cord was hard wired into the junction box, so if, uh, when there was a problem, you couldn't even unplug the cord.

If you think that's scary, the same guy that did that made a home made plate clamp using a nut and bolt and welded it with MIG. When it broke, he told a beginner apprentice to run another MIG pass over it. They were lifting large 3/8" plates!

If you think that's scary, the same guy tried to pick up a 7 ton skid with a 5 ton crane and a chain rated for about 3 ton. The chain broke and a piece hit another worker almost taking his eye out.

What's scariest though is that the owners of the company were so clueless and never fired the guy for putting several peoples lives at risk!!!

Another example of what happens when chain breaks, piece comes off like a bullet, I was running a D5 on site one day when another pair of infinitely wise coworkers decided to pull a big vibratory roller through deep mud, instead of going around on the roads we were building, when the chain snapped, a piece came off and hit the upright of my ROPS on the D5, it left a dent. Eventually myself and one of these newbies, (we had an established core group of operators, jobs got bigger and they hired inexperienced people to fill the seats) after running his mouth, got into a tussle, he was humiliated, and I went to a new job 2 days after, was a good company, but jerks like this ruin it, was like playing russian roulette on this job, every time you turn around one of these guys was doing something stupid and extremely unsafe, I guess you have to learn somewhere, but not at the expense of others, that darned piece of chain was perfectly aligned with my head, had it not been for that ROPS upright.....

(quoted from post at 22:38:11 04/29/. Once worked on a machine that had an extra alternator installed to charge a single 12V battery because the guy adding the cooling fan (bought from a auto salvage yard) had no idea you could pull 12V off of a 24V system as long as the hot and ground both came off the same battery.

Click to expand...

Actually the dedicated 12V alternator and battery is the best way to supply a 12V load on a 24V machine.
Going across one battery to obtain 12V on a 24V system will drain one battery and overcharge the other.

I can't say on past codes,but that was an excepted practice and was in wiring diagram books until early 60s at least.There were some done in 220 also.Was all right until you had a ground short.Lot of HOMES were wired that way by Licensed electricians back in the 40s-50s,so it wasn't a FARMERS 3 WAY.