Carlon nail on fixture box crumbled apart like a cookie.

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macmikeman

Senior Member
Customer calls, fixture fell out of ceiling. I wired the house around 2011. I went right away to check, and the ceiling box was falling apart. I was able to break it into small pieces with my fingers. Repaired it using a Smart brand fixture box with the inside screws , but homeowner was very uneasy as there is another 5 or 6 other flushmount ceiling alike fixtures in the house. Anyway, after some ''remembery'' time, I recalled that the next morning after I got my rough in inspection I went back to get my check and upon entering
that house everything including ceilings and wiring was soaking wet and a very strong and easily identifiable smell of bleach . The owners run a large plant nursery. They had the farmhand spray inside to prevent mold. I scolded the GC at the time of it , telling him doing such a thing is likely to have it's effects on the wiring sometime down the road. I cannot say what might have really caused that box to deteriorate like that, but I think there is possibly some link to the bleach spray. Anybody know about bleach causing this to a plastic nail on box?
 

macmikeman

Senior Member
They are commercial farmers. I wonder if they have access to stronger bleach solutions than us regular pleebs do.

I came here with my concerns, because I know there are some really smart people on this site in subjects of chemicals and compounds and the like. I am fearful of other problems developing in the wiring system of that house now.
 

Sierrasparky

Senior Member
Location
USA
Occupation
Electrician ,contractor
Those Carlon boxes are made from PVC. Bleach ( chlorine) is an oxidizer. Would not be surprised if that was the root cause.
 

Buck Parrish

Senior Member
Location
NC & IN
When I lived in Seattle I used bleach to whiten bear skulls. If you put to much they too would crumble like a cookie.

It had the same effect on Mt Goat Hair and Dall Sheep. It would make the hair very brittle
 

TommyO

Member
Location
Sunnyvale, CA
They are commercial farmers. I wonder if they have access to stronger bleach solutions than us regular pleebs do.

You can buy bleach ("liquid chlorine") that's intended for swimming pools at many grocery stores around here, as well as HD, etc.
It's usually 10% or 12.5% - that's ~2x the normal bleach bottle.
The higher the concentration the faster it degrades - so even 12.5% becomes ~6% before too long (with AC and in the dark it degrades slower)

I would doubt they'd use anything more than 12.5% - just not worth the hassle.
And for killing mold, they may have used even lower concentration (ie. dilute 6% down to 3%)

But they probably have used other things as well.
Either that initial spraying you smelled - or over the years - assuming this is a production area for them they could have sprayed herbicides, fungicides, fertilizer, ..... And a ceiling box could be one path that air (with many chemicals in it) was often moving through.
 

ceb58

Senior Member
Location
Raeford, NC
They are commercial farmers. I wonder if they have access to stronger bleach solutions than us regular pleebs do.

I came here with my concerns, because I know there are some really smart people on this site in subjects of chemicals and compounds and the like. I am fearful of other problems developing in the wiring system of that house now.

Think back to the contaminated sheet rock from China. The chemicals (sulfides) in it were eating up the wiring. I would start getting some documentation as to what the HO's had done with the bleach as a CYA.
 
They had the farmhand spray inside to prevent mold.

IMNSHO, that was a colossally stupid thing to do. The possible down-the-line effects are mostly unpredictable other than no good will come of it. (If you want to prevent mold, there are better ways.)

And if there was an EPA registration on the bleach, they probably didn't follow the directions and so violated the EPA regs about using the product.
 

Buck Parrish

Senior Member
Location
NC & IN
Any wool.

No, a Dall Sheep is very similar to a Rocky Mountain Bighorn except it's solid white and it's a bit smaller. They're both in the sheep family as is the Desert, Stone, Marco Polo and Argali sheep, They all have hair that's a bit hollow. like a Caribou.
But one might only use bleach on the white one.
 

JDB3

Senior Member
Bleach might have had an effect, BUT I have also used Carlon ceiling boxes (B520A or something like that). In one house I had one fail, where the screws went into the box, that part had broken off, kitchen fixture hanging by wires & wire-nuts. Second house, a bedroom fixture did same thing, then year or so later, another one also failed. NO bleach at these jobs. Asked supply house, they said that they had heard of no other complaints. Sorry to hear about your experience, but verifies that it probably was nothing that I did. These houses are just outside of New Braunfels, Texas (between Austin & San Antonio).
 
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