five.five-six
Senior Member
- Location
- california
Customer calls me, an old whearhouse he rents out has 2 8' strip lights out in one of the offices. There's power and a switch leg at the switch, conduit goes up as you would expect toward the fixture 10' away. No power comeing back from the switch leg and the switch is good. Spent an hour looking for a hidden Jbox and found nothing.
To get it working, I mounted a 4s box with a 1 gang back to the old switch location, capped the old power and switch leg at both ends and ran exposed EMT to the fixture which had power. Here is where it got fun: When I connected the EMT from the fixture to the EMT from the switch, it sparked. No zap and it wouldn't register on my wigy but I would get sparks when they touched every time.
I reccomended to the customer that he rewire the entire building. There are probably 10+ remodels on this building over the last 60 years and probably no permits pulled ever.
My fear is that I just grounded a conduit system that hadn't been grounded for many years and that some devices running tar ballast that is leaking power to the heretofore ungrounded conduit system is now going to heat up and possibly catch fire now that there is current flow. Need I be concerned?
To get it working, I mounted a 4s box with a 1 gang back to the old switch location, capped the old power and switch leg at both ends and ran exposed EMT to the fixture which had power. Here is where it got fun: When I connected the EMT from the fixture to the EMT from the switch, it sparked. No zap and it wouldn't register on my wigy but I would get sparks when they touched every time.
I reccomended to the customer that he rewire the entire building. There are probably 10+ remodels on this building over the last 60 years and probably no permits pulled ever.
My fear is that I just grounded a conduit system that hadn't been grounded for many years and that some devices running tar ballast that is leaking power to the heretofore ungrounded conduit system is now going to heat up and possibly catch fire now that there is current flow. Need I be concerned?