Buried Treasure

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As a contractor who routinely connects the service for mobile and modular homes, I encounter these on a daily basis. We occasionally find them to be troublesome, when the factory workers improperly install them, either loose or reverse polarity.

Crossover connections are their most common use, although we did encounter one modular home that had some buried in the wall on a kitchen counter circuit. Since those counter-top outlets were directly behind a one-piece shower unit, we could remove the box, and peer into the wall with a light and a mirror and see `em in there. One of them was not installed properly, since the circuit failed on the last 2 outlets serving the counters.

We ended up fishing some new wires behind there, abandoning the connectors completely.

When dealing with crossovers, most of them will be located either in the attic, or in the crawl space underneath. Sometimes you can find the bad one just by looking for the burned connection(s) through the clear plastic. Other times, you will need one of those induction "beep" testers to determine whether the circuit is continuous on both sides of the connection.

While we like being able to quickly connect the wiring from each half together using such connectors, I would personally prefer an extra empty conduit extended from the main panel with longer tails provided for each circuit from the far half of the house to reach the breakers without any splicing needed.
 
Jim, not trying to put you on a spot, but do you have any support to your statement that trailers burn that often or more (percentage wise) than other structures.

Roger
 
Today's Buried Treasure

Today's Buried Treasure

This is a box that I "found" when I went to install receptacles on a wall. I looked the last receptacle I wired up, looked at the closet door, looked at how wide the wall was, then threw my hands up and went after the guy who did the rough in. He found the plans, confirmed a box was missing and then found the infamous bulge in the wall and dug out the wires. Yours truly wired up the receptacle and put on the cover plate.

Please tell me that I'm really good because my ego needs to be stroked :)

BuriedBox.jpg
 
roger said:
Jim, not trying to put you on a spot, but do you have any support to your statement that trailers burn that often or more (percentage wise) than other structures.

Roger
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They don't get a chance to burn up -- they are too busy being blown away by tornadoes :D
 
tallgirl said:
This is a box that I "found" when I went to install receptacles on a wall. I looked the last receptacle I wired up, looked at the closet door, looked at how wide the wall was, then threw my hands up and went after the guy who did the rough in. He found the plans, confirmed a box was missing and then found the infamous bulge in the wall and dug out the wires. Yours truly wired up the receptacle and put on the cover plate.

Please tell me that I'm really good because my ego needs to be stroked :)

BuriedBox.jpg
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I would but the wall is a mess... when I find I buried box I only cut the inside of the box out, this keeps the sheetrock screws from popping... sorry just reread your post and noticed you didn't cut the outlet in...
 
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stickboy1375 said:
I would but the wall is a mess... when I find I buried box I only cut the inside of the box out, this keeps the sheetrock screws from popping...
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Yeah, but then the box is too far recessed for the screws on the receptacle to make it all the way into the box, plus I think it's a code violation for the front of the box to be that far recessed into the wall.

Bob? What say you, Oh Master of Codefulness?

Besides, house weren't done yet. The sheetrock and painter peeps will be back in later. :p

(Edited to add ...)

sorry just reread your post and noticed you didn't cut the outlet in...
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Wuzat mean? I'm not the sparky who cut up the wall, if that's what you mean. The guy who did the roughin took a saw and his fist to the wall and popped the sheetrock screws. I just pulled the wires out of the box and wired up the receptacle. My ego needs stroking on account of I caught the 210.52 violation and knew a box had to be buried in the wall somewhere :)
 
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Besides, house weren't done yet. The sheetrock and painter peeps will be back in later


You trim out houses before the painter? He must love having to take all the plates off the wall, never mind loosing half the screws, putting plates on crooked...and the like...
 
tallgirl said:
My ego needs stroking on account of I caught the 210.52 violation and knew a box had to be buried in the wall somewhere :)
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Okay, good job. That said, I hardly ever go to finish a home where there isn't at least one buried box. It will become par for the course for you, over time. I do get a little excited, however, when there's more than one buried.
 
stickboy1375 said:
Besides, house weren't done yet. The sheetrock and painter peeps will be back in later


You trim out houses before the painter? He must love having to take all the plates off the wall, never mind loosing half the screws, putting plates on crooked...and the like...
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No, they'll be back to touch-up whatever was wrong.
 
mdshunk said:
Okay, good job. That said, I hardly ever go to finish a home where there isn't at least one buried box. It will become par for the course for you, over time. I do get a little excited, however, when there's more than one buried.
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You have to remember, most of what I've been doing the past year is buildings where the first thing we do is demo all the existing wiring, then put back in what we pulled out.

I've not done "finish trim" on a house in a forever. Plus, I can't remember ever having a box get buried because many of the houses I wired I also sheetrocked (and plumbed and framed and roofed and ...)
 
This could have been easily found with a flor.lamp and cut out.Goof ring and long 6-32 solve the problem.You did do good in catching the missing receptacle.Many helpers and some journeymen would never catch such things.With the quaility of the hangers we are seeing here it is no surprise that they miss so many.No point in trying to talk to them because they no speak english.My x partner showed me a way to solve this.He would use his big hammer and punch holes till he found it.He would be sure to not find it on first hit.After a few of these the GC would find and cut them out.Point is that the job was bid with idea of 5 minutes max to install a receptacle.We can do the drywall guys job for free or cost him money in coming back to cut it out,the later teaches him something.
 
Buried outlets are par for the couse these days. I have actually seen the sheetrockers bury a basement window. You would think they would wonder, what happened to the light?
 
Jim W in Tampa said:
This could have been easily found with a flor.lamp and cut out.Goof ring and long 6-32 solve the problem.You did do good in catching the missing receptacle.Many helpers and some journeymen would never catch such things.With the quaility of the hangers we are seeing here it is no surprise that they miss so many.No point in trying to talk to them because they no speak english.My x partner showed me a way to solve this.He would use his big hammer and punch holes till he found it.He would be sure to not find it on first hit.After a few of these the GC would find and cut them out.Point is that the job was bid with idea of 5 minutes max to install a receptacle.We can do the drywall guys job for free or cost him money in coming back to cut it out,the later teaches him something.
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Money? What's money?!? I had to sign a letter at a place recently which said that not only was I not getting paid, but I was never going to get paid ;)

I know some here still have their doubts that I've done as much electrical work over the years as I claim, but I know "weird" and "wrong" when I see it. A giant chunk of bare wall is too obviously wrong and the sheetrock crew should have been able to catch it themselves, unless the electrical wasn't marked on the print. I mean, they have to be able to read prints, yanno. Smashing it up with a hammer seems a bit childish, tho.
 
The next sheetrock hanger I see who can read a print will be the first. The ones I see hang as fast as they can, and move on. I am sure some good ones are out there, but over the years, and thousands (I'm not kidding) of buried "treasures", not just electrical, my opinion is low.
 
does anyone out there remember a time when they would measure and pre-cut for device boxes? ever since the roto zip tools became popular this occurs quite often. i was doing o small commercial build out and they didn't bury one box...,they just cut up half my lead wires. cost them about $1500+ to replace the MC cables.
 
I have never ever seen them look or ask for a print.What some GC will do is mark floor with paint and make an L to show what side of stud box is on.They will still miss them but faster to fix.When we stop fixing it for them they will stop missing but the normal thing is do it for them so we can finish.
 
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