"Helpful" Neighbor

[jeff43222]

I got a call today from a woman who just got back from a trip to discover that her living room and outside lights were dead. She flipped a switch in the garage to turn off some lights, and the result was a blown fuse.

After some investigation and interrogation, it finally comes out that her neighbor recently installed a new motion detector to control the existing lights on the front of the house. The lights were on a pair of three-way switches, so he swapped out the three-way switch in the house for a switch with a wireless remote connection. The new switch had two black wires coming out of it, plus a green one. He connected one black wire to the common (going to the lights), the other black wire to one of the travelers, and the green wire to the other traveler.

I told her the next time her neighbor has any bright ideas that involve her electrical system, she might want to give me a call first.

 

[tshea]

Re: "Helpful" Neighbor

Got a call from a property manager. He said the tenants were having electrical problems and asked if I could check. Got there, panel cover is off, the 3 double pole breakers are off, half of the single pole breakers all have 2 wires under the screws, the other half have no wires.

I asked the tenant and the neighbor had made a repair!

One pole of the main breaker failed so Mr. Helpful moved wires.

Good thing the neighbor had just enough knowledge to be dangerous! Maybe we could have had a fire call!

 

[jes25]

Re: "Helpful" Neighbor

I had a call where the bath switch was not working (after the homeowner tried to install a dimmer that is) so I open it up and its a dimmer with 1 black hooked to the the black on dimmer and the other black hooked to the green on dimmer. Of course the one to the green was the constant hot. This was in the BATHROOM!! how they never got blasted I will never know he said it was that way for a month b4 he called.