Here's a new one

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Rawls007

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While working on a kitchen remodel, the general contractor asks me to look at something bizarre in the living room "while I'm at it". He claims that when he would plug his drill into a certain wall receptacle, the overhead lights on the ceiling fan would come on. And this is with the switch in the off position.

I didn't have time to check it today since I was moving the inside panel to another room and had everything disconnected. Has anybody ever heard of this or have any ideas as to what would cause this. I will report my findings tommorow.
 
Rawls007 said:
And this is with the switch in the off position.
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Which switch? The light switch, or the drill's on/off switch?

The first thing I would look for is consistency in the symptom. Plug something (other than a drill, perhaps) into that receptacle, then unplug it, then plug it in, and repeat a few times. If the lights come on and off in a clean fashion (i.e., no dimming, no flickering), then you truly do have a mystery. But I doubt that that is what you will observe.

My first guess is a loose wire within the receptacle outlet. I had a similar problem at my house, but it went the other way around. The lights in part of the house would go off, and would come back on later, with no pattern I could observe. Then I noticed that when I plugged something into a certain receptacle, the lights would go off. By wiggling the plug, I could get the lights to come on or off. It turned out that that receptacle was at the begining of the circuit, and the lights were all downstream. There was a loose connection, and that had caused the problem.

In your case, if the light switch is on (or if it is a 3-way that is set up to have the lights on), and if a wire is loose, then plugging something into that receptacle might move the wires enough to complete the circuit and turn on the lights. You could test this by simply flipping the light switch and seeing if it works normally, without regard to the status of that receptacle.
 
georgestolz said:
Can you provide more info? Year house was originally wired, anything else?
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I'm not sure how old the house is but it does have the old cloth wire with no ground. I didn't look into it too much today. Tommorow I'll investigate a little further once I get the panel hooked back up and turn power back on.
 
Minuteman said:
You guys may both be right. An open neutral caused by a failed back stab, that makes connection when a significant load is plugged in and turned on.
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. . .that turns the light on when a ghost plugs in a drill on even days of the month.
 
I have seen this happen whoever installed the receptacle used the hot and switch leg for the light in question when ever you plug something into that receptacle it is across the switch and in series withe the fixture. causing the fixture to light with the switch off. turn on the switch and your outlet will not work.
 
tlaidman said:
I have seen this happen whoever installed the receptacle used the hot and switch leg for the light in question when ever you plug something into that receptacle it is across the switch and in series withe the fixture. causing the fixture to light with the switch off. turn on the switch and your outlet will not work.
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I'm not sure I understand this, but it sounds SCARY :shock:
 
Minuteman said:
You guys may both be right. An open neutral caused by a failed back stab, that makes connection when a significant load is plugged in and turned on.
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My first post :)

I second Minuteman. I have run across a situation very similar to this.
 
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