HO work never ceases to amaze me

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goldstar

goldstar

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
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Electrical Contractor
Just this weekend I went to replace this light fixture at a customer's house :

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Westinghouse-1-Light-Chrome-Interior-Wall-Fixture-6640200/204712483

I noticed a small lamp cord plugged into the light. I thought it was supplying power to a light or appliance. I unplugged it, left the male end on the floor and began to remove the fixture. The fixture was toggle bolted to the wall with no other wiring to it. I traced the other end of the cord and it was plugged into a receptacle behind the refrigerator. So, there was 2 male ends on the cord and the HO was powering the light through the receptacle on the fixture. OMG !!!
 
We call that a suicide cord. I used to have a trunk full of them when I worked for the city.

So what did you end up doing with the job? I know you didn't replace the fixture.

And I hope you destroyed that cord.
 
The job didn't lend itself to "doing it right." so to speak. So, I decided to make it safe. I had a piece of 16 ga. s/o cord in the truck, drilled a hole in the side of the fixture, inserted a gromet, put a male plug on the other end and remounted the fixture to the wall. Crappy job but at least no one will get whacked
 
goldstar said:
The job didn't lend itself to "doing it right." so to speak. So, I decided to make it safe. I had a piece of 16 ga. s/o cord in the truck, drilled a hole in the side of the fixture, inserted a gromet, put a male plug on the other end and remounted the fixture to the wall. Crappy job but at least no one will get whacked
Click to expand...


+1
 
goldstar said:
Just this weekend I went to replace this light fixture at a customer's house :

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Westinghouse-1-Light-Chrome-Interior-Wall-Fixture-6640200/204712483

I noticed a small lamp cord plugged into the light. I thought it was supplying power to a light or appliance. I unplugged it, left the male end on the floor and began to remove the fixture. The fixture was toggle bolted to the wall with no other wiring to it. I traced the other end of the cord and it was plugged into a receptacle behind the refrigerator. So, there was 2 male ends on the cord and the HO was powering the light through the receptacle on the fixture. OMG !!!
Click to expand...

Isn't that how HOs are told on Utube :sick:to connect standby generators ?? :roll:
 
mgookin said:
We call that a suicide cord.
Click to expand...
Aggie Extension Cord. Hook 'em! :D

A friend of mine bought a small travel trailer from a handyman. He (the handyman) had shore power for the trailer rigged up with a cord like that. My friend assumed the guy knew what he was doing, so he just plugged it into a house outlet when he got it home, and it stayed that way for weeks. Then one day he was running a CATV line out to the trailer, and when he accidentally touched the shield part of the RG6 connector to an aluminum window frame on the trailer it arced and burned a chunk out of the frame. The guy had got line and neutral reversed in his cord and tied "neutral" to the trailer frame. We are lucky no one was killed.
 
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I'm an engineer, not a licensed electrician. But once a buddy of mine asked me to take a look at his mother in law's wiring (her husband had recently passed) because he knew that the guy had done some really bad stuff. I told him I'd look and give my opinion, but I wouldn't do any work on it.
So we go into the basement and there is lamp cord run everywhere stapled to the walls with a staple gun. I want to look inside the panel (old main cartridge, range cartridge, and 4 screw plug fuses) so I pull the main and range fuses and the basement lights (fed by the zip cord) are still lit!
I did open the panel and remove the lamp cord that was wired to the line side of the mains (did not even need to loosen the screws, iirc), put the lid back on, and told him to call an electrician ASAP.


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retirede said:
I'm an engineer, not a licensed electrician. But once a buddy of mine asked me to take a look at his mother in law's wiring (her husband had recently passed) because he knew that the guy had done some really bad stuff. I told him I'd look and give my opinion, but I wouldn't do any work on it.
So we go into the basement and there is lamp cord run everywhere stapled to the walls with a staple gun. I want to look inside the panel (old main cartridge, range cartridge, and 4 screw plug fuses) so I pull the main and range fuses and the basement lights (fed by the zip cord) are still lit!
I did open the panel and remove the lamp cord that was wired to the line side of the mains (did not even need to loosen the screws, iirc), put the lid back on, and told him to call an electrician ASAP.


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Click to expand...
some old wiring looked like lamp cord but was a method used long ago and was stapled along baseboards and chair rail.
 
Was demoing one time a place that had some zip cord used to wire some receptacles. The cord was intact, but all you had to do was bend it and the insulation crumbled.
 
mivey said:
some old wiring looked like lamp cord but was a method used long ago and was stapled along baseboards and chair rail.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case here. The house was built about 1960 and the original wiring was cloth-covered NM. The lamp cord was nice and shiny.


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