Never had work done...

[Ken9876]

Went to this home tonight at 6, she (homeowner) tells me she has lived there for 17 yrs and never did any work, and wants to know why nothing was checked when she moved in. Anyway this home that she never did anywork in had 4 rooms with reversed polarity, quick find someone replaced the first outlet in the circuit. Check GFCI in bath no eg, open box up, hum three cables only one egc, oh look #12 and 14 together on a 20 amp circuit, and none of the cables reach the box, corrected all that nice stuff., Humm that reversed circuit was on a 20 too, with 14 wire, to think of it there was only 2 15 amp breakers in the panel wonder what else is over fused. Homeowner do we have too fix that?, Start checking the kitchen circuit, no eg. open up several boxes nothing adds up, kitchen outlet on same circuit as the bathroom gfci, with the whirlpool tub, check under the tub oh look flying splices...several. Back in the kitchen ragcloth romex in the house but not that outlet, with no eg, to the attic to verfiy the wiring, just as I thunk, wire to corner of kitchen where the appliance garage is but not outlet. Homeowner we did have the kitchen redone (really). Look in basement more abortion, garage more of the same.
Gave her a bill at 9 and left to return, or maybe not.

 

[barbeer]

Your post is very hard to follow. From what I can gather it sounds like this may have been your first menagerie of a job. If resi service is your gig, this will not be the last! Too many people know a little about alot o things, if you know what I mean.........that is how bad things happen.

 

[bradleyelectric]

Gave her a bill at 9 and left to return, or maybe not.

Did she pay the bill? Fixing multiple problems in someones house is a good way to make money. Make sure you are charging enough to make money at it is the whole key to it.

 

[celtic]

Went to this home tonight at 6, she (homeowner) tells me she has lived there for 17 yrs and never did any work, and wants to know why nothing was checked when she moved in.

Was it a "new" home or a re-sale?
Either way, it's up to the HO to perform due diligence - and tht comes with a price tag unless the HO is well versed in all aspects of real estate ownership...which not all that many are.

I'm curious as to why she waited 17 years before giving a crap

 

[haskindm]

Don't tell me this is the first time that a customer has lied to you or at least not been completely honest. Either they have been extremely lucky for 17 years that this crap has not given them any problem, or they have a "handyman" that has been doing uninspected repairs/remodeling for them who she is trying to protect by saying "it has always been that way". I would be my last dollar on the latter (of course I have lost my last dollar before).

 

[tallguy]

Many of those conditions could very well have been in place for 17 years with the HO completely unaware. Recently went into an office that was being converted back into a home after ~15 years. Whomever did the 200A upgrade also thought they could just drop in 20A CBs everywhere without any thought. I found no less than 5 circuits that had at least some 14ga in them.

Nobody had a clue all this time because they had no reason to assume that what was done in the early 1990s was in point of fact incompetent. Oddly enough, the rest of the work (replacing K&T) looked like it was done professionally otherwise.