Remodel stupidity

Status
Not open for further replies.
sparky_magoo

sparky_magoo

Senior Member
Location
Reno
I went on a service call today. I tore out a huge load of surface mount lighting. The lights were connected together with 18/2 zip cord. I installed six 6" remodel cans in place of the surface mount garbage. I powered the new cans from one existing can. When I hooked up the new cans to the one "legitimate" can, I found the black was still hot. The switch was turned off. After some investigation, I discovered the existing ckt., I tied into, is switching the nuetral. It's four o'clock. I'm already off work. My helper is stressing out. We have already installed nineteen new lights in Lady's house. I let it slide and tell her I must come back to change how the ckt. is switched. I believe we will get more money out of her for other work. I tell her one hour to correct the problem.

Question. Was I wrong to leave the lighting ckt. connected with the nuetral leg being switched, as opposed to the hot leg being switched. Again. I do believe she will pay to correct the problem.
 
It was quite normal for the switching to be done on the neutral in the 20's, 30's and 40's. In fact, when you have a K&T system, you expect just that. How old was this house?
 
Lady told me the house is sixty-five years old. It has an old Murray panel, with too many violations to list here. The house is wired with NM cable. In the attick, I found many instances of 18/2 zip cord spliced into ckt.'s. I found splices twisted together with no wire nuts. No boxes for the splices. The Murray panel has no breaker smaller than 20 Amp.

My big question is, was I wrong to leave the six new cans hooked up, knowing the the nuetral is switched. Again, lady sez she will pay one hour to correct the problem on my next trip out to install aditional lighting.

BTW, I advised lady of the grave situation of her house wiring. She promised to call my company owner to ask for a quote to do a whole house re-wire. I can do quotes up to five grand, after that the owners step in to do larger quotes.
 
In cases like this, where do you stop? You can't go in to replace a receptacle and be forced to rewire every home you go into, surely. The best you can do is make everything you touched compliant. You didn't fuss with the switch, so you're okay. That's just me talking, though. That's how I roll...
 
mdshunk said:
In cases like this, where do you stop? You can't go in to replace a receptacle and be forced to rewire every home you go into, surely. The best you can do is make everything you touched compliant. You didn't fuss with the switch, so you're okay. That's just me talking, though. That's how I roll...
Click to expand...

I agree with you 100%. But if this house catches on fiire, who will remember my warning? This call started off as me replacing a fixture. I have installed almost twenty new lighting outlets. Our service dept. is new. If it fails, I will be back to running pipe in a new hotel. Thats not all bad, but my name is associated with the service dept. At what point, do I suck it up and do non-compliant work. In the hopes of getting more work, I overlook some things and land a big upgrade?
 
sparky_magoo said:
At what point, do I suck it up and do non-compliant work.
Click to expand...
I don't believe you did non-compliant work, from what you've said. You did, however, leave an existing nonconformity alone, which is just part of doing service work. You can't correct every violation you discover. All you can do it note it on the work order or invoice.
 
This type of a question is a slippery slope.
This question has Legal, ethical and safety connotations to it.
Discussing what you should do versus what our interpetation of the code allows you to do are 2 distinct animals

Obviously from a strictcly technical point of view, yes you were wrong to leave the circuit energized from the neutral.

as to ethical, it was illegal to utilize the neutral ( no code refs, i'm to tired) and i would have either offered her to pay overtime for me to fix it, stayed late to fix it on my own time ( if you were that concerned) or de-energized the non-conforming wiring until it was "repairable".( meaning anything from when she paid to when you could do the work)

NEC 80.9(b)&(c) discusses new work must be nrought up to code but old work is ok if it was code when the old installation was completed

80.25(e) is somewhat relevant also

The permitting process is a protection of sorts for these types of issues.
When you clearly define your scope of work by taking out a permit, that gives you a place to stop. then if you see other non-conforming work you are able to discuss it with the homeowner and/or the local AHJ, who can then red tag the work if need be, in essence forcing the homeowner to make the needed safety repairs if they are unwilling to address them when you point them out. this tactic preserves your integrity and your license for the future. if you do it right, you will remain in business long enough to actually warrant your installations or better yet, see your warranty's expire


remember, you have less bargaining power with a customer, when you perform work no differently than the average handy man. ( please don't misinterpret this as a negative comment towards YOU, but more as a general euphamism)

Also, i wouldn't let her dictate to me how long she was going to pay me to make a repair. i would offer her a few alternatives, such as t&M or a high fixed rate to ensure that my time is protected. if i cant remain profitable, i won't be around long enough to do her work in the future

as to safety, it isn't the single most unsafe thing i have heard of, but certainly in certain circumstances it is dangerous, and it not code approved and remember, the whole point of the code is the practical safeguarding of people and property (or something like that)
 
Down side of this is she might think it over and say why fix what is working and not let you do one more hour.Best thing would been to not hook them up till switch is fixed.
 
Welcome to the forum Chris.

Just for clarification, article 80 only exists if the jurisdiction has specifically adopted it, and I don't know of any that has, this doesn't mean there aren't some though.

If it has not been adopted it is simply suggestions the same as FPN's are.


Roger
 
I explained to the Lady that I need to fix this switch leg later. Most of the light in this home is surface mount spot lights tied together with 18/2 zip cord. It is stapled & taped (yes, masking tape) in place. Splices are bare coppe, no wire nuts. The attic has 14/2 Romex & the smallest breaker in her panel is 20 amps.The conductors from the service mast enter the front of the old Murray panel where the dead-front should go. This is a large home in a high-end nieborhood. I recomended a whole house re-wire. how do I sell this to her when everything appears to work now? She does want to eliminate the hideous surface mount fixtures & wiring, but doesn't want to hear that her whole house has to be rewired. I suspect after paying yesterdays bill, she will hire a handyman who will do what she wants & not complain about existing wiring.
 
Let me offer two comments.

First, if you had thought it likely that this “old wiring error” would cause a fire or give a person a shock, then you should not have left it energized. But I don’t see either tragic event as being likely. In fact I don’t even see a risk of a fire. The only hazard to leaving a switched neutral would be if the HO wanted to change a light bulb, and thought that just turning off the switch would make it safe. Even so, it would only be unsafe if the person put their hand inside the fixture’s socket, and nobody should do that without turning off the breaker.

Secondly, let me comment on the notion that the wiring has not caused any problems, and therefore it is not worth spending money to fix. I like to use the following analogy, whenever someone tells me, “It’s never been a problem before.”

  • Suppose that just before you back your car out of the driveway each morning, you put on blinders and earmuffs.

  • [*]Suppose that you wait for a random amount of time, and then just back into the street.
    [*]When you get into the street, you can take off the blinders and the earmuffs, and drive to work.
    [*]Question: If you do this ten days in a row, and if you don’t hit anything during those ten days, would you conclude that this is a safe driving habit? Or would it take 20 consecutive days without incident, to convince you it was safe? 30? How many?
Everyone is welcome to steal this analogy shamelessly. ;) But give me authorship credit, if you wish to use the following aphorism:
"An accident waiting for a place to happen will, given time, find that place.” Charlie Beck
Click to expand...
 
sparky_magoo said:
The conductors from the service mast enter the front of the old Murray panel where the dead-front should go.
Click to expand...

I don't report minor violations but I don't think this is all that minor. This I would consider a hazard. Hazards I report ( could save someone's life ).

I don't believe in spending money if there is no real problem but you have to draw a line in the sand some place.
 
Who do you report the violations to? I told the HO about it & told my boss there are numerous problems which I will try to get the HO pay for corrections. A letter from my company to the HO might be in order. The if the house burns down, no one can come back to me & say you worked there, why didn't you...

The service conductors, entering through the front of the panel, are the least of the problems I found. The 20 amp breakers supplying power to 14/2 Romex's is a bigger deal. Even worse are the branch ckt.'s extended with 18/2 zip cord.

Who would I "report" this to? The city? They wouldn't care. The chief inspector, Bill, would tell me to file a permit & rewire the house.
Again, it comes back to whether the HO will pay for rewiring.
 
Hint always check your source first... that way next time you'll be doing the switch first and leaving one of the cans for later.

As far as this being dangerous... what about if a bulb breaks or if some one changing the bulb contacts the neutral threads of the bulb?

As for quoting an hour... most of the 3 ways I've seen require pulling new wires from switch to switch to fix this... usually through several boxes. :mad:
 
Old houses like this are one reason I carry a digital camera with me. I always take a photo of my work before and after and I also shoot some pics of the potential trouble spots that I didn't touch. It can't hurt to have that kind of record.
If the existing circuit was switching the neutral and you didn't work on it, then (IMO) it's not your baby. There are a lot (thousands if not millions) of old homes that are still wired this way (neutral switch leg). I'm assuming that the fixture was wired correctly...neutral on the screw shell? It used to be the "norm". (IMO) it's not a fire safety issue, but rather a issue of someone maybe getting shocked if they stick their finger in someplace it shouldn't be.
How many times have you replaced a light bulb with the circuit still energized?
On a 3 way, how can you tell? Break out the test instruments? Not likely.
You (and most everyone else) simply screws in a new bulb. If the light comes on, you know that the socket was hot, or viceversa. You wouldn't stick your finger in the socket to see, would you?
I would be more concerned about all of the open splices and zip cord that you describe. All you can do is inform the homeowner of the danger (that's the way it is here anyway). What they do is up to them.
I use the logic that if I make pictures, then I have some record of the overall condition of the wiring and I think it reasonable to assume that if I took the time to make pictures, I also informed the home owner of the potential trouble areas.
Just my opinion
steve
 
When I mentioned " fire" to the HO they usually listen attentively and usually ask for a qoute price and I easily convinced them specially if I convince them the insurance won't normally pay if the house has faulty wirings.
 
sparky_magoo said:
Who do you report the violations to?
Click to expand...

Here I would just call the inspector for the area in question. If he gives me a hard time then I would pull a permit for any wireing that I have replaced.

Once he sees the said violation then he can make the decision to write the homeowner up for a safety violation. ( I doubt that any would let this slide )

This doesn't mean that your company will get the contract to do the work but someone will.

When you say service conductors entering from the front, we are talking about an open panel ( totally rigged ), right ?

If you have a camera take a picture of this. Post it.

Around here the AHJ does not look for violations but once they are informed of a violation ( in writing ) they must take action. Take action just means that they check the problem out. If it's determined that the violations is not a safety concern nothing will be done

Once an inspector is in there he could require that all bad wireing be replaced. This is not grand fathered because it was never legal.
 
How many times have you went on a service call, old home, 60amp fuse panel, did your work and notice 30amp fuses on #14 wire? I don't change out the fuses to 15's, I leave them as they were before I got there.
 
growler said:
When you say service conductors entering from the front, we are talking about an open panel ( totally rigged ), right ?

If you have a camera take a picture of this. Post it.
Click to expand...

You got it. There is a wood cabinet built around the flush mount panel. The service mast 90's into the cabinet where the service conductors rout through free air into the front of the panel where the dead-front should go. It's unfortunate I didn't have my camera with me.

I told Lady she should by some smoke detectors, but she didn't seem to take me seriously.
 
Sparky, I probably would not have even turned the first screw in this house. If I think a place may burn down before I can get out the door then I will not touch it. Working for a company you don't have that option.

When I notice a lot of violations I try to decide if I can segregate my work from the existing. You can't run a new home run into the panel and it's not really safe to tie on to the existing. What do you do?

I don't run into many houses in that kind of shape. I just figure that it's better for me to move on to something less risky. I will give a quote to make the place safe but if they are not willing, I don't see any reason to stick my neck out.

I don't like the handyman thing so I would report this to keep the owners from killing themselves. The handyman is how they got in trouble in the first place.

It's one thing to change out a light fixture or receptacle in a fire trap but when you have to start running new branch circuit wireing. Get a permit and see if this city is OK with it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top