Rick Christopherson
Senior Member
I am not an electrician and try not to pretend to be one, but I do sometimes get called for difficult troubleshooting. Yesterday my father asked me to help him troubleshoot a periodic failure of lights in a bathroom that he wasn't able to isolate. It's a fairly new house in an upscale ($$$$$) neighborhood, but it was already known that the EC had used backstabs for everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. I even discovered they used WAGO connectors in some of their boxes because a wirenut would obviously take too long to thread on the wires.
The homeowner reported that the lights were progressively getting more and more unpredictable for turning on. My father had tighten some loose wire nuts in the 3-gang box and it appeared to fix the problem, but that was just a fluke. The next morning, the homeowner reported that it took at least a minute for the lights to finally come on, and that is when I got called out.
When we got there yesterday morning, the bathroom lights were dead with no voltage. The phantom voltage (I do hate that term) that vanished when the lamp switches were closed, told me it was an open circuit. Because it was an open circuit, we couldn't even trace which circuit they came from. So we started opening every junction box in all of the adjoining (and even non-adjoining) rooms to find it.
A half hour later, the lights suddenly snapped on, and we quickly traced which circuit they originated from.....they were supplied from the back sitting room, which was 2 rooms away from the bathroom. I wanted to check the circuit while it was still live, so I picked the closest receptacle and started to pull the cover plate.
As I stooped down to pop the cover, I noticed the reflection of an orange indicator light between the receptacle and cover plate. What the heck?!? It looked just like the orange indicators from old GFCI receptacles, except it was inside the junction box. That just didn't make any sense.
When I got the cover plate off, I was blown away with what I saw. It wasn't an indicator light. The side terminal on the receptacle was cherry-red (orange actually). I had to turn off the flash on my cell phone to capture this, so everything came out red, but you get the idea. You can see the bright glow from the lower backstab.
After cutting the power, I carefully pulled the receptacle, but even the yoke was still hot to the touch. If this had gone just a little longer, they could have possibly lost the house. I am recommending to the homeowner that she bring someone in and redo every box in the house to eliminate all of the backstabs and WAGO clamps.
Oh by the way, we haven't figured out where that loose "hot" goes to because we can't find anything that is dead, but it was in the proximity of the screw lugs on the outlet and may have played a role in this. The associated neutral is backstabbed into the outlet, but this hot was never connected and both screw lugs are fully unscrewed. The EC used backstab for 2 wires, and then used the screw lugs if he needed more.
The homeowner reported that the lights were progressively getting more and more unpredictable for turning on. My father had tighten some loose wire nuts in the 3-gang box and it appeared to fix the problem, but that was just a fluke. The next morning, the homeowner reported that it took at least a minute for the lights to finally come on, and that is when I got called out.
When we got there yesterday morning, the bathroom lights were dead with no voltage. The phantom voltage (I do hate that term) that vanished when the lamp switches were closed, told me it was an open circuit. Because it was an open circuit, we couldn't even trace which circuit they came from. So we started opening every junction box in all of the adjoining (and even non-adjoining) rooms to find it.
A half hour later, the lights suddenly snapped on, and we quickly traced which circuit they originated from.....they were supplied from the back sitting room, which was 2 rooms away from the bathroom. I wanted to check the circuit while it was still live, so I picked the closest receptacle and started to pull the cover plate.
As I stooped down to pop the cover, I noticed the reflection of an orange indicator light between the receptacle and cover plate. What the heck?!? It looked just like the orange indicators from old GFCI receptacles, except it was inside the junction box. That just didn't make any sense.
When I got the cover plate off, I was blown away with what I saw. It wasn't an indicator light. The side terminal on the receptacle was cherry-red (orange actually). I had to turn off the flash on my cell phone to capture this, so everything came out red, but you get the idea. You can see the bright glow from the lower backstab.
After cutting the power, I carefully pulled the receptacle, but even the yoke was still hot to the touch. If this had gone just a little longer, they could have possibly lost the house. I am recommending to the homeowner that she bring someone in and redo every box in the house to eliminate all of the backstabs and WAGO clamps.
Oh by the way, we haven't figured out where that loose "hot" goes to because we can't find anything that is dead, but it was in the proximity of the screw lugs on the outlet and may have played a role in this. The associated neutral is backstabbed into the outlet, but this hot was never connected and both screw lugs are fully unscrewed. The EC used backstab for 2 wires, and then used the screw lugs if he needed more.
