That's a great job of troubleshooting. Looks like everything would have been fine if they had used a shorter lag, or not countersunk the lag (or found the stud).
Thanks, I was pretty happy.
The AC Breaker was tripping or had for years apparently, so I decided to see if I had any good wiring to the AC at all, disconnected 1 leg at a time off the 2 pole breaker, Identified the problemed phase, now for the tough part, noticed the home was fairly new 2 story, wiring ran between floors so no chance of access there. As I'm thinking how to manipulate the existing feeder because I know the problem cant be more than 12" of a 100' run, Or I just run surface mount conduit along the entire dwelling or tunnel under sidewalks etc .. As I'm looking at the patio cover My eye caught the multiple Lag bolts and I noticed the location of the disconnects, thinking ... that would be too easy, I ended up asking the client when was the rear trellis work done, they said ehh .. about 2 years ago, I smile to myself and say would you say the 2nd AC stopped working around that same time, they pondered for a moment and quickly said you know what It did now that you mention it, saying how would you know that. I explained my theory before proceeding with opening their wall.
I basically cut out the damaged part spliced in a recessed Nema 3 6x6 enclosure and continued the last 6' of new material down to the disconnect.
Flipped breaker on and wallah the AC works. That was a fun find.
I've learned to communicate to the client as much as possible in the first 5 minutes when trouble shooting a problem because many times with the right questions you'll know were to start before even putting your tools on.
