My aunt (recently Widowed) called me after the recent ice storm.She and my uncle had purchased my Grandfathers old house that was built back in the
early 1900's. My uncle was a do it yourselfer who had tried to do his own electrical work. This is an old Farmhouse out in the country. He had tapped off and put a 2p Nema 1 fused disconnect outside on the front porch,ran a piece of 10/3 nm indoor romex around the outside of the 2 story house installed a 4/0 octagonal box outside with a taped lid,penetrated the outside wall and went into the house to feed a receptacle for an air conditioning unit.
He then continued on the outside of the house outside to the west end went up high to another 4/0 octagonal box under the eave.From there he stretched a cable from the rafter to an old oak tree about 30 yard from the
house and installed a screw in insulator then another 50 yard to his outbuilding. He then taped 3 individual well pump wires to the cabel to feed his outbuilding. At the out building the single strand converts over to 12/2 romexes where he had just stripped the isulation back and twisted the wires and taped the connections together with no junction boxes. Bless his heart I know he felt he had made a great acomplishment by doing all of this work,but my aunt was woried that the limbs that had recently fell during the ice storm had damaged the overhead cable. I shut the disconnect off at the front porch unable to explain to her the amount of code violations that my Uncle had perfomed during this installation. She was worried that her battery on her car in the garage would go dead because the Trickle charger would have no power and was almost offended that I shut it off. What do you do when people are used to something working for years but do not have the money to fix it up right. I feel bad for shutting the service off to the garage but would feel worse if someone was to get hurt.
early 1900's. My uncle was a do it yourselfer who had tried to do his own electrical work. This is an old Farmhouse out in the country. He had tapped off and put a 2p Nema 1 fused disconnect outside on the front porch,ran a piece of 10/3 nm indoor romex around the outside of the 2 story house installed a 4/0 octagonal box outside with a taped lid,penetrated the outside wall and went into the house to feed a receptacle for an air conditioning unit.
He then continued on the outside of the house outside to the west end went up high to another 4/0 octagonal box under the eave.From there he stretched a cable from the rafter to an old oak tree about 30 yard from the
house and installed a screw in insulator then another 50 yard to his outbuilding. He then taped 3 individual well pump wires to the cabel to feed his outbuilding. At the out building the single strand converts over to 12/2 romexes where he had just stripped the isulation back and twisted the wires and taped the connections together with no junction boxes. Bless his heart I know he felt he had made a great acomplishment by doing all of this work,but my aunt was woried that the limbs that had recently fell during the ice storm had damaged the overhead cable. I shut the disconnect off at the front porch unable to explain to her the amount of code violations that my Uncle had perfomed during this installation. She was worried that her battery on her car in the garage would go dead because the Trickle charger would have no power and was almost offended that I shut it off. What do you do when people are used to something working for years but do not have the money to fix it up right. I feel bad for shutting the service off to the garage but would feel worse if someone was to get hurt.
