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wrote:
I got a metal hole in the wall where there are 4 wires. There is a
red, white and black. Then there is a wire that is an error because
they forgot to put the colored plastic stuff on it. When I bought
this house there was no light in the bathroom. I have lived with this
for 11 years but decided its time to fix this. I wont use that error
wire because its defective but the other 3 are confusing. When I hook
the red to the black the lights go out in the bedrooms. If I hook the
red to white nothing happens and when I hooked the black to the white
there were lots of sparks, my finger got burned, and the whole house
went dark. I had to go in the basement and change that thing they
call a fuse. There was a 30 on the old one so the guy at the dollar
store told me to get a 30 bolt one. I asked him why they call it 30
bolts and he said its because it takes 30 bolts to fasten the wires
and keep them from wiggling on the electric pole. That makes sense.
Anyhow, I replaced that fuse. I wonder why they are called fuses?
They dont look like the fuse on fireworks. But when I replaced it,
the lights in the house work again, but still not the bathroom light.
I bet the problem is that defective error wire and it needs to be
changed. I dont know how to do that. I thought about cutting it off
and putting a piece of some other color wire on the end of it, but
what color should I use, and how many bolts do I need to hook them
together so they dont wiggle? What should I do to fix this mess?

Margo

You've got to be kidding !

Call an electrician - quickly.

what you have sounds like a 220v circuit with a ground wire (the one
with no plastic)

Fuses were called fusible links , cause they melted (fused) under too
high loads.

but burn ointment on your finger .