On 02/15/2010 08:50 PM, auggie wrote:
On Feb 14, 5:27 pm, wrote:
On Feb 14, 3:00 pm, Nate wrote:





On 2/14/2010 2:19 PM, hibb wrote:

On Feb 14, 1:25 pm, wrote:
On Feb 14, 2:35 pm, wrote:

On Feb 14, 12:53 am, Nate wrote:

On 2/14/2010 12:38 AM, terry wrote:

On Feb 14, 2:26 am, wrote:
On Feb 13, 11:03 pm, wrote:

On Feb 13, 9:57 pm, wrote:

On Feb 13, 9:54 pm, wrote:

hibb wrote:
I have gutted out a small room upstairs with the purpose of remodeling
it for a home recording studio. The room already had three electric
outlets so tonight I was in the process of replacing them and adding a
couple more. One of the outlet boxes had a newer set of wires and a
very old set of wires attached to it.

I puled the outlet out of it's box and was surprised that it had only
one set of wires hooked to it. I removed the wires expecting to find
that the two wires had been spiced together but no. The old wire was
just a dead end. Just cut off and still attached to the outlet box.

So I sat there and thought about it for a second and wondered if the
old wire was still hot. So I trimmed a bit of insulation off so I
could get the tester on it and sure enough it was.

So tomorrow I get to start switching breakers off to see what else
that wire is hooked to. it disappears behind the wallboard in the next
room that I have junked up with stuff I emptied out of the room I am
working on. It would be nice to have two circuits for the outlets in
that room. One for the computer and other stuff and one for the mixer.
The old wire is just two wires with no ground wire. If I can find out
where it's next junction is maybe I can pull it through and replace it
with new wire.

Wish me luck, I need it.

David

Good example of why anyone who opens up any wiring device should have
one of those pen-style power detectors in their shirt pocket, and get in
the habit of using it every time, even when you 'know' the power is off.
In fussing with old work, you never know what some idiot previous owner
did 20 years ago.

--
aem sends...

Yep, I tend to test thing in every way possible before risking my
hide.

David- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I've got a 1952 house with countless undocumented improvements, I've
found junction box's with 4 breakers worth of wires running through
it. always use your pen tester

Our house turns 100 this year. A great deal had been updated in the
30+ years we have lived here.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Another idea, if working alone, is to not only test as recommended but
also plug in a radio tuned to something you can hear from the circuit
breaker panel location. Then, flipping off breakers one can tell if
you have found the one to deaden that circuit. A friend found 'two'
circuit breakers were in contact with the same circuit by doing that!
Flipping off and then each single pole breakers, one at a time, the
circuit remained energized. But he finally found the two that did!
That saved a few trips up and down stairs!

yikes! that takes a special sort of electrician to create a mess like
that. At least whoever did that picked two circuits on the same phase!

nate

From the description, which isn't totally clear, I don't see any
"mess" or a violation of any code or anything surprising. All he
says is he has:

an outlet in a box
that box has both new wires and and old wires going into it
the old wires are all that is connected to the outlet
the old wires are live

It's not the way one would normally wire something for new work. But
if it's old work, I don't believe it violates any code.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

True; somebody perhaps back in time extended an existing (old wiring
circuit) using newer wiring.

Nope. What it looks like is somebody replaced the outlet, ran new
wires from another circuit for power and cut off the old wire and just
left attached to the box but not hooked to the outlet. It would have
been nice if they had at least tapped up the end of the wire but all
the did was cut it off.

Someone a few posts back said that they had a recep that wouldn't go
dead unless two different CB's were cut off, that's a definite code
violation no matter how you look at it.

nate

--

Interesting. Is there something in the code that actually says you
can't split a receptacle and put one half on one circuit and the other
on another? I agree it would be bad practice. But outlets are
often split so that one part is always live, the other goes to a
switch. Just wondering if the code actually covers that and says
they must be on the same breaker.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

in mn it was common practice to have the upper half and lower half of
outlets in kitchens on seprate circuits somthing to do with the draw
of old appliances

that could actually explain it, someone replacing a recep wired like
that without breaking the tabs, I didn't think of that.

nate

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