On Sun, 21 Mar 2021 16:33:14 -0400, J. Clarke
wrote:

Please forgive me--this is a bit of a rant.

I went to put a new fixture at the top of the stairs--the old one is
physically too small to hold anything bigger than a 60w incandescent
(by physically I mean you can't put the globe on if anything bigger is
in it, and that includes CF and LED that are larger than 60W
equivalent and in that location a 60 just isn't enough light.

Well, went to kill the power to the circuit and discovered chaos.

First:
Turned the switch off
Checked socket with a voltage sensor
Still voltage on the circuit
Par for the course in this house
Switch is in the neutral leg
Add to list of stuff to fix.

Next:
Screwed adapter into socket and plugged in tracer
Traced signal in breaker panel
Not one, but _two_ breakers showed signal
Turned both off
Went back upstairs
Checked for voltage again
No voltage--good
Flipped switch--checked again
Voltage--not good
Back to the panel
Identify third breaker, turn off
Now no voltage

Replaced fixture, turned breakers back on, everything works, I didn't
die.

But now I have the real mystery--how is this effing light managing to
be connected to not one, but _three_ separate branch circuits?

Every time someone tells me that wiring should be done by a
"professional" I run into another example of egregiously bad wiring
installed by a "professional".

Well, I know now how I'm going spend some part of my vacation. And I
hate to admit it but I'm getting too _old_ to be rolling around in
fiberglass pulling wires for fun and no profit. I know, I should hire
an electrician but then I'll have to watch him.

I'm with you there. I've seen stuff in relatively new houses that
looks like it was done by an absolute moron. Our downstairs bathroom
in our VT house (built in '87, we moved in, in '93) had a cheap
contractor's fixture above the vanity. SWMBO decided that a new light
was in order. I took the old one off and discovered that there was no
box behind it. In further inspection, I found that the romex came up
in the wrong wall box. Did they run another line down to the
unfinished basement? No. Did they notch the 2x4 to get the wire into
the right wall cavity? Nope. They notched the sheetrock and ran it
around the stud, then papered over it. Nice.

In our hose before that, there were no boxes behind outdoor fixtures
hanging on brick. Now what to do?

I'm sure it wasn't done by an electrician but a friends basement was
wired in zip cord.

I'm doing a *lot* of wiring in our basement and I'll guarantee that
it's done as well as any residential electrician would do.