Electrical Gremlins....

[windashine]

… o O (alllww right @Coytee ) All we're lookin' for now is a wiring diagram.... please don't tell us u used that copper water line for a ground, on the side of the house, that had one deceased resident smiling for a photograph one afternoon....

[Coytee]

Not to belabor the conversation....  (as I belabor it!)

 

Spoke with my brother in law today, covered some questions with him then phone went dead....  (hmmm.....I wonder if he got zapped!?!?!?!)

 

Anyway, I made these comments to him:

 

1.  Plugged each bulb into working lamp, bulbs are good

2.  Pulled fixture down & did a continuity test for the wires to the sockets, everything tests good

3.  Looked at the other two fixtures on same circuit to see if maybe THEY had a loose wire that would go to this fixture.  (wires were tight in their nuts)

4.  Pulled out each switch to see if anything looked amiss in there....everything was fine in both

 

I was in process of asking him "is there any way and if so, how would I test for continuity of each wire (hot/ground/neutral) to make sure they are wired back to the box?

 

Reason is....  we sand blasted the house 2-summers ago (log house).  During that process, I'm pretty sure the wires for this specific light were exposed.  I'm ALSO going to presume they got hit with the sand blaster.

 

My brother in law said he didn't think a sand blaster would do any/much harm to an exposed wire.  (I have no idea but let's presume that is false)....  what I'm wondering is, could wire have been hit.....weakened in a spot that is NOW under 1/2 inch of *****.  The wire (I'm wondering) was "hanging on by a thread" and when I shorted the two wires, that was enough current to zap the thread, killing the wire.

 

(no idea but the story would fit the facts as they seem to be)

 

He said he didn't think so....

 

But....along those lines, what could I use to see how far back I (might) have power?  I have a ...  don't know what it's called...  a probe that when near a hot wire, will beep letting you know it's hot.  I put it up agasint the 1/2" thick ***** to see if it would possibly beep there....and it didn't.  So either the ***** is too thick to let it work or, the wire is dead further up the line.

 

It was during this part of the conversation that his cell phone went dead.  

 

Maybe he hung up on me.  I'm married to his sister....perhaps it runs in the family.

 

[Coytee]

Hmm...  above, I said *****.

 

Seems you can't say c*h*i*n*k as it is a slanderous word...  however, in my context, you use it to seal between your logs.

 

I could think of "log" being a smelly word and it doesn't get blocked.

 

 

[JJkizak]

Sandblasting an electrical wire is like squeezing an elephant through a woodpecker hole. The sand just keeps bouncing off the insulation.

JJK

[CECAA850]

Update?  Inquiring minds want to know.

[Oicu812]

@Coytee

 

It's probably the faulty GFCI.  I had the same thing happen with our hot tub.  It stopped working one day, and the circuit was hot through the breaker, but nothing in the 115 plug outside.

 

Called my father in law and told him the symptoms  (ex-Marine and electrician).  He immediately told me to look for ANY tripped GFCI breaker on any outlets within the house.  The tripped breaker was in the master bath outlet, at the other end of the house.

 

I couldn't believe that someone would wire the bath, and then pull from there to one lonely outlet nearly 100 feet away in the outside pool enclosure!  Pushed the stupid reset in, and the hot tub came on.  Idiotic.