Thanking my lucky stars (and my brother in law)

[Coytee]

House is a log house.  Has 4x4's between the logs and those 4x4's get c-h-i-n-k-e-d  (learned from before that is a banned, racist word)

 

Anyway, two summers ago, she & her elder brother chinked the house after sand blasting & staining it.

 

They removed one of the exterior flood lights while doing so.  Finished, he took the scaffold down so it was a while (like 1 1/2 years) before I got around to it.

 

That getting around to it, happened a week or so ago.

 

Got to putting the fixture back up and had a SMALL spark when the wires touched.  Oops, I thought the switch was off.  Went inside, killed switch, proceeded to install light & new bulbs....  and.....  it didn't work.

 

Shortening the story, I tried everything I could think of.  Took fixture down (multiple times), checked for continuity of the bulbs, the fixture, the bulbs WHILE IN the fixture...  had NO power.  

 

Perplexed, went to the switches, didn't find anything wrong there.  I'm utterly perplexed.  Got her "Mr. Fix-it" elder brother, he went through about everything I did and came to the same conclusion....  somehow, the wire might have broken somewhere INSIDE the walls (ugh).

 

Fast forward to today and her younger brother (electrician) stops by to look at it.

 

I've spent a number of hours on trying to find the problem.  Her elder brother spent several hours trying to find it.  Her younger brother poked/prodded....  checked various wires for continuity....  and said the wire(s) ARE likely snapped inside the wall at the switch OR (points to other side of room) over there where the wire comes out.  (why not over here or over there as it travels down the wall with nails & screws attacking it??)

 

He maintained it was likely to be in one of these two places.  Pulled the wire out from the "over there" location (outdoors I might add)

Backstory:  The wire came out of the house, turned 90 degrees and ran along the 4x4 which was NOW covered with c-h-i-n-k (think of it as thick silicone sealer)

 

Went to where wire came out of house, started hunting for hot wires & found them so we knew we're good to there.  Went down about three inches, and indicator went dead.

 

Seems the S.O.B. nailed it.  Pulled back the c-h-i-n-k which will now have to be redone and discovered when the original electrician installed the wires, she evidently ran a staple through the wire so it's been shorting for 10 years, finally rusting/burning through.

 

Made a jumper to go around the burn and the light is back on!   So, we removed the wires that need to be replaced and that will be an upcoming project.  Brother in law said was probably good thing it was covered by c-h-i-n-k as it might have caught fire.

 

Pulled about 18 inches of wire out and turned out there was MORE than one staple impaling the wire.

 

So, no fires, light will work once I get it rewired and the wife gets to reseal the 24" of space where we ripped it all out.

 

Here's the wire.  It's all black on the underside (did it overheat?) and some of the front side of the covering is black.

 

My wife says I'm a bit OCD when I put things like this together but this is why.  Whomever installed these must have WAILED on the hammer.  Those staples weren't tight, they were suffocating, absolutely clamped down on the wire (starting to dig into wood and drag wire into indention with the staple kind of thing)

 

 

[CECAA850]

I remember the original thread where you were trying to diagnose the problem.  Glad it's figured out and working again.

[Coytee]

Thanks.  What amazed me was the hours I've spent, hours my (elder) brother in law spent and his younger brother came in and within probably 30/45 minutes, not only had the problem nailed (broken wire which we also concluded) but, "knew" where it was and was right.

 

Now that I think of this, it could have been a lucky guess as to location and he wasted that lucky guess on me instead of a lottery ticket.

 

I suppose I owe him lunch or something.... (wife just now bought both of them dinner)

 

 

[dtel]

He might have got lucky but it was really you who got lucky, no fire and the problem is fixed or will be now that you know where it's at.

[Coytee]

You mean I should have capped the bare wires before allowing the wife to patch the opening?

 

[JJkizak]

That's what happens when your hammer guy didn't go to get his eyes checked like he was supposed to.

JJK

[dtel]

1 hour ago, Coytee said:

You mean I should have capped the bare wires before allowing the wife to patch the opening?

 

No no, that takes all the fun out of it, watching them wiggle is fun. 

[Dave1290]

Yuppers, hit them as HARD as you can!  Safe way would be to run either plastic or tube conduit everywhere not just bang staples cause it's easier.  Kinda reminds me of Cheech & Chong's "'Up in Smoke!"   Makes ya wonder if they got into the Romex anywhere else in the house.  Have smoke detectors up?  Glad ya found the problem!

[Woofers and Tweeters]

From when I was 11yo until I thought I was ready for my own bills, I grew up in an ol farm house. One night, while listening to some, probably pothead, music, I heard a hum / buzzing noise similar to a transformer. I finally found that the noise preceded a puff of smoke from under some crown moulding in the dining room.  The paramount excitement was red trucks with flashing light, power turned off, battle axes and chainsaws to dig into where it was smoldering. Similar to yours: there was a nail and a hot wire that did the hot dance.  

 

When my dad would tell the story, he would chuckle at what I said when I woke him up: "Dad, you might want to get up, the house is on fire."

 

Glad you were so lucky. 

 

Like Dave said:

58 minutes ago, Dave1290 said:

Have smoke detectors up?

^^