I was at a job last Tuesday in a 1980s house and found three GFCI outlets wired with the load side feeding other outlets downstream. The homeowner said the previous guy did it so he wouldn't have to put in separate AFCI breakers. But that's not code at all around here. The load side is for protecting outlets that might have water exposure, not for daisy chaining across the whole kitchen. Anyone else running into this hack job where guys use GFCIs to bypass panel work?
I went to a house in Cleveland last month where the homeowner had redone most of their basement with Wagos on everything. Twenty minutes in I found a loose connection on a three-wire splice that was already starting to arc. I'm sure they work fine for most people but between that and the cost I still reach for wire nuts and tape most days. Maybe I just got unlucky with that one batch. Anyone else run into Wago failures on existing work?
I was swapping out a light fixture in a warehouse in Phoenix. Caught the edge of a terminal screw and got zapped across my palm. Not a full ride, but enough to throw me off balance and drop my driver on the concrete. Anyone else gotten a reminder shock and had to take ten minutes before you could trust your hands again?
I was on a job last Tuesday at a house in Oak Park, swapping out an old panel. The apprentice had the ground and neutral wires all mixed up on the same bus bar like it was no big deal. Told him you gotta keep them separate past the main disconnect or you're just asking for a floating neutral situation. Anyone else have to explain this like five times before it sticks?
I bought a $12 fish tape from a hardware store last spring to run some romex through a finished wall. On my third pull, the tape snapped inside the wall and I spent 4 hours fishing it out with a magnet and a coat hanger. Ended up having to cut a hole in the drywall anyway, so I wasted $12 plus a whole Saturday afternoon. Has anyone else had a cheap tool cost them way more time than it was worth?
I dropped my Klein CL800 into about 3 inches of standing water while pulling wire under a house in Cleveland. Took it apart, dried it out with rice for two days, and it's still reading voltage fine. Has anyone else had luck reviving a wet meter or should I just replace it before it dies on a job?
I went back to a house I wired in 2019 to swap a breaker and actually found the right circuit on the first try because the tiny labels were still crisp and not smudged, has anyone else switched to smaller text for permanent results?
Kept having issues with the 221s wiggling loose in tight boxes, but the Ideal ones lock in solid and I haven't had a single callback since. Anybody else had better luck with one type of push-in over the other?
Had a 3-way that was acting like it was wired backwards but everything checked out on the meter. After running new travelers and still getting the same thing, I finally realized the previous guy had used a 4-way switch in the middle without it actually being a 4-way setup. Has anyone else run into a homeowner special that made a simple job into a nightmare?
I bought a $7 pair of strippers from a hardware store bargain bin last month... figured hey, wire is wire. Took me three tries to get a clean strip on some 12 gauge, and on the fourth attempt I nicked the copper so bad I had to cut and redo about 18 inches of wire. Ended up wasting nearly 45 minutes on a straightforward box install, plus the cost of the replacement cable. Anyone else learned the hard way that some tools just aren't worth skimping on?
Picked up a box of 221s after years of using the old blue nuts, and I'll be honest I saved about 15 minutes per panel with zero callbacks so far. Anyone else made the jump and actually stick with it?
I was doing a service call in a house built in 1968 over in St. Charles. Everything looked fine at first but then I heard this buzzing noise coming from the main breaker. Pulled the cover and sure enough one of the bus bars was charred black. Had to swap out the whole panel right there on the spot. Cost the homeowner about 1800 bucks for a new 200 amp setup. Anyone else run into these old panels starting to fail more often lately?
I walked into this job in my town and the guy hands me a smart switch and says 'just make it work'. I opened up the box and there was no neutral wire in sight. He kept insisting I could use a switch loop or something weird. I spent 20 minutes explaining how smart switches actually need power and he finally gave up. Has anyone else run into DIY types who think wifi just magically solves old wiring problems?
Was doing a panel swap in a 1980s house last Tuesday and found one of the main lugs had actually melted part of the bus bar. Never seen a breaker fail like that before. Anyone else run into bad Square D hardware lately?
I went with the smart dimmer for the LED cans because I wanted the nightlight feature, but now I'm fighting with the wifi dropping every other day. Anyone else find that the extra features just add headaches on a basic residential job?
I was pulling two 14/2 runs through a finished basement ceiling last week and after 45 minutes of fighting with rods I tried taping a string to a shop vac hose and had both wires through the joist bay in under 10 minutes but some guys at supply house said I'm taking shortcuts that'll cause problems down the line, what's your take on the vacuum method versus traditional fishing?
I had to make a call on what wire to use for a PLC cabinet I built last week for a packaging line. Everyone online says stranded is the way to go for panels because it bends easier and holds up to vibration. But my boss insisted on solid because it stays in place better in terminal blocks and doesn't fray. I went with stranded in the end just to avoid a headache down the road with movement inside the box. Man, what a pain stripping that stuff cleanly though - kept nicking the strands with my strippers until I switched to Klein auto-strippers. The panel looks clean but I'm wondering if solid might have saved me time on termination. Has anyone else dealt with this choice on a machine that runs 24/7?
I spent the whole day Tuesday chasing a dead circuit in a 1970s split level in Oak Park and it turned out to be a junction box buried behind drywall in a bedroom closet. That discovery alone ate 4 hours of my day dealing with drywall repair after I finally found it. How do you guys even find these things without tearing the whole wall down?
Was swapping out a 20 amp single pole in a 1980s Pushmatic panel. The bus bar arcs when I pull the old one, damn near welded my screwdriver to it. Anyone else run into these death traps or is it just me?
I tried those big blue lever nuts on a 30 amp circuit for a water heater in an attic near Atlanta last August and they started feeling warm after 20 minutes of running, so I learned the hard way that not every connector is rated for the heat buildup and you really need to check the fine print on the ampacity specs, has anyone else had trouble with oversized wagos on heavy loads?
I took over a building downtown that had panels from three different eras. The old stuff from the 70s was labeled in pencil, half of it worn off. The 90s panels had a label maker job that was peeling. But the panels that got labeled with those Brady labels back in March? Still look brand new. No fading, no curling. The property manager before me must have just used whatever tape was lying around. Have you guys noticed a big difference between labeling methods over time?
I was pulling new circuits for a remodel in an old house near Portland and my tick tracer went off on a spot that should have been dead. Turns out someone had just buried a junction box behind the wall instead of removing the wire properly. Has anyone else run into hidden live wires like that and what did you do about it?
I was showing a 20 year old kid how to set up a tugger for a 400 amp service and he asked why we didn't just use the power tool to pull it all. He said his instructor showed him how to use the tugger for everything, even short runs behind a panel. Do you guys think we're losing something by skipping the manual part of the trade?
It was in a basement bathroom remodel I did back in 2012. Last Tuesday the homeowner called saying the outlet kept tripping and resetting wouldn't work. I pulled the panel cover and found the neutral terminal on the breaker was corroded and half melted. Ended up replacing it with a standard breaker and a GFCI receptacle instead. Has anyone else seen these fail more often after a certain age?
I was working with a 30 year veteran last week on a rewire in an old house downtown. He pointed to some knob and tube wiring and said most people think it fails from age, but it's actually the insulation getting brittle from heat cycles. He showed me how the real danger is when people add extra insulation in the attic, trapping heat around the wires. That made me rethink how I explain hazards to homeowners. Have any of you seen fires actually start from knob and tube, or is it mostly just the insulation breakdown causing shorts?