Need Electrical Advice.........................

partisan

November 14, 2011 09:30

My Brother's house has an electrical problem that Has me really confused. The wiring in his old house has everything the NEC would warn you to never do. The house needs to be re-wired, but since he is a disabled Paramedic he can't afford that solution.
Here is the problem; He lost power to about 6 of his outlets at once. The breaker never tripped. The breaker is working as it should so I assume there isn't a short in the circuit. The plug-in tester says the "hot and the ground are crossed." I don't see how this could be true since this just happened, and the house is 30 years old. The only thing I can think it might be is that there is an "open" in his ground or neutral wire in the circuit. The circuit can't be traced from outlet to outlet due to the jack-leg wiring.
Do any of you have a good guess as to the problem, and an in-expensive solution? I realize this is a lot to ask since nothing in the house is wired to code. Thanks for any and all help!!!!!

Comments

10 comments

p3skyking

November 14, 2011 09:41
He doesn't really have an option. Anything less than a functional electrical system is just a fire waiting to happen.
He needs to beg or barter an electrican and do it right.
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fordsix

November 14, 2011 10:31
mice have chewed the wires
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tsr1965

November 14, 2011 11:10
Being an instrumentation, and industrial process control guru, I whole heartedly agree with the previous two poster's. Those outlets are most likely wired in parallel, andd possibly with several more that are working. A rodent has chewed thru the nuetral, and that is why the tester is showing the mix up.

By all means if your brother can't afford it, give the gift of saving his life, and get it done for him.

Best
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yoshmyster

November 14, 2011 14:46
I wonder if there's a GFI that's hooked up to that line? Or I have this switch that has nothing connected to it. For the longest time I couldn't figure out what it was connected to. One day I found out it's a switch to a wall socket to the far corner of the room. So maybe your bro got one of those and the switch went bad?
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partisan

November 15, 2011 14:09
Thanks to all of you for your suggestions. The rodent chewing thru the neutral wire sounds very likely. We were having a very unusual cold snap here in Florida for a couple of weeks, so a rodent nest in the attic is highly likely.
I will post again when the problem is rectified, and again THANKS for all the help![8D]
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bartman45

November 15, 2011 14:14
I agree that its best to redo the system asap; however, I had the same problem and traced it back to a junction box where a wire nut was not holding a good connection. I guess I wasn't my usual triple checking self when I wired the box
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slumlord44

November 15, 2011 17:11
While total re do may be the best this is a simple problem that is uaually easy to fiX. The hard part is finding it. The reversed neutral was probalbly there since day one. Switch it at the breaker box. Non working outlets are probably a triped GFI or a loose connection in an outlet or light fixture. Back track from the outlet closest to the breaker box and check for loose connections. Cut the power first. May need to get an electician to run it down if you cannot find it. Happens all the time. Need to fix it because loose connection can heat up or spark and cause fire.
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jonk

November 15, 2011 18:45
The first thing to do if you haven't already is throw that breaker and kill the juice to those outlets. Keep it off and only turn it on to test until the problem is resolved.

My parents had a similar problem once. Lights were working fine, then one day, bam, brown out. Minimal juice. Found out the ground and neutral were somehow screwed up. They never did find the problem, to be safe we just cut off the old lines and ran a new circuit for everything on that line and did it up to code to boot. If you can't find the issue, that's what I'd recommend here too.
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rsnyder55

November 16, 2011 04:56
I had a similar problem, an outlet with a GFI in the garage would go off and take about six outlets out at times when my wife plugged in her hairdryer.

I replaced the outlet she was using and it fixed the problem. You may be able to fix the problem by replacing the outlets. If you knew which ones were being used at the time, I would start with those.
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minitruck83

November 17, 2011 22:16
Have you checked for Ants?

Allen
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