Electrical Problems

Context: 3 months after renovations concluded, wherein nothing was wrong with the electrical, suddenly outlets would go out here and there, or the electrical appliances would suddenly go out. It would not all happen at once but one here and there. Breaker does not seem to have gone off, and after resetting still does not restore power, advice on where the problem could be?

Jimmy

in General Discussion 3 years and 1 month ago

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andriywww1990 | 3 years and 1 month ago

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Busy day on brownstoner it seems and this post got booted down. For the sake of unknowing homeowners, I’ll boot it up.

A mess like this can end up costing a homeowner a lot of money. We cannot rely on contractors to have the cash on hand to properly fix their screw ups.

andriywww1990 | 3 years and 1 month ago

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Op should call an electrician but is not going to and i will tell you why: op just did this as part of a renovation and op is not a licensed electrician. I would have to bet that this job should have been filed and was not. Or at least the electric part. I don’t care that it was not filed my self but my point is op cannot call an electrician now because when the electrician arrives and sees that someone with no electrical experience and no license just wired some rooms and has put a family’s life in danger, the electrician may very well get mad, as he should, and drop a dime. The dob will arrive and jimmy gets in all sorts of trouble.

Jimmy’s plight is a cautionary tale for both homeowners and us contractors.

dorkofwindsor | 3 years and 1 month ago

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assuming they are all on the same circuit…. the simple things i would do for myself include tracing the circuit, opening up all outlet receptacles (especially the first one if you know the circuit flow), light switches and overhead lights, tightening all connections – and if they use backstabs i would remove and use side screws. hopefully no gfci’s on same circuit as appliances outlets and/or lights. i would also tighten the connection at the panel and re-seat the breaker. after that, i may search for buried or not buried jbox, this can be tough. if none of this works i might try swapping breakers to a non critical circuit and see what happens, then i would call an electrician.

BklnRefugee | 3 years and 1 month ago

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Double-lugged neutral?

ceci | 3 years and 1 month ago

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If the electrical was part of the renovation, you must have a guarantee on the job!!! I would start there!!! Good Luck!!!

RobertGMarvin

in General Discussion 3 years and 1 month ago

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These problems can even be difficult for an experienced electrician to locate. and repair. I had a mysterious electrical problem years ago which took several visits. It t it ended out that a top floor 1930s Bakelite fuse box, which had been left as safe by the electrician who had checked and added to my electrical system in the ‘70s, had cracked, but only caused problems when someone walked in the hallway outside the bedroom where it was located. Replacing it with a circuit breaker box solved the problem, but there was a LOT of detective work involved.

andriywww1990 | 3 years and 1 month ago

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Now that i reread your post, and see you said that things go out here and there tells me there is a loose connection. Loose connections are a problem in that they can arc and when things arc they get hot. That is how fires start. We had an electric problem in a wall in the garage wher i grew up and it ended up in a pretty bad fire. A cousin of mine got killed in a fire on eastern long island when we were kids. For your own safety, turn this over to an electrician.

andriywww1990 | 3 years and 1 month ago

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Jimmy. You are a contractor. I am a contractor. I have hands on class room electrical training. My insurance even covers me doing electrical work. But i am not a licensed electrician. I suspect you are newer to this than i am and a long time ago i decided that i would not tamper with electricity in customer’s homes for the safety of myself, my employees, and the customer. And the fines? The city regularly hits guys like us for 10k for doing electric work. There is a lot of work out there now; if customers are demanding you do it as a larger scale project, walk away.

That you come to a board like this asking something like this about something that is probably very easy to trace tells me you are working in an area you should not be.

I will tell this under the assumption that you are not opening things. Trace that entire circuit. You need a tracer. All outlets. If some of them come on and some don’t, there may be a break in a junction box or an outlet box. Junction boxes should not be buried in walls but unlicensed people do it all the time . no one can really tell what is wrong by trying guess here. To get good at this you have to learn to do it. And yes. It is legal for use to stick things like meters in outlets to asses.

I am sorry to be the policeman and i am always glad to help people who i think can manage some thing safely, but do yourself a favor, call an electrician. I have a very reasonable guy if you want.