Home electrical

Torque Junkie · October 3, 2004

ARGH!!!

Finally, after almost 10 hours on this F*#*$& project!

So I was wiring a new light fixture/vent fan combo into our bathroom today. A very simple project, no big deal, right?

WRONG!

I pulled the old one out, only to find that the existing wire to the switch went thru a hole just big enough for the 1 wire to reach, and it's far enough out of my reach that I can't get another wire thru it without tearing out drywall - even with a fishtape and an extra set of hands. So, the fan & light are on a single switch. First bad news.

So I start wire in the new fan/light combo, only to find that the layout pattern of the new fixture box requres about 8" more wire than is in the ceiling. So off to Home Depo-(wned) to get some 12awg cable. Come home, splice the new wire in so I have enough wire to work with, and hook it up, hang the fixture from the mounts, run down to the basement & flip the breaker. Run back up stairs. Find that I wired the fan & light into series instead of parallel, so each got half the voltage, thus both loads were running at half-capacity. OK, simple mistake. At least it's not shorted out.

So I run back down to the basement, flip the breaker back off, come back up, take the fixture down, wire it into parallel, hang the fixture back up. Run back down stairs, flip the breaker on, run back up stairs, only to find the light on regardless of switch position and the switch controls the fan. OK, another simple mistake. At least it's not shorted out.

So I run back down to the basement, flip the breaker back off, come back up, take the fixture down, wire it into parallel, run back down, flip the breaker back on, run back up. Works great! Hang it back up, put the cover plate on it, only to find that I hung it about 3/4" too low, so there's a gap between the ceiling and the plate.

By now it's getting dark, so I find my flashlight.. and run back down to the basement, flip the breaker back off, come back up, take the fixture down, hang it back up at the right height, run back down, turn the breaker back on again, and NOTHING. The entire CIRCUIT that contols the lights to half the house was out, no power to anything, including my fridge. So All the lights downstairs are out, and it's now dark outside, so my flashlight is my best friend. So run back down, flip the breaker, run back up, pull the fixture down, check the wiring, all looks good, except one of the bare ground wires slipped out of the wirenut, so I fixed that, ran back down, flipped, ran back up, still nothing.

Now, I start to troubleshoot, all the while I'm more frustrated than a Janet Reno's blind date. Fast forward, 4 hours and 60 trips up and down the basement flipping breakers, pulling every outlet out of the wall & checking, only to find that a MOTHERF$*$* Ground-fault outlet tripped when the ground wire slipped, broke the flow to the entire f$#$#*& circuit. All I had to do was push that little f#*$#$ red button 6 f$*&$*& hours ago and I would have been on my merry way....

Got everything back together, all the outlets back in, fixture hung back up, ran down, flipped the breaker, and POP! WTF#$#&*$#& Reset it, flipped it again... POP!

Now I'm pissed. Run back up, take the fixture down, found that when I put part of the fixture the last time (which was like the 18th time) I pinched a wire, punctured the insulation and it grounded out to the frame of the fixture.

Fixed that, hung it back up, flipped the breaker, came back up, and it worked, finally.

Job that should have taken an hour, took 10.

So here I sit enjoying a very well deserved ice cold beer at 2am.

2500HD4X · October 3, 2004

Yep- Gotta hate those GFCI receptacles... I feel your pain man, I just finished the rough in wiring on MY new house last week. Not somebody elses house, my new home- So anyway, I have been putting up insulation for the past few days (ITCHY!) after work and whenever I find the time between my 3 jobs (1 full time, 2 part). Yesterday I was at my house (my old house) thinking about the plan for the evening-rooting through my toolbox-and realized I never pulled the wire for the gable fan, or the two rear exterior lights- I ran out of 12-3 and had to go get some more, and after I got back from the store @ 9:30pm, I PROMPTLY FORGOT ABOUT IT. The 100' roll was in the toolbox, not up in the wall/ceiling where it belonged, and the next day, up I went with the insulation, staples and ALL! So last night down came the insulation in the wall(s) and I still have to wade through R-49 trying to find the rafters w/o punching the insulation down tonight to wire up the dang fan....Oh well, at least the sheetrock isn't up yet so I can't break that falling through...... Hopefully that is the only thing I missed on the wiring. I checked it about 5 times on the inside and still forgot something on the wiring.... Glad you finally got it figured out! Isn't home construction/improvement wonderful?

99silveradoz71 · October 3, 2004

Reminds me of when I was running around the house in not much while trying to figure out why the jets in the whirlpool tub weren't working...GFI

blue2kzr2 · October 4, 2004

Heh. Was doing some HI the other day also. Helped my dad re-instll a 2 year old dishwasher. It was removed when the kitchen got re-done in April, they decided they didn't like how the unit that they got with the cabinets loaded, so we decided to swap it out. Those darn fittings are CONFUSING.

First trip to Lowes we go to find a dishwasher water supply hose, the one on the unit we removed was somewhat permanently affixed to the machine. Only comes in 1/2 on one end and 3/8 on the other. We need 3/8 -> 3/8. Get talking to a guy about it, he finds an adapter that should work, THEN we read the package, there's a ring included to do that! Go home, hook it up, water all over, I didn't have that figured out right.

We go up, find the adapter he suggested, since that little ring was confusing, get home and it was the WRONG ONE!

Make a trip across the street to HD, they don't have what we need. Go home, decided to try it a different way, got it to work finally. Ran it twice to test it and got no leaks.

What we figured to be an afternoon project is still not completed. Still have to finalize the leveling and do little finishing things.