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Worst Non-Pro Wiring to Date


Brian G

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The house I did yesterday was about 20 years old with a more recent addition. The homeowner obviously did a lot of the wiring, and he didn't bother with any silly book or anything. There are two main panels in the utility room, side by side, apparently both fed directly from the meter base (double lugs, or double-lugged?..heck if I know, I'm not cutting the seal off). The black wires go to the neutral bars, the white ones to the breakers. A few NM cables with the grounds cut off, no romex connectors, open KO's, one double-lugged breaker, and no large bare ground wire that might be connected to a rod or something. Most of the outlets in the house read "open ground", so when I ran across a couple in the master bedroom with the covers missing I took a peek...the ground wires were cut off there too. No GFCI's anywhere. Unbelievable. This is the first time I've found where someone didn't get the white / black thing right at all.

Brian G.

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Originally posted by Brian G.

. . . Unbelievable. This is the first time I've found where someone didn't get the white / black thing right at all.

Brian G.

Sometimes electrical engineers get the white/black thing wrong. I'm not sure why, but I've seen it three or four times. I suspect that there're different conventions used in the color-coding of wiring in some disciplines of electrical engineering.

Was he an engineer, by any chance?

- Jim Katen, Oregon

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