# House with no ground wires



## faber307 (Jan 22, 2007)

I was called out to an industrial customer's residence. 
They said the lights in their entry way and kitchen sometimes work, sometimes not. But recently, they are not working. 
No body home when I got there accept the farm dog. I forget what breed, but nice looking dog. He was in a crate by the back door and would NOT quit barking while I was checking switches and breakers. I remembered that I had some "greenies" dog treats in my pocket from the day before I picked up at the feed store. Gave him one of those and he shut up. Whew!

found some fairly new wire mold in the kitchen with a couple 3 way switches. opened up the surace mount box and started measuring voltage.

found 120volts when switch off. then 70volts when on. tracked to wire touching wiremold extension box. BOX WAS LIVE and I didn't know it. 
fixed 'er up and the lights worked. 

Here is a pic. Note the small arc 

Then, with the power back on, the kitchen ceiling fan light is making a funny popping sound. It has a flourescent lamp in it and it won't light. So I'm back to measuring voltage on and off, etc. thinking there is still a wiring problem.

Then I go to the fixture and smell somthing hot. Took the light kit apart and found the socket was arcing.

Not real exciting guys, but if you could imagine the mindset of troubleshooting this. 

Sometimes you go backwards to go forwards.


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## MDShunk (Jan 7, 2007)

Cool. Love pictures. :thumbsup: 

After you squared away the problem in the Wiremold box, I bet you were thinking to yourself, "Now what?", when the paddle fan started to act up. I run my share of Wiremold 500 extensions from ungrounded circuits, but I'm not exactly proud of it. Your example shows exactly what hazards can be created by doing so. Shame on me. 

I keep those lampholder sockets on my truck (I generally carry two), except the porcelain version. It's one of those, "oh, while your here, can you look at this?" items that I use a good many of in a year's time. That socket is very popular, being used in most paddle fans, track light heads, and many other fixtures.


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## John (Jan 22, 2007)

Awful crusty looking wire at the top of the 1st picture. Working with old wiring really gives me the willies sometimes. inch:


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## MDShunk (Jan 7, 2007)

It looks like part of the root cause of the short on the Wiremold extension ring may be due to the fact that the original installer used the wrong box, in my opinion. I see that they field drilled holes in a 5747-2 or 5748-2 box to mount it on a 2 gang wall box. This box only has a single gang box knockout opening in the back, and is meant to extend from a single gang box. The 5751-2 box would have been the original installer's better choice, since it is a 2 gang extension box with a 2 gang opening in the back. 

Here's a note from the Wiremold catalog:
_* V5744-2 and V5744S-2 Base and V5747-2 and V5748-2 Base have 1/2" and 1" concentric trade size KOs and a 1 13/16" x 2 7/8" [47mm x 73mm] rectangular KO to permit mounting on a one-gang in-wall outlet box._


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## faber307 (Jan 22, 2007)

Those cute little pit marks had a cute "little" spark to go with it!


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## Joe Momma (Jan 23, 2007)

Tab Faber said:


> Then I go to the fixture and smell somthing hot. .


Wouldn't that be great if electricians could simply 'smell' hot wires, it'd put the 'tic-tracer' business away, and hopefully keep home owners away from their live wires, with their half ass splice jobs because they're too afraid of getting shocked.


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