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PSA: A simple ground fault in a 1980s panel took me 4 hours to trace.

It was a single bad wire nut in a junction box behind the main unit. Anyone else run into weird old wiring that eats up a whole morning?
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3 Comments
wood.eric
wood.eric6d agoMost Upvoted
My buddy had a similar nightmare in his 70s split-level. He spent an entire Saturday chasing a flickering hall light, only to find the issue was a backstabbed outlet that had slowly melted over decades. The frustration is so real when you finally find it and it's something that simple. What was the final clue that led you to that junction box?
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jennifer833
Honestly, I have to push back on calling that a simple fix. Finding a melted outlet isn't the end of the story, it's a huge red flag. That means there was a serious fire risk hiding in the walls for who knows how long. Calling it a simple fix downplays how dangerous old wiring can be. The real nightmare isn't the Saturday spent looking, it's the fact that the house could have burned down. That's not a minor annoyance, it's a major safety win.
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karenh56
karenh566d ago
Yeah, that "slowly melted over decades" part is the real scary bit.
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