Bit off topic but need help with house wiring

My Daughter purchased a home, she don't live there but daughter does while attending college with 3 other room mates. Week ago all was working! One day they returned home but ceiling lights would not work and one outlet on the 3rd floor. Was old knob and tube, knobs with some unused wire still attached. Didn't see any tubes. House must have been rewired and 2 conductor cloth cover romex wire used, wires are plastic covered not rubber and in very good condition. House must have been rewired again newer breaker panel installed and newer plastic covered romex used. Only one of the 11 breakers has cloth covered romex. Quite a few junction boxes with 1 feed and 3 pairs being fed. Wire nuts are new with metal coils in the plastic housing but wires were not twisted. I removed the wire nuts twisted the wires then replaced the wire nuts however it didn't help. On the first floor there is a switch for the lights, I removed the cover both sides of the switch have no power. Next room switch also included in a new 4" box a duplex outlet that worked. Now have a Neutral and power I could test the switched wires. Neutral to either side of the switch 120VAS Hot side of the outlet to both sides of the switch 240VAC. Flipping the switch does not change anything, both sides are Hot! I determined one breaker may have been the problem, someone connected neutral to the hot side, removed the wire and connected it to neutral. Tested the switch again, neutral to switch O VAC Hot side of the outlet to switch now 120VAc. Other phase is no longer present. However no other breakers would supply power to the switch! Returning the removed wire to power returned the condition, seems the one breaker is connected to both sides of the light line. By using and extension cord the same condition is also on the first switch tested. With power off I checked continuity across the switch terminals, ON I get 0 ohms off I'm getting 10 ohms, I sure that is the light!
As I mentioned the system was working, no one touched the wiring! Any ideas on what might be the cause???

Froneck said:

... Any ideas on what might be the cause???

Click to expand...

The cause is wiring that is aged and has been hacked several times, likely be less than trained people. Failure is likely to be a connection in a junction box that is hidden, walled over, etc. Ultimately it sounds like it is time to gut all of the electrical and start fresh, which may seem excessive, but when it's at this mystery untouched failure stage it could well have a failure resulting in a fire or electrocution soon. Is the place even insured? Most insurance companies won't even insure a place with any remaining live K&T wiring.

wp6529 pretty much has spelled it out quite well.

I would just add that now is not the time to run extension cords all over the place, because that can be dangerous.

"My Daughter purchased a home, she don't live there but daughter does"

i'm still trying to figure this out.

Larry Dickman said:

"My Daughter purchased a home, she don't live there but daughter does"

i'm still trying to figure this out.

Click to expand...

prolly granddaughter

It is really hard to troubleshoot from 400 miles away, but I agree with the above.
Start looking to see if you can fish new romex some way to to switch

I have seen people switch neutral for ceiling fixtures in some cases, I don't like it but it is done, cannot recall why.

Maybe some pics might help

YOur description is a tad hard to follow

It does sound like there’s lots of avenues for electrical gremlins to have taken up residence. That said, I would be looking for a dimmer-switch somewhere in the problematic circuit. Faulty dimmers have a way of causing problems that shouldn’t exist downstream.

Obviously there’s lots of issues waiting to happen, but I’m reading that things worked one day and didn’t the next… that typically indicates to me there’s a dimmer that went bad and the rest of the downstream circuit has been affected.




Be safe


Jeremy

If you are seeing voltage on a neutral line anywhere in the house the first thing to investigate would be if the house's neutral wire has been interrupted someplace between the street and the panelboard. If the neutral has been burned off the line from the pole then you might see what you are seeing.

Electricity can be your buddy or your nemesis. This clearly a case of non-qualified hackers that have changed circuits, added circuits and generally created a nightmare. Its not merely a case of an open circuit somewhat, it is probably is more likely overloaded circuits, incorrectly switching hot and neutrals, incorrect or missing grounds....

I have seen it all.

Get a licensed electrician in and consider have the house rewired...properly.

Tom

I guess I should have worded it different. My daughter purchased the home, her daughter lives there (my granddaughter as Gustafson mentioned)
House is well built I see no shortcuts and quite a bit of overkill. Electrical system was rewired from what I see. Old knob and tube fuse boxes still there but not connected to anything, no electricity on main fuse panel, another newer fused disconnect that seems to be the main being wired to large conductors from the outside but not connected to anything on either side. New breaker panel is connected below the above disconnect that is stuffed in the space above the foundation. Knob and tube wiring seems to have been replaced by 2 conductor cloth covered romex but wire inside is plastic covered soft flexible and looks to be in excellent condition. Only one line of it is connected to a breaker and seems to have been to power outside lights that have been disconnected. All other wire is plastic covered romex. I see no connection to old knob wire but some exists, looks like the neutral since it terminates on the water pipe, only about 8' and connected to nothing on other side. Walls and ceiling are plastered not sheetrock. Receptacles on the first floor look from the basement to have been wired with new plastic covered romex. However romex is 2 conductor with no ground wire except newest connection for dryer.
Simply put rewire will be a major undertaking but may have been done when 2 conductor cloth covered romex was used to up-grade. At no place in the basement do I see any connection to old knob wiring. There are a few junction boxes where older romex is connected.
There are many outlets, all work so no extension cords are used or needed, if an extension cord is used it's large wire as seen when micro wave on top of refrigerator need extension to reach outlet below. Outlets all are 12 gauge on 20 A breaker. Lighting currently being used are lamps plugged into outlets!
Condition I'm getting is as if neutral of light circuit was connected to the hot side of the same breaker so that both sides are hot! I removed the wire from the breaker and connected it to neutral, now when testing both sides are neutral! One possibility there was overload wire burned neutral opened and melted into hot wire. BUT the problem happened on all the lights that are fed from 3 different breakers at the same time, but I did no testing on 2nd or 3rd floors.

I've seen rewired houses have light circuits fed from two different breakers, both on the same phase so they worked ok, but hard to figure out how to cut the power. In this case, any chance that there is either a three way light switch somewhere, or some sort of two way switches to act like a three way? Wild guess, which I can't figure out how it could act like you are describing, but maybe.

Looking at the last post, any chance a sub panel has neutral and ground bonded together? Again, guessing.

I dont see any way around traditional troubleshooting. Meaning, take one breaker at a time, and test everything to see what its connected to. Open each accessible box one at a time, check all connections. Build a map in your mind of what the heck is going on. You will no doubt find stuff that needs fixing, some of which is not your problem, some of which is. This is the way a paid electrician would do it, unless you pay em to rip it all out and start over...
Just like when you are troubleshooting a car, there is no way to magically avoid the elbow grease part.

It could be a bad breaker.
Could be a shorted connection, a melted wire nut, a place where there was only electrical tape which shorted to ground, or worn insulation, or crazy "repairs". But there is no shortcut around methodical testing and troubleshooting.

Wire is 2 conductor, no ground wire, all whites connected to ground buss bar as well as neutral from power company and water pipe.
As I mentioned when testing the light circuit which I assume are 4 (one for each floor including basement. The results are as if both sides of the light circuit on the first floor were connected to the Black wire currently connected to a breaker, removing that wire from breaker and attach to neutral buss now has both sides connected to neutral! Flipping the switch on off changed nothing! However with black wire remove from neutral or still connected and using Ohms on Simpson 260 I get 0 ohms when switch is "ON" (as it should be because contact is closed) and 10 Ohms when switch if "Off" and I assume I'm reading light bulb resistance. (fixture has 3 light bulbs) That indicates both sides of the line terminate to same place! Again I only tested first floor since I was searching all junction boxes in basement then began testing first floor having to go up and down basement steps!
The odd thing is what ever happened had to have happened to all the light circuits at the same time!
I will return for more testing! But not sure what to test except try other floors.
Nothing makes sense if no one was working on electrical system!!

Froneck said:

...
Nothing makes sense if no one was working on electrical system!!

Click to expand...

Correct me if this was not the observed sequence of events.

1) electrical system in house works fine.

2) something has gone wrong with the system.

3) apparently no person has changed any wiring in the house between (1) and (2) above

4) conclusion: some event not determined (and not deliberately performed) has changed the wiring configuration.

A common fault that will show problems such as neutrals showing voltage would be: interrupted neutral from pole to
panelboard, or a loose connection between neutral wire and the lug on the panelboard.

Are there any cases where operating one circuit (switching lights, ranges, water heaters etc) causes changes in any other circuit?

Can you visually inspect the connection between the neutral line at the pole and the house's drop to the weatherhead? Have there been any heavy windstorms recently?

Neutral issues cause many mysteries, and damaged equipment.

When an old house is "rewired", it is not unknown for the visible modern cable to end up being connected to the old knob and tube wiring some places where it was hard to access. Often, no attention is paid to which wire is neutral.

The result can be light sockets with the screw threads hot, switched neutrals, and even, as mentioned, multiple sources for power to some loads.

There may be knob and tube wiring some places that is not energized, other pieces may be energized, but have no load attached, etc. A nightmare.

Your only option is to find the wiring, identify the source, and rewire as needed. In situations like what you describe, even qualified electricians can screw up. Some will only accept it as a "rewire the house" job, which makes sense.

Moving the wires for testing is not wise.

"TONY'S LAW" first rule is last guy did it wrong and that may be true.

First since it was working then stopped is may have been close then something broke.

Wires do not move by themselves so put everything back to as found.

Next get a 100 ft 3 wire extension cord.

Take your VOM and start at an outlet closest to the breaker panel and check voltages.

Small blade hot and fat blade neutral with round safety ground.

Should see 120 vac from small blade to both other connections and zero between the other 2.

Plug in cord and remeasure to confirm cord is good.


The cord now is your reference to make all measurements.

Now take end of cord to near sink and measure all pins to the pipe

Should only be hot on small blade, if voltage on others fix that FIRST.

next take cord to light fixture and measure from fat blade to socket parts, only Should be hot in center.

Repeat for all outlets and lights.

If you find a hot that measures 240 it is okay as that is the opposite line.

If you find voltage on any fat blade in a socket or screw part of a light fixture of safety ground you need to determine why and fix it.

This is easy, just lots of work.

A power audit where you only turn on one breaker and check to see what is hot and make a map is helpful too.

Having something hot on 2 breakers is fun...



Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk

as to qualified electrician I am an EE plus have worked directly on systems far more complicated than house wiring like fire alarm systems that had thousands of wires and extremity tricky Fire suppression system that used blasting caps to release halon.
Yes I know it possible that with the knob wire rewire someone might have used the old knob wiring! Not noticeable in the basement but someplace in the walls.
1 thru 4 are correct. I know full well how a neutral can show power. It not an issue here! The test prove the the neutral and the Hot are connected together and why when connecting the hot of the tested light line to neutral it will become neutral but when connected to hot both wires become hot being the hot side is being supplied thru the light bulb! I'm going to make a simple tester by wiring a light bulb socket with pig tails and light installed to see if I can get the light in the room to glow at about 1/2 voltage supplied via the teat light. The test light will prevent creating any dead short and will glow at full brilliance if there is.
My quandary is what single event can cause multiple problems. I am thinking that if the single knob wire was used as a common return to neutral and it some how became disconnected and connected to the hot wire of the wire I have been mentioning removing from the breaker it would cause the condition and created the problem

JST and wp6529 have correctly described the situation. The "rewiring" sounds like amateur hour clusterflop. In such cases the reason it may have stopped working is that the increased activity in the house may have caused crappy wiring to fail though increased use and even vibrations from walking around, etc.

It sounds horrendous and not up to national fire code. Fire isn't the only danger as peculiar (ie amateur) wiring sometimes fails in a manner that leaves hidden electrocution hazards.

City of Lancaster PA makes periodic code inspections. It's easier to comply than fight them! Every time electrical work was required licensed electricians were used. However my daughter called and they are too busy and don't have time. So she called me! Besides what someone did and hidden behind walls is difficult to inspect! House was inspected each time house was sold! Last work done was 5 years ago to remove and outlet on the flood and relocate it on the wall.
Those wire tracers on ebay, Sperry is one, are they any good. I don't want to buy an expensive one as I may never get to use it again!

Froneck said:

City of Lancaster PA makes periodic code inspections. It's easier to comply than fight them! Every time electrical work was required licensed electricians were used. However my daughter called and they are too busy and don't have time. So she called me! Besides what someone did and hidden behind walls is difficult to inspect! House was inspected each time house was sold! Last work done was 5 years ago to remove and outlet on the flood and relocate it on the wall.
Those wire tracers on ebay, Sperry is one, are they any good. I don't want to buy an expensive one as I may never get to use it again!

Click to expand...

Buy a cheap one, it's only your granddaughter living in the house.

I would agree dimmer switches would be a likely culprit.
Me, I would unplug everything, and turn off every light, and see if it still does it.
I would check every outlet with my nifty little 3 prong tester, that you just plug in, and it tells you if hot, neutral, and ground are correct.
I would visually inspect inside the panel very carefully.
Its true that wires dont usually move themselves, but shorts happen in funny ways sometimes. I have opened ceiling boxes and found shorts to ground, found arcing shorts inside EMT, and found outlets, switches, and breakers with internal failures that did unpredictable things.
I currently have 8 buildings on my property that I have either rewired completely or partially- and have wired a good half dozen shops, along with worked on 4 or 5 other houses over the years, and failures often happen in ways they really shouldnt have. But they did, anyway.