Electrical Diversion
I'm still trying to get the master bathroom put back together but other things keep getting in the way.
My health has been an issue (surprise, surprise) so that delayed things a bit...
The weather has been an issue on many days causing delays... snow and rain have kept all my tools under cover in the shed...
We had the grandchildren staying with us all weekend...
And, then we had a surprise electrical problem which demanded instant attention because we lost power to the furnace and we are currently in the middle of winter!
I was in the bathroom, getting the room prepared to start working on the new flooring (new, but temporary, until we can completely renovate this bathroom). The furnace had just kicked on and about 30 seconds later the room went dark and the furnace shut down. "Uh-oh..."
I immediately looked toward the hallway to see if the entire house lost power... no, the hallway was still illuminated. I went to the circuit breaker panel to see if a breaker had tripped... "uggg...", no tripped breaker. Now I needed to do some troubleshooting.
"Where do I start?"
I've never been too sure about how the circuit breaker panel is labeled (it was done by a previous owner) so, one at a time, I would shut off a breaker and then firmly push it back into the 'on' position... no improvement.
Now, I had clocks that needed to be reset all over the house and all the media equipment needed to reboot. "Geez... that was unnecessary!"
I still had no power to the furnace, the master bathroom and the currently unfinished back bedroom.
My next thought was maybe I had a bad circuit breaker. I had to find my electrical tester. Well, first I needed to find a flashlight so I could hunt through my tools stored in that now darkened back bedroom. I found the tester... I tested the hot wire coming off each breaker... they all tested 'hot' so my breakers were working.
I still was not too confident in the condition of some of these old circuit breakers so I added a few circuit breakers... Type CH... to my list of things I will need to buy for this project.
At this point, it was critical for me to get the furnace up and running as soon as possible before water supply pipes started to freeze so I needed to figure out the best way to accomplish this. Fortunately, I came up with a plan very quickly.
I decided to run a new dedicated circuit directly to the furnace. The house should have already been wired this way but, as I mentioned before, I'm still trying to correct a lot of poor renovation choices made by previous owners.
I added 12-2 Romex cable to my list... about 50 feet of it. This would allow me to run a dedicated circuit all the way to the furnace and leave enough wiring to run another new circuit to the master bathroom and back bedroom.
I still needed to find the cause of the problem though. I was concerned that if I didn't find the cause, I could have the same problem again very quickly.
Sheila came home from work to help out.
While I was waiting for Sheila to arrive home, I began trying to trace all the wiring but I wasn't having much luck. I would need some additional testing equipment. These things also went on my list.
In the meantime, I found that the circuit labeled "bathroom, bedroom, furnace" came out of the circuit panel box and went up to the attic space. At this point, I suspected that this wire must come back down into the bathroom area to supply power to these rooms and the furnace. I wouldn't know for sure until I had more appropriate testing equipment.
Sheila arrived home... at this point, this electrical issue was a jumbled mess in my head and I needed to sort it out. Every place I looked, the wiring was a mess of spaghetti... now this spaghetti-ization was clogging up my thought processes! Whenever I thought I might have figured it out, testing proved otherwise.
We ran to Home Depot and picked up about $100 worth of electrical supplies including some test equipment, 12-2 wiring, circuit breakers, an outlet (in case my GFCI outlet in the bathroom went bad), an assortment of wire nuts, crimp-on wire connectors, and a few other things. Then we went to lunch while I tried to make some sense of this problem.
By the time we arrived home, I checked the temperature of the house... it was down around 60 degrees now so we used the kitchen range to heat up the house a bit and then I dove into running a new circuit directly from the circuit breaker panel to the furnace.
I unscrewed the panels around the furnace, exposing all the wiring. Ran new wiring from the circuit panel, up to the ceiling... through the ceiling... down into the furnace. Within an hour of arriving home, the furnace was running again. Even though the bathroom and bedroom were still dark, this was a tremendous relief!
Now it was time to go back to tracing circuits that were hidden from view.
I didn't find it right away but I found one wire that a mouse had chewed uncovering about a foot of wire... the wire was still intact so, although this line needed to be replaced, it was not the source of my power outage on this circuit.
A short while later, I found another wire that a mouse had chewed through the wire casing uncovering more bare wire... I replace this line too.
I eventually made it over to a dark corner of the back bedroom... I had to move a bunch of storage boxes to get there... my spine wasn't too happy at this point... I traced one of these chewed wires over to this corner... it disappeared into the water heater closet...
I unscrewed the panel off this little closet... followed the wire down toward the floor... then it disappeared into the wall and went into an outlet box... "huh?... what the heck?"
This box was hot! Now I was really confused because I supposedly had the circuit breaker for this circuit turned off (according to the labels on the panel). I quickly found that the wire coming out of this box was not hot though... "hmmmm... this is a problem."
I traced this wire that was coming from this outlet box all the way back to a main junction box outside the master bathroom. "Huh? The power is running through an outlet before powering the master bathroom and the furnace???" This is so, so, so wrong!
I've been replacing all the outlets in the house as my renovations progressed because I found that the old, original outlets are drying out and cracking apart. That being said, a circuit should not be going through an outlet and then powering a bathroom and a furnace! THIS was the source of my problem!
I quickly decided to rewire all of this too.
I'm not moving too quickly these days and bending over, twisting, and lifting is excruciating but I managed to get this entire problem resolved within a matter of hours (after our trip to Home Depot). I also managed to replace other lines that had been chewed and exposed by mice.
Now, when my health is cooperating with the weather, I hope to get a new floor installed in the master bathroom and then the new ADA toilet installed. Our relatively new half bath (two years old now) was definitely put to the test over the past two weeks and, fortunately, we didn't have a single hiccup.
My health has been an issue (surprise, surprise) so that delayed things a bit...
The weather has been an issue on many days causing delays... snow and rain have kept all my tools under cover in the shed...
We had the grandchildren staying with us all weekend...
And, then we had a surprise electrical problem which demanded instant attention because we lost power to the furnace and we are currently in the middle of winter!
I was in the bathroom, getting the room prepared to start working on the new flooring (new, but temporary, until we can completely renovate this bathroom). The furnace had just kicked on and about 30 seconds later the room went dark and the furnace shut down. "Uh-oh..."
I immediately looked toward the hallway to see if the entire house lost power... no, the hallway was still illuminated. I went to the circuit breaker panel to see if a breaker had tripped... "uggg...", no tripped breaker. Now I needed to do some troubleshooting.
"Where do I start?"
 |
| Mostly new wiring running through the ceiling now... |
Now, I had clocks that needed to be reset all over the house and all the media equipment needed to reboot. "Geez... that was unnecessary!"
I still had no power to the furnace, the master bathroom and the currently unfinished back bedroom.
My next thought was maybe I had a bad circuit breaker. I had to find my electrical tester. Well, first I needed to find a flashlight so I could hunt through my tools stored in that now darkened back bedroom. I found the tester... I tested the hot wire coming off each breaker... they all tested 'hot' so my breakers were working.
I still was not too confident in the condition of some of these old circuit breakers so I added a few circuit breakers... Type CH... to my list of things I will need to buy for this project.
At this point, it was critical for me to get the furnace up and running as soon as possible before water supply pipes started to freeze so I needed to figure out the best way to accomplish this. Fortunately, I came up with a plan very quickly.
 |
| Two of the old Type CH circuit breakers... |
I added 12-2 Romex cable to my list... about 50 feet of it. This would allow me to run a dedicated circuit all the way to the furnace and leave enough wiring to run another new circuit to the master bathroom and back bedroom.
I still needed to find the cause of the problem though. I was concerned that if I didn't find the cause, I could have the same problem again very quickly.
Sheila came home from work to help out.
While I was waiting for Sheila to arrive home, I began trying to trace all the wiring but I wasn't having much luck. I would need some additional testing equipment. These things also went on my list.
In the meantime, I found that the circuit labeled "bathroom, bedroom, furnace" came out of the circuit panel box and went up to the attic space. At this point, I suspected that this wire must come back down into the bathroom area to supply power to these rooms and the furnace. I wouldn't know for sure until I had more appropriate testing equipment.
Sheila arrived home... at this point, this electrical issue was a jumbled mess in my head and I needed to sort it out. Every place I looked, the wiring was a mess of spaghetti... now this spaghetti-ization was clogging up my thought processes! Whenever I thought I might have figured it out, testing proved otherwise.
 |
| Until we completely renovate the back bedroom, I installed a new box with enough extra wiring to move it as necessary for the new design. |
By the time we arrived home, I checked the temperature of the house... it was down around 60 degrees now so we used the kitchen range to heat up the house a bit and then I dove into running a new circuit directly from the circuit breaker panel to the furnace.
I unscrewed the panels around the furnace, exposing all the wiring. Ran new wiring from the circuit panel, up to the ceiling... through the ceiling... down into the furnace. Within an hour of arriving home, the furnace was running again. Even though the bathroom and bedroom were still dark, this was a tremendous relief!
Now it was time to go back to tracing circuits that were hidden from view.
I didn't find it right away but I found one wire that a mouse had chewed uncovering about a foot of wire... the wire was still intact so, although this line needed to be replaced, it was not the source of my power outage on this circuit.
A short while later, I found another wire that a mouse had chewed through the wire casing uncovering more bare wire... I replace this line too.
I eventually made it over to a dark corner of the back bedroom... I had to move a bunch of storage boxes to get there... my spine wasn't too happy at this point... I traced one of these chewed wires over to this corner... it disappeared into the water heater closet...
I unscrewed the panel off this little closet... followed the wire down toward the floor... then it disappeared into the wall and went into an outlet box... "huh?... what the heck?"
This box was hot! Now I was really confused because I supposedly had the circuit breaker for this circuit turned off (according to the labels on the panel). I quickly found that the wire coming out of this box was not hot though... "hmmmm... this is a problem."
I traced this wire that was coming from this outlet box all the way back to a main junction box outside the master bathroom. "Huh? The power is running through an outlet before powering the master bathroom and the furnace???" This is so, so, so wrong!
I've been replacing all the outlets in the house as my renovations progressed because I found that the old, original outlets are drying out and cracking apart. That being said, a circuit should not be going through an outlet and then powering a bathroom and a furnace! THIS was the source of my problem!
I quickly decided to rewire all of this too.
I'm not moving too quickly these days and bending over, twisting, and lifting is excruciating but I managed to get this entire problem resolved within a matter of hours (after our trip to Home Depot). I also managed to replace other lines that had been chewed and exposed by mice.
Now, when my health is cooperating with the weather, I hope to get a new floor installed in the master bathroom and then the new ADA toilet installed. Our relatively new half bath (two years old now) was definitely put to the test over the past two weeks and, fortunately, we didn't have a single hiccup.
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