Whole House Wiring/repair- Project #9

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zannej

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As part of the project of moving/updating electrical for the renovations in my house, I know I need to figure out what breaker goes to which fixtures/outlets/switches and so forth.

I found some old sketches my father drew but I suck at following little lines and my brain is not wanting to process. Took me a hot minute to realize the ones with sideways = is for outlets and L is for light (in my defense, until I zoomed in on the computer I couldn't actually see what those markings were). I don't think his sketches were updated after he added a tool closet in the front room. We used to have a sliding glass door for the front and it was replaced with a regular 36" front door and a tool closet was put on the side. There is another closet on the opposite side.

I know there are at least two outside outlets (at least 220v)- one for a hot tub that is now broken and another for the air conditioner on opposite sides of the house. Those were not drawn in. I know there are wires going through the attic but no one has been up there in years. I haven't found a tall enough ladder to drag myself up there.

I didn't see him drawing in the kitchen outlets. I know there is at least one behind fridge/freezer. One above the counter near the doors to the front room. There's a GFCI to the right of the sink. And there is a 2-prong outlet on the adjacent wall above the counter. There are two outlets above the counter across the way (where the microwave is). I know that the microwave outlet's cable was pierced by a screw inside the pantry. There is an outlet on the opposite side of the microwave's outlet inside the pantry. There are no outlets in any of the hallways. I am uncertain of where outlets are near the kitchen table as right now it's a cluttered mess of boxes so I can't get to stuff to see. but I think there is at least one outlet above the counter over there. I'll have to come up with a better sketch of the layout.
There are only 2 outlets in my room and one in my bathroom. I think Mom's room has 3 outlets but 2 of them are behind furniture. Her bathroom has one outlet. My brother's room has two outlets (but one is tied to the light switch).

I don't think we have a grounding rod and using testers shows outlets are not grounded. Some show as having polarity reversed. The tenants messed with the wiring while we were gone.

At one point the stove's power was routed through the AC's power (not sure how, but that is what the AC guy said). He adjusted it after my father passed (so, not in drawings). So, the power to the outside AC unit is no longer properly marked. I think I figured it out- just flipped the nearest 50a off to be safe.

The water heater appears to have an aluminum cable.

The sketches (couldn't get scanner to work so I photographed)

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My notes show the the outlet in the bedroom controlled by the light switch that also controls the ceiling fan, the 2nd switch for the ceiling fan in my room that was removed by tenants (they put a blind plate over the spot), and he put the light switches for the bathroom on the wrong side of the door in his drawing-- it's on the left instead of the right as you walk in. Several of the outlets and lights no longer work (including the ones in the tool closet).
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This is a sketch he did of the whole house (rough approximation). I think he planned to put a door to the laundry room at some point). This was before we had the wooden part of the porch (that tenants destroyed) poured in concrete. He'd wanted steps on that side apparently.
dadsketchourhouse1.png

I added notes about attic entry as well as marking lights in the house with orange stars. Each room has one central light except for the front room which has two lights but one is obscured by some shelves he built. He didn't think that out when he built it.
houselayout.png

I wish I knew what RN and RS stood for. My best guess is Right North and Right South. DR I think is "Dave's Room". Writing on the yellow paper is too faded for me to read.
breakerbox.jpg

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I know this is a mess and not easy to see. I'm trying to get my brain to wrap around it and come up with a sketch of which breaker goes to which thing.

My to do list:
  • Trace all of the lines back to breakers to know what is on each breaker
  • Replace all old switches and outlets & make sure wires inside are not damaged
  • Possibly replace wires if ground wire is not present and add a proper grounding rod somewhere*
  • Replace or repair vent/light heaters in each bathroom
  • Move ceiling fan from current laundry room to new laundry room & eliminate hall light (OR replace hall light w/ ceiling fan, keep heat/vent/light if it works & add move switch for it)
  • Add vent/light/heater to guest bathroom ceiling (where old ceiling fan currently is- or possibly moved closer to center of room)
  • Add GFCI outlet and vanity light to guest bathroom
  • Add switch and vanity light to my bathroom
  • Add LED vanity light above the window in mom's bathroom
  • Add at least one outlet in the hallway to plug in vacuum
  • Convert 2 prong outlets to 3 prong
  • Move electrical for laundry room (detailed in thread on that reno)
  • Replace aluminum wire on water heater
  • Add whole house surge protector to box
  • Replace broken porch light and get all outlets/lights that are defunct to work again
*There *might* be a grounding rod at the back of the house but I don't know if it is connected to the breaker box (will supply photos later).

So, any thoughts? Can anyone help me wrap my brain around this?
 
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Aluminum wire should be replaced, it has been used in heavy stranded wire feeding the main breaker but not for outlets and when aluminum is used, it needs to have a anti corrosive electrical grease, usually black, worked into the strands of wire before it's installed into the breaker terminal. Get rid of any single stranded aluminum Romex, a lot of fires have been caused by this stuff, it was mainly used in older mobile homes and thankfully not commonly found in homes. Copper wire is always the best. Over the years I've only come across single strand aluminum wire in a mobile home, mobile homes over the years have often had many issues of cheap construction, weird plumbing fixtures, chipboard cupboards and drawers, really crappy waferboard floor material, very poorly insulated walls, ceilings and floors as well as really bad siding, windows and roofs. I remember that as a kid, the home my foster dad built didn't have Romex with a ground wire in it, the home was built before the 1950's and the addition he built was in the early 50's, there was a lot of things just starting to change with building materials in those days and my foster dad did the best he could to build a quality home.
 
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Viking, thanks for mentioning the aluminum wire. I meant to put that on the list but left it off. That big thick aluminum cable bugs the hell out of me. It actually appears to have some sort of paper-like wrapping/sleeve where it hooks to the water heater.

I hear you on the crappy trailers with all the chipboard. I hate that stuff. I think a lot of the cables in my house are only hot and neutral with no ground.

It bugs me that so few of the breakers are labeled. When we map it all out, I will have diagrams on my computer and may print something out to stick on the breaker box door (outside so paper doesn't have a chance of catching fire).

Wish I had a time machine to go back when Dad was sorting it all out so I could take detailed notes. I'm not sure if he ever figured it all out.

Oh, I also completely forgot about the attic fan over the front room.

This is a sketch my dad did of the cabinets he planned to build (drawn back in the 80s)
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This has my notes added to mark some of the electrical. The GFCI is a weird one with the outlets turned sideways. I don't think they are made anymore.
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I looked around the kitchen to make note of all the outlets and switches. It was too cramped near the pantry section to mark 2 light switches next to the door (one for ceiling fan/light near kitchen table and the other inside the pantry). There's a duplex outlet in the pantry and then on the other side of the wall above the counter. I had the number of ports wrong on the adapter thingies plugged in to some of the outlets- they have 6 ports.
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I know it is a weird layout, but apparently having a separate counter near the table was popular in this area for awhile. Mostly for "cookups" where the food would be placed on that counter for people to fill their plates. If the table wasn't in the way and if there was a sink nearby, it would be a nice spot for the pressure cooker and other food prep appliances.
 
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I haven't looked for those GFCI outlets that look like (II) (II) since installing them in the kitchen backsplash and in the bathroom, they may be still around but I expect they are a lot more expensive than the standard ones. I see that the heavy duty outlets I've used throughout our home are not legal for use other than replacement in older homes, they want you to use outlets that have small protective plastic flaps where the plug goes in to protect youngsters from inserting small nails, metal paper clips or other metal items that could shock them, yep, our son did that once and only once.
 
This project seems large. I've always been a go big or go home type of guy. I'd take the opportunity to rethink every switch/outlet and the house as a whole. Several of us are older, have older parents, now's the time to plan for future needs also.

I'm sure there is an electrician forum somewhere. I'd solicit ideas there also.

If you plan carefully you can do this in layers, or individual modules. So you're not in the dark for more than a couple hours at a time.

Anyway, had been following along.
 
Viking, I googled it and only one company makes those outlets now, but they are very expensive and not easy to find. I will probably go with the newer style of outlets instead.

Peanut, I've posted in the electric section of houserepairtalk (a sister site to this one) and have been getting a little feedback. Main thing I know is that we need to make sure we know what we are doing and to not dick around if we don't know for sure.

One thing I didn't mention was that at least two of the outlets have scorch marks on the walls above them-- happened while we were overseas. We had to replace those outlets. There was also an outlet that was straight up missing when we came back. No wall plate, just gone. I don't know if it went bad or if the tenants just stole it like they stole one of the outside circuit boxes with all the breakers in it. I suspect they would have taken more if we hadn't come back when we did. Although, they did break in (kicked the door in and broke the frame) to come back and cut our phone jacks and steal stuff after we got back.

We did have an electrician come in once and he said the tenants had really mucked things up. He fixed up some of it but then moved out of state before he could fix more.
 
My friend replaced the outlet under Mom's desk. He said the wires had been chewed by mice, the outlet wasn't secured in the box, the box was recessed over an inch into the wall, no ground wire was present, and there was zero slack on the wires. Turns out most of the living room outlets, lights, etc are tied to the same breaker as half of the kitchen. So there's the TV, satellite box, blueray player, computer, monitor, modem, phone, etc all sharing power with two refrigerators & an upright freezer. He cut off the chewed wires, installed a new outlet & secured it in the box. At least we know which breaker its on now.
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Sadly, I can't make out the words on that paper note.

One of the switches for the porch light literally broke off. My friend removed it and has the wires taped up with electrical tape. He tried to install a new switch but it was single pole and I forgot that we have a few 3-pole lights.

Flipped every breaker on the thing off and then back on but the switch never lost power so it must be on two different breakers somehow. Had to flip the whole house lever to work on it and then realized we needed a different switch. I'm hoping my friend will be able to work on that sometime this week.
 

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