Electrical brain-teaser
This is a puzzle that came up a while ago when I was handyman-ing at a vacant house for sale, and took many steps and a couple of electricians to solve. I thought I'd share it: first person to solve it will be bathed in glory. There are two questions: What was wrong? And how did it cause the odd symptoms it did?
The place had a standard 3-wire service, professionally installed, and no history of electrical problems. The owners noted that the switchplates were rusty (salt and sulfur in our air) and thought it wise to replace the switches and outlets, like for like, throughout the house. While that kind of replacement is technically legal for a handyman to do, I declined the work and suggested they use an electrician. Instead, they used a guy who knew a bit less than I did, while I continued there on other projects. He bought new fixtures just like the old ones, installed them, got paid, and dropped out of the picture.
As I was working on staging the house, I needed to figure out what all the light switches did, flipped one, and felt a percussive thump in the air, followed by the snap of a breaker cutting the current. I flipped the switch back, reset the breaker, and continued exploring. A few switches further on, the same thing happened again. As I continued, I found that there was no particular position of any particular switch that was associated with the evident short-circuit. And it was not always the same breaker!
I reported the problem to the owners, who wanted more info before they were willing to hire a pro.
I took a lamp around, lacking better testing equipment, to test each outlet. A couple of outlets had no power, and proved to be controlled by switches. Of course, trying various switches I again experienced the short-circuit, more than once. One outlet never did have power.
No animals stuck in the walls? Really, no guess here just musing, as I sit in a house that offers me a new surprise to be fixed every third day.
But the key question is whether you were nude while dragging the lamp around :). Nice new pics, BTW.
No animals or other such intrusions, and no damaged wiring.
Nude when no one was around, or when only the buyer was there; she was OK with it. Private house on a small farm; she and maybe a friend or two would often sun topless. Nude is the only sensible way to paint, btw. In my years as a handyman here I had the same unvarying uniform, a pair of unbelted cutoffs (optional), and nothing else except shoes and gloves when there was dangerous stuff.
Second clue: With careful experimentation, it proved that only two switches triggered the problem, although they might do it when flipped up or flipped down.
The switched outlets still had the tie-bar in linking both the switched and non-switched outlets together. This would blow either breaker or both depending on the amperage ratings. It also sounds like two switches were linked to one or more outlets and one may not have been a two-way switch.
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