The Dumb Things DIYers Do...

[RoyJackson]

Keeps out raccoons - until they chew the plastic. :laughing:

Or squirrels...which I do have a problem with occasionally.

 

[Chuck52]

Maybe a Bird guard, and yes a raccoon will eat plastic if they smell food. JY.

Even before his knee operation, I can't see Bird wanting to climb down that chimney.

Chuck

 

[Danno1]

Electric wire ran from outlet to outlet... not through the wall... in front of it, then another sheet of paneling on top... 1/8" of protection...



.

I've seen AC and low voltage, both, run straight through the wall to the outside, up the outside of the wall, and then back into the next floor up!


.

 

[jonyyuma]

Most people won't admit they have modified or added to the electrical system. Especially after it burns to the ground..Jy.

 

[clemsonfor]

Lets see a diverter in the tub that would not let you shower in one bath downstairs only would come out of the faucet not divert to shower, the other tub had a bad hot water valve so all the hot would do was trickle, you could not take a hot shower at all just a bath on the bad diverter side, $25 and about 30 mins had both taken care of, can you say deferred maintenece, then there is the taped up splices in the 12/2 wire the hidden junction boxes in the wall, the random front porch light on some strange breaker that supplys a room that is not even adjacent to the porch. Mnay other things that dont come to mind now.

I had a budy that when he redid his basement he said all the outlets were wired with speaker wire!

 

[jimmyj]

Most people won't admit they have modified or added to the electrical system. Especially after it burns to the ground..Jy.

That is a great call out. But I honestly think basic electrical is pretty darned easy. The problem is most of us don't know our limits.

Good one with the milk crate on the fireplace! Imagine when it catches fire and the melting plastic drips down. Ugh! :confused2:

 

[/pine]

I had to put a ring of fine mesh hardware cloth around the spark arrestor on my chimney to keep bats from falling down the outer ring of the pipe...

as for on topic...the wildest thing I ever ran across (and this so unbelievable but I swear I am not kidding)...
...in house built by the owner and inherited by his daughter there was an open/exposed "knife switch" (115 VAC) on the wall of a shower in the bathroom...honestly it was in the shower about shoulder height...it powered the only light in the bathroom...

I was originally asked to remodel the house but it would have cost so much just bringing existing utilities up to code made it cost prohibitive...I ended up demo-ing the house her father had built and setting up a 'Wausau' home for her...

 

[jimmyj]

there was an open/exposed "knife switch" (115 VAC) on the wall of a shower in the bathroom..

Aye carumba! That is nutso. Amazing that it probably was there for ages and nobody got hurt, amazing! :confused2:

 

[tglass]

There has got to be more to this story frogfish. Was the previous owners name Haney by chance? Got me laughing the more I think of it, sounds like another day in my life.

 

[/pine]

continued...

the entire house was unbelievable...it was mostly finished with some very rough type of plaster that the old man had done all himself it really looked like something you would see in a third world country utility wise..almost all the plumbing was exposed galv. pipe...the elec was mostly peg &tube (single conductors) and knife switches... the amazing thing is it was lived in for a really long time and the daughter hated to see it go...

When I get back to FL I will look for the pictures I took before the demo...

 

[Skyco]

When I bought my house 25+ years ago I discovered neither bathroom vent fan was moving air. Went in the attic and found the output ports of the fans were covered by insulation. Fixed that so they worked.
I mentioned it to the previous owner who said he never understood why anyone needed an exhaust fan in a bathroom anyway...

 

[johnrex62]

Jim,

I like the plastic crate on top of the chimney. I wonder what their reasoning was? Spark arrestor? Keep the leaves out? Rain cap? Or just to look like the others that they saw on on other houses without a clue what they are for?

Eddie

Redneck burglar bars. I seen them stories bout burglers coming down the deep fryer vents at the Chicken Shack!

 

[frogfish]

There has got to be more to this story frogfish. Was the previous owners name Haney by chance? Got me laughing the more I think of it, sounds like another day in my life.

Don't remember now who the previous owner was, but Hanley does not sound right. The interesting things was this is set in the north suburburbs around Chicago and I can't imagine the village knew anything about it. My neighbor and I laughed about it for months.

 

[bdeboer]

I changed out a drop down kitchen light fixture that was held up by a clothes pin on the top side of the drywall.

 

[bdeboer]

Same house as above wound up the indoor romex feeding a yard light in the front yard with a front tine rototiller. The rototiller did get electrified had to leave it running while running in to turn off the breaker.

 

[Bird]

Even before his knee operation, I can't see Bird wanting to climb down that chimney.

Chuck

You sure got that right, Chuck. The new house we bought in 1977 did not have a chimney cap, and I installed one after I had a problem with birds nesting in the chimney, but at least I installed one that was made for that purpose.

But I think the place we bought in the country in December, 1994, might take the cake for this thread. The electric meter was mounted on a 16' pole, as required, but it was rotting. Just below the meter on that pole was the master breaker panel; a single 100 amp breaker. From that breaker, wires went into the old mobile home to a 100 amp breaker panel. Now that would have been alright, but it was obvious that a gas water heater had been replaced with an electric water heater. So, from the 100 amp master breaker on the pole, the guy had run wires directly from that same breaker, under the house, up through the floor to the water heater. And then he ran a line from that same 100 amp master breaker around the house to the shop and into a 200 amp breaker panel. The wire running around the house was held up by 3 poles that were not set into the ground. Then from the 200 amp panel in the shop a line ran underground in PVC to a 50 amp panel in the barn. There was no power to the barn because the breaker in the shop would kick off immediately if you tried to reset it. When I pulled the wire from the shop to the barn, it was wet (obviously water in the PVC) and he had spliced wires together simply by twisting them together without even any electrical tape and that was in the water.

 

[kenstrac]

Went to do a service call at restaurant found fryers,ovens,grill,griddle and steamer, gas line was CPVC to all of them.Refused to do service Wrote out order with violations gave to owner and left.
Had a service call for electric steamer 3 phase 27 amps found 12-2 wg feeding steamer GRD wire was phase 3 with 30 amp breaker wrote up and left on the way out noticed emergency exit doors opened in and this was in a nursing home.This is onlya small sample of what I saw.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

There has got to be more to this story frogfish. Was the previous owners name Haney by chance? Got me laughing the more I think of it, sounds like another day in my life.

Douglas, it was Haney that sold it to him. :laughing:

 

[ETpilot]

Good, this thread lets me vent a little. I do some work for a lady who had a house built. The contractor was not the best. Lots of issues. Finally she sent him packing and I had to do the finishing job. So I checked some of her electrical work and found that many of the ground wires were cut short. I had to splice in wires to ground fixtures. Then an outlet was wired wrong. The electrician could not find how he wired it. I told her not to use it.

Later she moves in and calls me cause she had a sewer odor in the house. I looked all over and could not find the source. I opened the lid to the septic tank and had her turn on the AC. I could feel the air flow when this was done. So I looked at the AC. There was the water drain line that was supposed to be connected to the house drain but never was connected. This allowed septic fumes in the house.

I have corrected a few things since she moved in. Today I went to check out a bad GFCI. I found that it was improperly wired. The line and load were reversed. So, I told her I needed to check the other. I will do that tomorrow.

I won't go into the water leak she had at her garage back door. It just makes me mad.

Ok, I'm done.

 

[Redgoatea]

The wood shed the PO built four years ago, which I tore down and rebuilt, was sided in 2x4 & 2x6. No sheeting just boards nailed to posts some fir some pressure treated redwood. Tore the whole thing apart and framed in walls with the 2x and built a chicken coop with the left overs.