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On 6/12/07, jamesf@groupwbench.org <jamesf@groupwbench.org> wrote:
>
> > I've got a piece of romex cable in a wall that's failed. (open hot.).
> > It's about six or eight feet worth, in an exterior wall. It runs
> > about six or eight feet from one duplex outlet to another, with one 90
> > degree corner It's conceivable that the wire does something nuts, like
> > go up to the header and then across, I think it runs straight
> > horizontally. How likely am I to be able to be able to pull a
> > replacement, without performing surgery on the drywall?
>
> Pretty unlikely. I've had walls to the bare framing and it was all I could
> do to get the cable through the 3 2x4s that usually make up a corner. You
> will expend far less energy cutting out the drywall and replacing it.
>
> Besides, wire doesn't fail by itself, it'd help you sleep easier if you
> figure out why it broke. Have you tested the wire itself, and not just the
> outlet? Old outlets that use the spring-loaded wire holders instead of the
> screws on the side lose their spring and the wires loosen up. If you're
> lucky all it does is make the lights flicker.
>
In the end, I cut the wall up. I got lucky, though. The break in the
wire was next to the box I started at. A mouse (I think, I'm not an
expert at rodent skeletons) had chewen through the wire about three
inches away from the outlet. I ended up cutting the wire off,
installing another duplex outlet six inches below the existing one,
and running a new piece of wire from the new box to the existing one.
My question is, why didn't this trip the breaker? And why did it keep
working for some period of time? (How long does it take for a rodent
to become a skeleton inside a wall?) There was clear evidence of
arcing -- the paper that wraps the bare ground wire was charred. I
replaced the breaker, on principle, but it is a bit worrying.
--
David Scheidt
dmscheidt@gmail.com
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