Funky wiring in my garage - advice?

[Max_Andrews]

Was swapping out some bulbs this evening, came to the garage outdoor fixture (which is metallic) and reached up to loosen one of the screws the hold the cover on. It shocked the bajeezus out of me (I was barefoot and not wearing any gloves, so I must have grounded a hot wire), I'm fairly certain there is something awry :P. Is it likely that it's just a bare + wire touching the metal part of the enclosure, or sould there be something more sinister afoot?

[Knowsknone]

Depends on the age of the house, and its electrical system. Most likely the wire is just touching the metal housing, and like you said grounded it.
Although you never know, I am not an electrician though, but maybe a picture or something would help, myself and others, determining the problem.

[brianpowers27]

Was swapping out some bulbs this evening, came to the garage outdoor fixture (which is metallic) and reached up to loosen one of the screws the hold the cover on. It shocked the bajeezus out of me (I was barefoot and not wearing any gloves, so I must have grounded a hot wire), I'm fairly certain there is something awry :P. Is it likely that it's just a bare + wire touching the metal part of the enclosure, or sould there be something more sinister afoot?

1. Consider killing the circuit and then taking it apart to fix what you believe is the problem.
2. Call the electrician out to double check the work. This is cheaper than having them do the whole of the work.

[maynardg]

Cut the power.

Read this source.

http://www.amazon.com/Wiring-Simplif.../dp/0971977933

If your fixture or wiring is not covered, call an electrician.

Otherwise - get to work.

[Bryan R]

or sould there be something more sinister afoot

Hard to say.
Are you and your wife getting along okay?
Do you have kids with money problems?
Are you an investment banker?

[Hackomatic]

The hot side of the AC circuit is definitely in contact with the housing somewhere in or around the fixture. That's the only way it could shock the poop outta ya. So . . If you decide to investigate yourself, do as others have mentioned and kill the circuit feeding the lights. If you're not sure which one that is, kill everything going to the garage. After you dismantle the fixture from the wall, look for any bare wire showing through the insulation. Hopefully, your house is not so old as to have the old cloth wire. If it does, it's almost a guarantee there is no ground wire. Anyway, just because you don't see any bare wire showing through in the fixture box doesn't mean the fixture itself doesn't have an internal problem. If you can't find the visually obvious culprit, I'd replace the light fixture . . .

If your supply wire DOES have a ground wire included, make sure it is somehow connected to the fixture. If there's a ground wire already connected to the fixture, then you have a wire/ ground problem somewhere else back through the circuit.

Good luck!

[bobblickle]

This case is rather unlikely however it is possible so I'll mention it.

If there is a Ground Wire and it is connected to the box then there is no way you should be able to get shocked off of anything continuous with the box, right? ...That is unless said ground wire got accidentally attached to Black at its source (a previous junction box or the Load Center).

Maybe the previous owner wired it like that to keep anyone from dickin' with it.

[williamrschneider]

I know personally that bad wiring can be found in some houses. My previous house was built before electricity (solid brick interior walls, very high ceilings, etc.) and someone had wired it along the way with cloth-wrapped wire and ceramic standoffs.

One light at the top of the stairs never worked. When we were getting ready to sell the house, I thought it would be a good idea to get the light working. I'd screw in a bulb, throw the switch, and POP it would blow. I figured something was seriously amiss after the third bulb blew. In the attic with a volt meter I found that there was 220v across that lamp!

I managed to get that fixed, but I'd bet that house still has the cloth wire in the attic.

p.s. Hey Max - I'll bet you won't be barefoot again when you troubleshoot your light's problem! :-)

[kainbrake2]

I AM AN ELECTRICIAN have been for some time now.
if the light box is metal and it is grounded you should have tripped a breaker.
i have seen power feed through a fixture to ground but its normaly 60 volts or less and this would depend on the fixture.

dont forget the neutral it is a current carying conductor to. as a matter of fact the neutral is much more dangerous than the hot if it has a load on it, and the larger the load the more gangerous it is. since most houses arent wired with true branch circuits the neutral will carry not more current than the hot. just pay attention to all the wires not just the hot.

also you could have current on the ground wire and i may be coming from somewere else in the circuit. grounds are usualy daisy chained through the entire house so the grounding conductor could be getting energized from anywhere in the house. it all depends on the style and preferance of the electrician that wired the house.

remember you have a grounDING and a grounDED conductor. the grounding conductor is the bare copper ground and the grounded conductor is the neutral, the are bonded together at the panel but the neutral carrys current.
now if your light circuit has lost a neutral the power will seek neutral through the ground wire.

[jims]

This case is rather unlikely however it is possible so I'll mention it.

If there is a Ground Wire and it is connected to the box then there is no way you should be able to get shocked off of anything continuous with the box, right? ...That is unless said ground wire got accidentally attached to Black at its source (a previous junction box or the Load Center).

Maybe the previous owner wired it like that to keep anyone from dickin' with it.

Last summer I found that one of my grounds had voltage through it. I had access to both ends of the wire, which looked fine, and there were no other connections between those points. Best I can figure is that someone put a nail through the wire when they did some work in the attic. I ended up running a new wire between those points and abandoned the old wire. Everything was fine after that.

My house was built in 1930, and has the metal-jacketed cable throughout. The metal jacket is the ground in that case.

Jim

[the kid]

Funky wiring for sure, but not MY garage!

[Æ]

Funky wiring for sure, but not MY garage!

Don't stand too close to it, you'll probably get some kind of cancer from that bundle if you stay next to it long enough!

[brianpowers27]

Funky wiring for sure, but not MY garage!

Alien mind control device? What in the heck is that?

[the kid]

Brian,

I am checking with my friend that sent it to me this morning. He didn't have a description. I will post when I find out.

[Texan]

I thought I would end all the confusion and post 3 “proper” junction box configurations to use as a guide.

[WWWJD]

Lol.. that first pic reminds me of the time I took the cover off of a pull box, only to find that someone had wire nutted a couple pieces of 500MCM together.... one strand at a time. They then wrapped the whole ball with what looked like at least a dozen rolls of 3M rubber and 88.

Good times. As far as the OP's shocking plight, I'd say the first guess was best. The assembly of most outdoor fixtures is always sub-par. Sounds like the hot's touching the frame. Installers have a tendency to leave the ground lead floating... hence the lack of breaker or GFCI trips.

Hard to say.
Are you and your wife getting along okay?
Do you have kids with money problems?
Are you an investment banker?

That's probably the best laugh I've had today.

[the kid]

Funky wiring for sure, but not MY garage!

Alright guys, this is the answer that I got from the guy who sent me the wiring pic. The discussion refers to his days a couple of decades ago at Western Union in Middletown, VA.

It's communications cabling, but the emailer
didn't know the company or where or what kind
of communications, ie, internet, main frame
computer, telephone company(most likely) etc.

At Middletown we had open ducts similar to this except
about one fifth as jammed, and we used black and yellow
twisted pair to interconnect modems and other gear to
each other and to customers. At each end the red/blu
pairs in this duct will connect to a rack, then a block,
then a pair of pins on the block. The block pins are solid
thru the block and come out on the 'other side' forming a
new set of pins so that you can connect a new red/blu pair
to the original pair, and THAT pair may then go to a jack
on a patch panel or equalizer or modem etc.

The original pair comes through the open duct down to the
block pins. A new pair connects to it on the other side of the
block and goes right back up the rack into the open duct. It
then may go to the back of a jack in a jack panel. The signal
will 'normal' through the pins of the jack to another red/blu
pair that will go back through the 'open duct' to, say, a
modem. Running all these pairs back and forth between all the
possible combinations of equipment and customers was called "cross
cutting" in WU. Other companies may have other terms. We referred
to our frames as 'cross cut frames'. To attach a customer to a modem
we would 'cut them in'. The blocks with the solid pins were called
'cross cut blocks'. The blocks allow changes to be made. A customer
may want a higher speed modem. Those modems are cabled to a different
set of cross cut blocks. The original yel/blk pair is pulled off the
low speed modem block and out of the duct. A new pair is then run
through the duct to the high speed modem cross cut blocks. In theory.
In this particular duct it may be impossible to pull the pair out
because of the squeezing force. I suspect this one has a lot of unused
pairs connected to the wind because they couldn't be pulled back through.

One service pair from the computer to one customer could easily pass
itself 5 times in the same open duct. All the pairs pass each other
multiple times back and forth through the open ducts, dependent on
how much equipment is needed. (Some customers may not need an
equalizer.)

When you have ten thousand customers it gets a little goofy.
Finding a bad pair is a hoot.

Chris

PS On a Discover episode about Tesla they showed a stretch of
downtown New York wired with Edison's goofy DC power grid. There were
25 telephone poles in each block. Each pole had 25 or more cross arms.
The arms were strung with thousands of double pair power lines, ONE PAIR
to EACH customer. You couldn't see the sky. When it rained you stayed
dry. (OK, I made the rain part up.)

[Erick O]

If there is old knob and tube or groundless wiring anywhere in the house you may get the problem i'm about to describe. I have seen this myself while helping a friend. The homes previous owner wanted to add a grounded circuit to some old knob and tube wiring. They didin't have a ground available so they connected the ground to the neutral wire since both connect to the ground bus. Problem was the conductors were REVERSE POLARITY FURTHER UP THE LINE!!! This made the all the grounds HOT! No good...

Erick

[daveh]

Funky wiring for sure, but not MY garage!

Yeah looks like a large telephone central office. Probably connecting a few large PBX systems. I've seen similar in some data centers under raised floor filled with twisted pair. As equipment moves within the centers it is easier to run new cable than to trace down an pull the old and move it. So a large percentage is just abandoned with new run on top. It can fill a cable tray pretty quickly in a dynamic environment.

DaveH