Mysterious Electrical Issue
Looking for speculation/opinions on what might be going on here.... It all started when the HW heater blew its fuse. I determined the cause and fixed it. Not having any spare fuses, I pulled a fuse...
Forum Discussion
Okay - I'm getting warmer.
I went to replace the blown fuse and POW! dead short. Scared the bejeezus out of me. In disconnecting the shower fan I saw a red wire! Sure enough, it's the "mystery" red wire. The vent fan box is a distribution point. I unhooked the red wire from the distribution box and installed the fuse. No short - so it's good between the panel and the distribution point. The red wire is tied together with 2 big black wires. I unhooked one black wire. POW! Still a dead short. I unhooked the OTHER black wire and the fuse is good. So - whatever that one black wire is feeding has a dead short somewhere.
Now that I have half the circuit hooked up, I can see what is working and what isn't. The bedroom lights came back on but not the shower, hall or bathroom lights. They're all pretty much parallel to each other and I'm sure fed by the wire in question. Oh yeah - the other thing that doesn't work is the bathroom fan. Guess who replaced that switch last week?
I'm headed out to pull that one apart now.
I went to replace the blown fuse and POW! dead short. Scared the bejeezus out of me. In disconnecting the shower fan I saw a red wire! Sure enough, it's the "mystery" red wire. The vent fan box is a distribution point. I unhooked the red wire from the distribution box and installed the fuse. No short - so it's good between the panel and the distribution point. The red wire is tied together with 2 big black wires. I unhooked one black wire. POW! Still a dead short. I unhooked the OTHER black wire and the fuse is good. So - whatever that one black wire is feeding has a dead short somewhere.
Now that I have half the circuit hooked up, I can see what is working and what isn't. The bedroom lights came back on but not the shower, hall or bathroom lights. They're all pretty much parallel to each other and I'm sure fed by the wire in question. Oh yeah - the other thing that doesn't work is the bathroom fan. Guess who replaced that switch last week?
I'm headed out to pull that one apart now.
