Micro-

Interesting.

My assumption is that the wires are, at job completion, still part of the circuit. But I honestly have no idea.

All of a sudden one of the showers in my house is not pumping out hot water like normal. It’s luke warm at best. The other sinks and showers in the house are fine. Easy fix?

If the wires were literally part of the circuit (as in circle) no current could flow through it. If they are open at the end, then they must either lead straight to the origin of the circuit (the breaker box) or (more likely) be pig-tailed off of the circuit (as in how you normally talk about AC electrical circuits - in which devices are all in parallel with each other). If you undo the pigtails leading to the light, it'd be dead, but you have to be careful because there could be a junction box or device in between what you find and the hanging wires and some other circuit could be sharing that neutral and a missing neutral can cause worse problems than just things not working.

(Pig-tail is when you break a circuit leaving two ends of wire and take a third wire and join them all together. Then the original path still continues to be a possible path for current, but you've opened up another optional path through that light fixture. You have two current carrying wires so there is a path through the device. Neutral is what you call the return of a circuit which gets bonded to ground in the service panel. The neutral carries current, but should be at the same potential as ground - but a loose neutral can result in a wire having potential (being 'hot') that isn't supposed to be. )

If it’s all of a sudden, and only the one shower, I’d start with that shower’s mixing valve, it might have gone bad.

Pro tip, it might be free depending on the manufacturer warranty

New house and I've seen some mouse signs in the basement. Looking around yesterday I noticed some sunlight and then went outside and found this opening under where the electric meter is. I'm not super handy, what should I do to close this up? Get a shingle/piece of wood and attach it over the opening then caulk around, or use one of those foams? Stuff insulation up from the inside?

I don't think this is the case. Pretty sure the wire was manufactured inside the conduit. It's buried under compacted gravel so I'm not sure it's really possible to push anything through it. When we try and move either of the wires on the good post they don't really have any give

I'm assuming they used the old switch for the new lights, so those wires are almost certainly part of the circuit and still live.

If it is the valve he can probably replace just the cartridge instead of busting open walls and doing major plumbing work. It's an easy DIY job with basic tools and maybe a youtube video for pointers.

Zik,

Thanks - yes everything is wired to the old switch. So the prime question I have to ask this guy is "why can't I use a flat/flush plate instead of something that hangs down?" And possibly "why did you use a new construction can instead of renovation, if the renovation can would allow the floor in attic to be replaced flush?"

Right?

Also, nice - I was told on inspection that the mixing valve cartridge needs replacing too in my main bathroom. Glad to hear it's an easy fix!

Cit,

He could do a flat plate. He would have to open the hole enough to get a junction box mounted in the ceiling, but you have painters coming anyway.

This really can't go in the attic?

Cornboy,

Sure it's not rats? If it's rats you need metal and they'll probably eat around the outside and make a bigger hole. If it's mice, I think jamming more wood shingle in there will do it. Sadly I have experience with both. Getting rid of mice was not too hard, but rats are very hard.

Also the art deco conduit LB looks like it's for indoor use and they put some kind of putty on it, but it looks cool.

Considering he already has the attic floor open (and presumably can't put it back due to using the wrong cans) he should be able to put the junction box and access in the attic.

No way I'd accept his having installed cans that are too tall to close up the floor though.

Changing the cans does seem mandatory. And do everything before painters get there.

I *think* it's mice, I caught one and the stool is small, but there could be rats too. I've set a bunch of traps.

Thanks for the advice, that's what I'll do.

Demo ongoing on the hideous red bathroom. So happy to see it go!

I've heard, and can't contradict this, that you don't get rats and mice at the same time. I reckon the rats kill the mice - babies anyway. Mice are like a million times faster than rats, so they couldn't get the adults. My dog and I have caught rats. Mice are way too fast - pretty much a blur.

Yes this. Mine was leaking at home, I went to the supplier and they just gave me a new cartridge for free. It was a couple screws and simple to change.

Yeah guys - like I said I'm learning on the fly here, so all this is helpful and appreciated.

He didn't tell me "I'm going to use can x and there are alternatives and can x is going to mean x y z." He told me that after he finished the work, matter-of-factly.

I take it from your responses that I should be more pissed than I originally was.

I've asked him to explain why we can't use a flat seal, and why he chose new construction cans instead of renovation cans, especially without talking to me about it first.

Given I've already paid this guy I have slightly less than 50/50 feelings about him re-doing a large component, even though his reviews say that's exactly the sort of thing he would do no questions asked.

Given the painters have started general prep work today, there's close to zero chance he makes significant changes that generate dust/etc during this week. I don't think switching the cans would require additional mess, but I think making the opening larger would?

I'll keep pressing and if he pushes back with anything technical I'll ask again here. Thanks a ton!

I don't like to give consumers advice on how to ream their contractor (and not that that's what you'd be doing), but if he's getting much of his business from Yelp you still have plenty of leverage over him.

haha micro.

This is all through thumbtack. As mentioned above, if I gave him a non-5* review it would be his 2nd out of >250.

So I just spoke with him on the phone. He says:

- the currently installed junction box is a pancake box above the ceiling and is too small to hold the wires, so the reason it needs to hang down is that the space for wires needs to go somewhere. He says his preference would be to install a larger junction box, but that the wires he's working with there are brittle/sharp/etc because they are old cloth-wrapped wires, so rather than risk them breaking or causing further problems, he wanted to basically leave them in place.

- relatedly, he gave me a quote of "between $2500-$3000" to basically rewire anything in the house that's got the cloth wiring with modern wiring, which would include replacing outlets and junction boxes with up to date stuff, which seemed like kind of a steal. This would also include "finishing" the thing in the middle of the hall.

- He said that I had previously misunderstood and that while there exist shorter cans, they are significantly different in price (??), and that both styles of cans would have left the same exposure through attic floor. Told me to go look at area where the other ones are installed for reference.

In theory in 2-3 years we are going to renovate the attic which will require using taller beams/joists/whatever things are, and create the additional height to make this entirely inconsequential?

I genuinely don't think the guy was out to screw me or be super lazy, but do wish he'd have given me options on can lights because I don't think a 100% difference in materials cost was consequential to me?

A contractor I know who gets his work from Yelp and has all 5 star reviews except one is spending thousands of dollars and losing money on a project because the customer is some combination of ahole/you can't please some people and is reaming him before removing a bad review. I don't know if it's actually worth that much, I hate the system and don't cultivate reviews (I do have 3 and they are 5 star, but I did cultivate those because a consumer loan program required that I have 3 Yelp reviews), but this remodeling contractor I know very well would give up his left nut before having a bad Yelp review.

I doubt the cost of a few cans would have made any difference to you here.

I'm not your man here on shimming up the attic floor - zikzak or others can answer that.

Brittle-wire shmittle-wire. I don't doubt that this dude has more experience remodeling old wires than I do. I am mostly adding brand new circuits. But, I mess with old paper cloth/paper wrapped wires enough. We do a lot of service changes without rewiring and I've never had a problem reconnecting old wires. A bigger box if necessary though, pancake or not, I'm not sure those wires won't actually fit.

The rewire seems like a very good price if it really includes refinishing (dunno how much of that wire there is though). I really would like to have all of this stuff done before the real painters do any work though.

Shallow can lights and standard can lights are not much different in price, if you are doing 5 or 6 just ask the home owner for $20 extra or just eat it since they are probably charging $100 min for a recessed light.

Did the homeowner tell the contractor he was putting flooring down in the attic before the lights were installed?

I still don't get why the electrician didn't just put those wires in a j-box and nail it off in attic, he used new construction lights so he was up there anyway. Also, why didn't he use the existing wire from switch to put in the nearest light, maybe it was too short to do that but a jbox is simple.

Homeowner, if you don't want to pay for drywall repair, see if a smoke detector will cover the hole, I would rather have that than a jbox blank plat I can see.

So he contracts to replace old brittle wire, yet he won't replace that brittle wire in that area?

Sounds like he's trying to bull**** you.

Wire that "brittle" is a fire hazard.

Citanul,

It all sounds like him taking the easiest way out, and then when you ask questions he's throwing jargon at you and trying to make you feel like he made the best decisions for you, without asking you.

The price difference between the short and tall cans is about $10 a light, and the short version fits in a 2x6 joist. There's no reason you would have chosen the cheap ones and lights that stick up above your attic floor given that information.

Short: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Halo-6-i...-6PK/204062578
Tall: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Halo-H7-...6-PK/203891884

I would check and make sure he used insulation contact rated fixtures too.

I also see no reason he couldn't have pulled those wires to a junction box in the attic, or made them reach to one of the can lights. There are also these special splices that allow you to have a splice in the wall without a junction box, and they're $15 a piece. Both options seem better than a weird ceiling nipple, but I think he's trying to avoid doing any drywall patching.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/NSi-Indu...MS-3/307358485

I don't buy the brittle wire part either. If you look at old wiring, the 50 year old stripped ends that were in wire nuts may look corroded, but if you trim it a little and restrip it, the part that's been under insulation for 50 years looks brand new.

S̶p̶a̶r̶k̶y̶ Stumpyy knows what's up. The guy had the new constructions cans in stock, either from a demo or left over from a job.