Electrical wiring question

I own a duplex and our renter recently took some photos of the electrical wiring in the attic, done by a previous contractor. (Renter is a licensed electrician.)

He says it’s shoddy workmanship and dangerous and he’d like to fix it.

I genuinely believe him, but still would like a 2nd opinion. I’ve got photos of the problematic wiring… is there any way to post photos here on the msg board? I can’t figure it out. Otherwise, where can I post something like this and link to it?

The easiset way is to open a free Photobucket or Flicker account (just two of many free photo hosting sites), upload your photos to that site, and then link to them in your post here.

Gotcha, thanks.

Here are the pics. Any electricians know if this is safe? Or does it need to be corrected?

Imgur

IANAE, but I would bet a large amount of money that there is no way in hell those installations meet any kind of code.
If this was my house, I would rewire it.
I agree with your renter.

IANA Electrician, but even I can see about a dozen code violations there. “Shoddy and dangerous” is a pretty acurate description.
See if your renter will cut you a deal, but it definitely does need to be corrected.

I am not an electrician (really), however I have done wiring in my own home with the advice of the city inspectors (and I’m also in California) and passed their checks.

I see a lot of problems that you should have a licensed electrician look at. Everything that follows is the opinion of an unqualified layman.

Splices (where wires are joined together in any fashion) generally have to be enclosed in a box. All three of your photos show them just hanging out in the open.

Boxes and cables generally have to be secured (for example, boxes screwed or nailed to studs, romex stapled properly). That doesn’t appear to have been done in any of those photos.

Where romex enters a box there should be a short amount (less than an inch) of the insulating jacket in the box as well. Obviously not the case in your first photo. Romex also has to be clamped where it enters a box - same photo shows this problem.

Photo one shows what appears to be an attempt to ground a connection by twisting the bare copper ground from the romex around the armored cable entering the box. Usually the ground from the romex would enter the box and then be connected solidly with a green grounding screw.

Photo #2 looks like a rat’s nest of unsecured cables, uncovered box, etc.

Photo #3 looks like it’s the inner wires of a run of romex, unsecured. Looks like electrical tape is being used for some purpose and at least in my area, tape can’t be used to secure a splice, it has to be a wirenut of some kind.

Basically that appears to be a collection of “What Not To Do” pictures. If I paid someone to do the electrical and that’s what they produced, I’d be pissed as hell. Have a qualified electrician check it out and fix it.

Thanks, guys. Exactly what I needed to know.

Yeah the renter is going to cut me a deal for sure. Very nice guy, has his own electrical business, so I’m expecting better work from him than they last guy.

Not even sure I can go after the last guy, it’s been so long. Wish I had known about this earlier. =/

The link seems to be working for everyone but me. It takes me to flickr, but there are no photos on the site.

I can’t find it either, but I’d like to see it.

:mad: Me neither. No fair, I want to see shoddy work too.

Me, four. I shouldn’t have suggested flickr-that site rarely works for me. Poop. :frowning:

Even if you can’t get your money back you probably ought to report him for hideously substandard work. The city, state licensing board and BBB. Someone who makes a mess like that shouldn’t be doing electrical work, they’re going to burn somebody’s house down.

Did you make the photos public or private? Can’t view them.

Sorry guys, I figured once it was resolved, I went ahead and removed the photos. I tried editing the post with the link, but there’s no edit button, so I left it alone. I never thought there’d be “demand” to see the stuff. =)

If you’d like I can repost when I get home tonight. shrug (It’s my wife’s flickr acct, and she uses it for some moms group where they share kid pics, so I thought it’d be odd for her friends to log on and see pics of… wiring. Hence the removal once I had the info.)

So either send me a PM and I can email pics to you, or if you all really want I’ll put them up for another day or two later tonight.

We just love to see frighteningly bad electrical work. :smiley:

As for “going after” the previous guy, the first hurdle would be to prove that they did the work. It’s probably best to just get it fixed and move on.

Ditto on the bad electrical work photos. I went to see it and, WTF?!?! No photos? Or is the wiring invisible?

Remmeber, the SDMB isn’t just for and answer and ::click:: we like to see and read things when we can too. Who knows, I may have bad wiring but have nothing to compare it to.

So repost them, pretty please.

Yes, are you sure this was actually done by that previous contractor? Because some of it sounds so bad I can’t imagine any contractor doing that. And some of the things described (like using tape rather than wire nuts) would take more work than doing it the right way – even a shoddy contractor wouldn’t do that!

Sounds more like an amateur job. Possibly done (without telling you) by a previous tenant who thought he was a handyman. Apparently the attic is open to get to, since you new tenant was able to get up there and take those pictures.

Quick tip - if it looks messy it’s probably bad. Filmyak’s photos showed what appeared to be wiring installed from 200 yards with a harpoon gun.

LOL. I’ll repost them tonight.

Attic can be gotten to, but not easily. Only reason they were up there was to check for termite (with the pest control guy).

Kewl! That’s the stuff I want to print out and take to the electrical inspector’s meeting, so we can compare how awful a job any of us have seen. :smiley: