Spent 4 hours tracking a dead outlet in my own house

Went to swap an old outlet in my living room and found no power... turns out the previous guy had buried a junction box behind the drywall in the basement. Took me from 7pm to nearly midnight to finally trace it back with a toner.

3 comments

3 Comments

phoenix_martin404d agoMost Upvoted

Buddy of mine ran into the same mess last year. He was changing a light switch in his hallway and the thing had no juice. Three weekends of poking around later he finally cut a hole in his garage ceiling and found a junction box covered in old insulation. Someone had just drywalled right over it like it was nothing. The worst part is he had to patch up two different spots where he'd cut trying to find it. Told me he about threw his tools across the yard when he saw that box just sitting there.

nelson.wren4d ago

And make sure you map out every circuit before you start cutting, saves buying a new drywall knife every time.

ward.anna4d ago

Really feel for your buddy on that one. Nothing worse than spending three weekends chasing a ghost in the walls only to find out some previous owner just buried a live junction box behind new drywall. I've had similar moments where you're so sure you've checked everything, and then bam, there's the problem hiding in plain sight, or not so plain in this case. Makes you wonder what other surprises are lurking in an old house that you just haven't run into yet. Hope he at least got that patch job looking clean, takes a steady hand to make those exploratory holes disappear.