My logical brain knows it’s fine, but my irrational brain is back in high school electric shop watching the teacher set steel wool on fire with a 9V battery.
I like to DYI. But unless you are ABSOLUTELY sure that you know what you are doing, when it comes to electricity, go to a pro.
Don’t try to sell the house until you correct stuff. Use colored electrical to ID green wires that ARE NOT ground, etc.
I wouldnt do any more ‘live’ work without the whole house breaker off.
I deal with dc voltages from solar panels that are hot anytime the sun shines. Thats fun !!
While it sounds like you know what you’re doing, there’s nothing worse than DIY electricians who DON’T know what they are doing.
Mr mm nearly got taken out by backfeed because some idiot before us, ran TWO circuit breakers to the same light. So mr. mm ha closed off the one circuit and started to work and wow howdy, there was a spark, a loud snap, and he got quite a jolt.
What goes on in the minds of most amateur non-electricians who think they can do their own work is beyond me but we and my son have seen some atrocities that somehow miraculously, did not burn the house down.
In my non-professional opinion, it would likely be easier and less time to just rerun everything than to try to figure out what’s going on and hope that you caught it all. That’s what we’ve resorted to after enough wasted time trying to figure out just what the heck is going on.
You now know:
...some previous homeowner was a DIY electrician.
...they screwed up on the wiring to the timer for the security flood lamps in the back pasture.
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Now you have to wonder “what else did they screw up on?”...
Southwire AC Tester Analog 120-Volt Specialty Meter...$6.50 at Lowe's...
I think y’all should not be messing with 110 AC.
That said, wiring an electrical motor on with out ability to immediately kill the power is high stupidity. Motors do catch fire and you best be able to shut it off instantly.
There are a number of things that can cause this. I cannot say definitively which of several possibilities is causing this.
I recently installed an electric water heater in my small cabin. That water heater takes two quantity 240 V feeds. I wired it up and it seemed to work fairly well. Then one time I was taking a shower, and my foot was on the drain grate, and I went to adjust the shower head and I got a pretty considerable shock. I measured the voltage between the Grate and the shower head and found 110 volts! It of course freaked me out, because I could have electrocuted myself. As it turned out, the clamp on the ground rod going into the concrete outside of the structure and near the sub panel that handles the breakers for the cabin was loose. So the water heater got its 240 volts just fine, but the center tap of the 240 volts was not necessarily zero. This can cause a situation where the ground wire inside the cabin is dragged to one or the other side of the 240 volt line, especially if there is nothing drawing current on one side of the 120 volts ordinarily formed between the 240 volts Wags and ground. This, by the way electrocuted about 10 or 12 soldiers in Iraq when they were showering in what were more or less porta potties set Up as showers. Because the generator powering the water heater was not Bonded to the center of their 240 volts to their Electrical Plumbing adequately. So that is one possible cause, that you have a loose or defective ground clamp in your system, and what appears to your eyes as a green wire and to your brain as ground is not zero volts.
Another possible cause is if the person who wired that circuitry before you placed a switch in the neutral leg of a 120 volt circuit, instead of the hot leg. In that case the hot lead to that circuit is hot all the time, even when the appliance is off, except for the fact that it goes through the filament of a light bulb.
Yet another possibility is that you have a 3-way switch somewhere in the system that keeps a neutral and a hot constantly powered.
Still another possibility is that the previous person who installed the wiring simply mixed up white and black somewhere. This was not a case of overt nor systematic racism, but you got knocked on your ass none the less. Perhaps your house was wired by Rachel dolezal, and the two colors of wires simply identified as their opposites.
I have learned this about electricity.
If you don’t know why something happened, you have a problem.
Every installation must be predictable or you need a pro to unwind the mess.
And I’ve completely re-wired an old farm, upgrading from 100amp to 200amp. Including out buildings.
Passed inspection first time.
Get yourself one of these: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Klein-Tools-Non-Contact-Voltage-Tester-NCVT-1SEN/100661787 or a good digital voltmeter, or both, and always check circuits before you monkey with them.
As others have commented on this thread, there is no telling what some other person has done to the wiring. You don't have to get Klein, there are a bunch of companies that make similar tools. That one is just pretty easy to find.
I've been in my old (vintage 1963) house for over 20 years, and still find stupid crap previous owner or someone else did that I need to fix. Best thing to do is kill power to the whole house. Then CHECK IT ANYWAY! If there are outlets on the circuit you're working, plug in a vacuum cleaner or radio with the volume turned up. When the sound stops, the circuit is dead. Then CHECK IT ANYWAY! EVERY time you do something, or take a break, CHECK IT ANYWAY! Paranoia pays. That tester just has to get near a hot wire to light up. Makes it much easier to CHECK IT ANYWAY! I've lit myself up a couple of time. I didn't enjoy it.
https://amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00ATOYNP0/ref=sspa_mw_detail_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Get this set cheap and can save your life.
All your wiring problems are not gone, something somewhere is using ground as a power return. So I would start with using the.polarity trster to check every socket in the house looking for a miswired socket. Probably a clock or kitchen oven or some such With a low current device.
After all sockets pass check, place a meter between the two grounds that spark and check for DC as well as AC. When you can see the fault on the meter, turn off the breakers one at a time till the voltage goes away. That will narrow it down to which circuit. Then once fixed turn on each breaker one at a time checking meter to insure its not an idiot factor wiring job in more than one place.
Then tie the grounds together and proceed tapping the line normally.
Using a ground return for a power return could cause a toaster or other item to become live to the touch if a ground wire connection gets loose.
Yeah it works, but it does tend to kill people. DYI with sub atomic physics is hazardous. With the internet there is no excuse for wiring something wrong or making shortcuts.
(30+ Years Journeyman Electrician with current valid license)
I may be wrong but common sense says just remove the switch and twist the 2 wires together and now it is on forever. Patch the hole, maybe.
I will mess with a lot of stuff, but not electricity.
If you were getting sparks, they were not coming from your strength. Ha ha.
That’s not too bad.
I had a house that I was putting a new oven/range in the kitchen to replace a dual oven/range that was in the house. But I needed to add a new vent hood and wire that in.
When I slid out the old range and un-plugged it, I noticed a piece of sheet rock over what was once a wall receptacle, so I removed it and sure enough I could se wires stuffed in the hole but no J-box.
I went out and verified that all the breakers in the kitchen were shut off and reached in the wall with a pair of needle nose. As soon as I touched the wire it exploded in a big arc flash.
I went out to the panel to verify everything was off and then noticed that there was 60amp breaker outside the box. So I switched it off. What I determined was that many years prior to my purchasing the home they had remodeled the kitchen and this was the old feed to the range and that who ever did this just stuffed the wires back in the wall with bare ends! They were a micrometer apart from burning the house down.
I went to Home Depot, bought a J-box and some wire nuts and safely terminated this open circuit!
In the 2017 NEC, the rule is crystal clear; “The branch-circuit overcurrent device shall be permitted to serve as the disconnecting means where the switch or circuit breaker is within sight from the appliance or is lockable in accordance with 110.25”. “Within sight from the appliance” does not only mean that while flipping the switch, the electrician can see the appliance. It also means that while servicing the appliance, the switch can be seen by the electrician and it is within 50 feet.
Food for thought.
STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING OR YOU WILL BURN DOWN YOUR HOUSE!!
I am an electrical engineer specializing in power electronics and some years ago put in a new service entrance and new wiring to replace the knob and tube in my former 1923 home. Being an electrical engineer and understanding how electricity and electronics works does not qualify one in knowing all the regulations in the NEC (National Electric Code). Of course, before redoing my house wiring I extensively studied the NEC.
When the inspector came he examined the service drop and the new entrance breaker panel. He then examined one very busy junction box (loaded to the maximum allowable number of wires) and said that he’d never seen anything so neat and well dressed in such a busy junction box. He also praised the way I properly used the screw terminals (tight three quarter wrap in the correct direction) rather than the push in knife edge contacts. He then signed off my permit and started to leave. I said, “Wait a minute, shouldn’t you examine all the other junction boxes?” He replied that he didn’t think that would be necessary.
The third wire safety ground is NEVER supposed to carry any current except fault current (and enough of it to be able to trip the circuit breaker). Safety ground is connected to neutral (the white wire) only at the main panel and this single connection point is also connected from the panel to earth ground, normally via copper rods. Water and other metal utility pipes are normally bonded to earth ground. Switches and outlets in plastic junction boxes must be connected to safety ground via the (bare) third wire. Old code allowed this connection to be made via metal junction boxes and spiral shielded cable.
Many new homes do not meet code because inspectors trust contractors with a “good” reputation. This is a form of corruption in my opinion. Older homes may often have dangerous unpermitted DIY wiring. Most often the problems arise from improper junction box connections rather than in the wires themselves (although occasionally wire that is improperly undersized for the circuit breaker may have been used). It is a lot of work and requires a good meter, logic and common sense, but it is usually possible to create a wiring diagram/schematic of the errant connections so that they may be corrected and the existing wires may be reused to meet code.
Everyone working on their own wiring should get an outlet tester, a good volt meter and read the NEC. Also where many junction boxes are daisy chained via knife edge connections in the outlets it is a good idea to switch the connections to the screw terminals. In my opinion, knife edge connections are really only good enough for the last junction box in the chain because knife edges make contact on only a very small surface area and may easily become high resistance if the connections oxidize. This is not a possibility with properly installed screw terminal connections.
First I would check to see if your former home owner may have reversed the hot, black wire, with the white neutral in an outlet in that circuit. I was going to tell you how to do it with a neon test light, but they don’t give out much light. Instead, order a Power Gear 3 Wire Receptacle Tester from Amazon for $5.44. It will tell you if you have any power swaps in the circuit and enable to tell what outlet has the problem. It is good to do such checks if you suspect a previous owner put wires on the wrong terminals.
The rule for all electrical wiring: The hot side is always the smaller plug-in on the outlet. It takes the black wires. It also is always wired with copper screws. The Neutral (silver screws) is always the larger outlet plug-in. It always takes white wires. The ground is always the plain copper wire or with green insulation. Some people make the mistake of putting on a new plug on a power cord and swap the hot with the neutral or hot with the ground wire. That can cause some big problems. Always observe the proper color code on the plug wiring. Your receptacle checker can also be used to check a power cord. Extension cords always have a color code: Black = hot, White = neutral and Green = earth ground.
Never use the earth ground as the neutral white wire. To do so is a criminal offense. The big difference between the ground wire and the neutral wire is that the ground wire is always grounded at 0 volts, the neutral wire is a return path of an unbalanced load, and while its voltage is typically 0 volts, it has the potential to pass much higher voltage through it. If you disconnect the neutral wire you will many times read voltage on this neutral wire due to the power passing through a connected device because of the ground wire error and running to the neutral end that was just disconnected. The main thing is, everything should conform to its color-coded polarity.
A ground wire should never have any voltage on it, so when you connect the ground wire like it was a neutral, the return path voltage on the ground wire is completely unexpected, and it usually runs a higher ampacity since it has a connected load. This creates a very dangerous situation for an electrician working on the power system. If the neutral wire (white) is hooked up to a ground wire for its return, a cardinal mistake is made. It should be hooked up to another neutral wire throughout the circuit back to the panel.
It sounds like your house electric system is grounded in more than one place (you said the previous owner was going directly to ground instead of running a neutral to complete a circuit).
It seems prudent to go to ground at every opportunity, and many folks drive ground rods all over the place thinking it's safer. In fact, the difference in electric potential between grounding locations can actually cause current flow between them, especially when one is actually being used to complete an electric circuit. This may be why you see a weak spark in your ground circuit.
Trying disconnecting the circuit with the offsite ground and see if you still see those weak sparks. If not, there's your trouble.
The problem is that somewhere along the (power) line you made a distinction btwn male and female, which created a politically incorrectly short circuit, thus resulting in sparks from Hell, seeing as this perversion is from children of Hell.