Tracking down the electrical gremlins

Nearly finished at this house, but I work in a really odd way.

I have this list of things that I work to, and unless I complete the task I can't continue forwards. For some unknown thing in my tiny mind, I need to get the electrical gremlins out of this house about now.

I've been losing sleep over this for the last 10 days in fact. Part of the house is dead. No electrons are passing. None. Nowhere. And what scares me the most is that walls are up and I'm not 'allowed' to bring down drywall. Nope, not at this stage. And that's where the stress is - tracing anonymous wires.

First part of the dead house was finding a fairly un-obvious GFCI. (For those that don't know a GFCI is like a mini circuit breaker in a socket). After suddenly seeing that and pressing "reset", half the house came alive. I learned that $40 lesson from an electrician last year - look for GFCIs.

Second part of the house isn't quite so obvious. Decided to buy a $20 contactless voltage tracer. Great devices, lost mine a few months ago in a rat infested attic and never could find it. The Ebay replacement ate batteries like they were going out of fashion, so bought myself a kick ass $20 leccy wand. Problem is that it's so sensitive it's picking up static electricity in the air.

So......grabbed my meter and a torch (flashlight so I'm constantly reminded) and headed to the attic. It might be cold outside (23C/74F) but the attic is best part of 100F. Killer. Ran a few tests and found a trunk cable that many things seemed to hang off.

A few tests and the trunk was dead, so followed it back to a kitchen light and a box that I couldn't test.

So.....back into the kitchen, pull the light down, marvel at the huge numbers of wires in front of me, grab at one for fun, and watch all the dead lights suddenly come live. Result. A bad connection. And fixed in short order. I even managed to view the exact bad connection, sparks and all.

Next problem is a bunch of fans in a room. The room is dead. Nothing. Nada.

It wasn't much better when I left. Tomorrow I need to figure out how to test some fans. Did blow up the new remote control for the fans. Who knew the circuit was live?

Did get some interesting news, one of the rental houses was having a problem with a dryer extension line from the fuse box. I had a look on Friday and found a circuit breaker I didn't like (found charing on a connection). Got a new one, but then called in a neighbor who is a licensed leccy. He came over today - result - bad fuse/circuit breaker. I feel quite vindicated!