Eagle

Well, phooey. I guess I'll have to put my curiosity on hold for a week. Meanwhile, though, reading about and thinking about your predicament has spurred me to getting busy on upgrading my breaker panels. I have Siemans panels, so I've been looking on Siemans' web site, Lowe's, and Home despot. The sub-panel I have now is 8 spaces. They're all rated for split breakers ... except that I've got several 240-volt, 2-pole breakers in there, so that takes care of that. After much searching, I found a 12 space / 24 circuit, main lug panel that will fit in the space available. Perfect as a sub-panel. Unfortunately, neither my local Lowe's nor any Home Despot with 100 miles has it in stock, so I'll have to special order it.

Any update from the boss man's visit to the scene of the crime?

Looking at the photos again, it looks like your breaker panel is filled to capacity. If you're going to add lights and permanent power for a sump pump in the crawlspace, I would suggest that they be on their own circuits. (Especially the sump pump.) There is a critter sometimes called a "split breaker," which occupies one space in the panel but is actually two breakers, controlling two independent circuits. They are useful for sneaking in one or two additional circuits, as a less expensive option than replacing the breaker panel with a larger one, or adding a sub-panel. BUT ... not all breaker panels are listed for use with split breakers, so that's another thing to discuss with the electrician when he's there. https://www.thespruce.com/tandem-breakers-1152736 https://www.oneprojectcloser.com/tandem-aka-split-or-double-breakers-for-a-full-breaker-panel/ http://www.startribune.com/how-to-know-when-tandem-circuit-breakers-can-be-used-aka-cheater-breakers/140688183/ Try to anticipate your future wants and needs now. If you're tinkering with the whole house, now is the time to at least provide for some future expansion if you think you'll need it. Whatever you think you'll need probably won't be enough anyway. My house was built in 1950 with a fuse panel. Somewhere around 1998 (or so) that started creating a lot of problems, so I replaced it with a new breaker panel that had several more spaces than the old panel had fuses. Then I used up all the extra spaces, and added a sub-panel with eight more spaces. And now I only have two of those left, and I need to add a dedicated generator circuit, so I wish I had either used a bigger main panel, or a bigger sub-panel. I may replace the sub-panel at some point -- not sure what my plans are. (The sticky wicket is that to go from an 8-space panel to a 12-space panel will mean a VERY big jump in the size of the enclosure, and I don't think it will fit the space available for it.

When it was new, it was high tech. I doubt they knew it would start to degrade after 25 years. I'm not staying out (perhaps against my better judgement), but there's only so much anyone can offer from hundreds of miles away. If the problem is degraded insulation, that's exactly what a megger test is intended to show. That's why I reminded you to discuss it with the boss man.

I agree. I'm sort of wishing I had done the same.

But page 8 of the '88 electrical manual shows the fuse panel wiring, and the C100 connection points are called out on that diagram.

Fabric-coated? That's very old school. I think that stuff only had a life expectancy of 25 years. Ask the master electrician about that. And ask him about doing a megger test.

Are all the boxes wired with Romex, or are some of them wired with BX (metal armored cable)?

Were these readins with the ground wires attached, or disconnected and isolated? 5V or 10V between the box and what -- box to stud? Box to neutral?

Page 8

I think those boxes are galvanized, so it may be a function of how well the test probes make contact, and whether they're contacting the plating or the underlying steel. Also, if whatever is energizing the box is contacting the outside, it may be a question of how well the current passes through the exterior coating to the steel box, and then from the steel box through the interior coating to the test probe.

WOOD studs? 42-year old WOOD studs? YIKES! Which way is the current flowing -- studs positive and neutral negative, or neutral positive (?!?!?) and studs negative? The house wiring is Romex, right (plastic sheath, not metal armored cable, a.k.a. BX)? Wall finish is sheetrock? Possibly a random nail or screw nicked a black (positive) conductor and is transferring power into the stud. Are all the studs energized, or just one or a few?

Rear axle is an easy fix. Especially if it's a 2WD and it's going to be a street machine, even a Dana 35 is adequate for that, and people are throwing those away.

https://comancheclub.com/topic/48710-diy-projects-writeups-master-search-index/ Is your truck manual or automatic?

Ah! You are extrapolating. I commented above that the breaker panel can be grounded to the water service pipe or iron or steel well casing, but the connection MUST be made within 5 feet of where the water pipe enters the structure. That was to code, and that's still allowed by code. What is NOT allowed by code -- not now and I'm pretty certain not in 1967 -- is to ground individual receptacles (and/or light fixtures) to the plumbing piping running throughout the house. And that's what your electrician did in the attic. That's dangerous. Even if he installed a jumper to bridge the PEX (which you did not mention his doing), it's still dangerous.

Where are you reading that that's the way it used to be done? I'm a lot older than you are, and I've been at this game since just about the time that house was built (my first job in an architect's office was in 1966). I've never seen it done that way, and your house is the first time I've even heard of it being done that way. I'm living in the house my parents had built in 1950, and it sure wasn't done that way.

I took Pete's image and modified it a bit

I'm far from an expert on the NEC. I am licensed as a building inspector, but my expertise isn't in the electrical side of the codes. That said, I don't think it was ever allowed to ground outlets through the building's plumbing system. As I explained, that creates the possibility of energizing the entire plumbing system in the event of a ground fault in a device upstairs. That's not just a technical nonconformity -- that can kill you.

Plumbing cannot be the grounding conductor for the devices in the house. That's a violation of the NEC. The individual outlets (either permanent light fixtures or receptacles) should be grounded back to the breaker panel grounding bus bar. The panel itself has to be grounded. That can be grounded to a water service, but the connection must be made within five feet of where the water service pipe enters the building. Incorrect. The whole point of providing grounded outlets is so that if an appliance (maybe an old electric drill, or a hair dryer, or whatever) has an internal fault and allows the hot wire to contact the case/enclosure, that current will be carried back to the breaker box and then to ground rather than grounding through you. If the grounding wire is connected to the house plumbing -- on the house side of the PEX, where it's electrically isolated from the ground connection to the water service -- then a fault with any device will energize the plumbing piping and anyone who touches the piping or water from the piping may become the path to ground and will get zapped.

Something (that photo) tells me you need a new fuse panel.

From the 2014 NEC -- Section 250.5(A): I don't think grounding to a plumbing pipe somewhere in the house is what the NEC has in mind, Section 250.8: By "listed" in #8, the code means listed by a recognized testing agency such as Underwriters Laboratories (UL), and installed in accordance with the methods spelled out in the listing. This is getting above my pay grade, so I just called a friend who is a master electrician and a licensed electrical inspector. When I got to the part about connecting the white wire upstairs to the plumbing, he about jumped out of his skin. He said that would energize the entire plumbing system in the house and you could get zapped just sitting on the throne to take a dump. My friend is now interested. Where -- exactly -- is the PEX in the system, and where did the guy make the new grounding connection beyond the PEX -- in the basement, or outside of the foundation?

What good does connecting to the plumbing upstairs do if that plumbing is isolated from ground by the length of PEX? That can work only if he installs a jumper to connect (bond) the metal plumbing pipes on either side of the PEX with one another.

That makes sense. And I hope that makes it a relatively easy fix. Please let us know what he's doing to create the new ground.

I agree -- that doesn't look very good. More important, the fuse panel is two parts. One part is on the engine side of the firewall, the part in your photo is the other side. To really investigate the condition, you need to remove the screw that holds the two halves together, separate them, and inspect those contacts.

As I think we have already determined, the ground wire was clearly added at some point after the house was built. It comes into the box through a separate opening on the bottom, not through the top with the hot and neutral conductors. Stupid me, I was about to write that it's a code violation because it doesn't have a strain relief or a protective bushing at the opening in the box. Then I woke up and remembered it's a ground wire, so it doesn't have to be insulated and it's supposed to touch the box (:duh:), so an insulating bushing would be counter-productive.