Opened a panel last Wednesday in an old house in Richmond and found the scariest kludge job I've ever seen

I was doing a simple outlet swap for a homeowner near the Fan district. Went to shut off the breaker and noticed the panel cover was held on with drywall screws. Opened it up and found three different gauges of wire twisted together with electrical tape for a 50 amp circuit. No wire nuts, no box connectors, just tape. I told the homeowner straight up this needed a full panel replacement and ran the estimate for $1,800. He said he'd think about it. Has anyone else run into homeowner specials that made you just walk away?

2 comments

2 Comments

hannahk1928d ago

Held my breath the whole time reading this. I'm honestly more worried about that tape holding up over time though, like what happens in 5 years when that connection finally gives out.

felixlee28d ago

Tape is a temporary fix at best but what nobody's talking about is the thermal cycling that tape goes through in an attic or exterior wall. Hot summer days, cold winter nights, that expansion and contraction will wiggle anything loose way faster than gravity alone. I've seen electrical tape turn into a crusty mess inside a year in direct sunlight, let alone that mystery tape they probably grabbed from a junk drawer. The real ticking time bomb isn't the tape failing gradually, it's the arcing that happens when that connection finally gets just loose enough to spark but not loose enough to stop working entirely. A slow burn behind drywall that nobody notices until it's too late.