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I kept blowing fuses on a simple bathroom fan install last week | Failed and Learned - Rigidtalk

I kept blowing fuses on a simple bathroom fan install last week

I was putting in a new fan in my own house and kept tripping the 15 amp breaker. I finally realized I was using 14 gauge wire on a circuit that had a mix of 12 and 14 gauge already. My old boss in Tampa would have fired me for that. It taught me to always trace the whole circuit before adding anything new, not just check the panel. Anyone else run into weird mixed wire gauge problems in old houses?

3 comments

3 Comments

betty_miller6mo ago

Had the same headache in my kitchen rewire last year. Found three different wire sizes spliced together in one junction box, it was a mess. What saved me was getting a cheap circuit tracer from the hardware store, the kind that beeps when you find the right wire. Took an afternoon to map every single run back to the panel and label them all with tape. Now I won't even touch an outlet in this old place without checking the whole run first.

cora6286mo ago

How do people even sleep at night after doing work like that? My buddy bought a house and found a junction box where the last owner used a gum wrapper and electrical tape for a splice. A gum wrapper. He had to redo the whole upstairs circuit because he couldn't trust any of it after that. Your circuit tracer idea is smart, that's way better than just guessing and hoping you hit the right breaker.

christopher_craig5mo ago

Mapping every wire sounds like overkill. People have been fixing their own houses for years without all that gear. Betty_miller's story is just one bad box, not the whole system. Most old wiring holds up fine if you're careful. A circuit tracer is another tool to buy and store for one job. Sometimes you just flip breakers until the right one goes off, it works fine.