Shlbyntro
Ultra Conservative
- Joined
- May 27, 2018
- Messages
- 7,744
- Reaction score
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Last night I was shutting down for bed and walked outside to turn my sprinklers off. As I was walking back to the door I heard what I believed to be a steady whooshing sound coming from one of the outlets on the exterior of my house. My initial thought was that is was probably some air escaping from an AC duct and coming out the hole that was cut in the wall for the socket. But I went inside and shut the AC down just to verify that's all it was anyway. AC shut down and I went back outside and was still hearing the noise. It was at that point t it dawned on me that what I was hearing was not a "whooshing" noise but very decidedly a "sizzling" noise! this wall happens to get some splashing from the sprinklers and what I discovered was that the weather cap had cracked and was letting water in behind the outlet.
Inside I went, to check the gfi in the bathroom immediately to the inside of this exterior outlet to see if it was tripped or probably more along the lines of what I was thinking, to manually trip it so I could go to bed and not worry about the house catching on fire. It wasn't tripped, and what's worse is when I tripped it, it still didn't kill power to the outlet outside. There are (or were at the time) only 2 other gfis in my house, in the kitchen, and in the upstairs bathroom, neither of which this outlet shared a circuit with.
Here I am, now about 1030 changing out of my PJs and killing the power to the entire house so I can disassemble an outlet and disconnect it in the dark by flashlight, still over 90 degrees outside and the bugs swarming me because the only light anywhere nearby is the flashlight I'm holding in my mouth. I did however manage to get the old now burning up socket removed and capped off the wires last night so I could finally go to bed in peace but I did end up taking a 2nd shower after all that.
This morning, I replaced the Junction box that I broke a screw off in last night while removing the outlet and also got a gfi in there with a new outdoor cover.
So the PSA is:
If you have an older house, check your outlets. If you see any cracks or signs of burning, replace your outlet. Make sure all your outlets that should be gfi protected ARE gfi protected. You never know what some dumb ass has done electrically to your house.
Inside I went, to check the gfi in the bathroom immediately to the inside of this exterior outlet to see if it was tripped or probably more along the lines of what I was thinking, to manually trip it so I could go to bed and not worry about the house catching on fire. It wasn't tripped, and what's worse is when I tripped it, it still didn't kill power to the outlet outside. There are (or were at the time) only 2 other gfis in my house, in the kitchen, and in the upstairs bathroom, neither of which this outlet shared a circuit with.
Here I am, now about 1030 changing out of my PJs and killing the power to the entire house so I can disassemble an outlet and disconnect it in the dark by flashlight, still over 90 degrees outside and the bugs swarming me because the only light anywhere nearby is the flashlight I'm holding in my mouth. I did however manage to get the old now burning up socket removed and capped off the wires last night so I could finally go to bed in peace but I did end up taking a 2nd shower after all that.
This morning, I replaced the Junction box that I broke a screw off in last night while removing the outlet and also got a gfi in there with a new outdoor cover.
So the PSA is:
If you have an older house, check your outlets. If you see any cracks or signs of burning, replace your outlet. Make sure all your outlets that should be gfi protected ARE gfi protected. You never know what some dumb ass has done electrically to your house.
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