Please help me verify the electrical work of my apartment maintenance high-schooler.

August 21, 2012 10:51 AM

Please help me verify the electrical work of my apartment maintenance high-schooler. I don't trust the work he has done.

My apartment complex uses an untrained kid fresh out of high school to do it's maintenance work. After watching him try to install a new laundry fan - and getting the parts that I *could* figure out wrong - I'm pretty uneasy about his electrical work.

Please help me understand what he should have done.

The original unit had a three wire tail that plugged into a matching socket, mounted inside the ceiling space. This three wire tail is composed of, I believe, a positive line, a negative line, and a ground wire.

The replacement unit has an ordinary electrical cord and wall plug - the kind you stick into any normal wall socket.

So he cut the three-wire tail off the old unit, cut the plug off the new unit, and twisted one of the new cord lines onto the negative line of the tail, and covered it with a wire cap.

He then did the same thing for the positive line.

He left the ground wire of the tail laying loose, un-connected to anything.

1. what should he have done with the ground wire? Is what he left me dangerous?

2. if I need to redo his work, how do I tell the positive from the negative lines on the wall cord?

Thanks in advance.

Sincerely,

Afraid of Fire

posted by Dunwitty to Home & Garden (15 answers total)

Woah, hire an electritan ASAP. Doing maintenance on the cheap is fine, but electrical work needs to be done by a professional.
posted by littlesq at 11:00 AM on August 21, 2012 [3 favorites]

The new unit does't need a ground, so it doesn't provide one -- as I read it. There is nothing to do with the ground wire that is coming from the wall. It does no harm sitting there.
posted by LeanGreen at 11:07 AM on August 21, 2012

I suspect he should have replaced the "socket" in the ceiling space with a standard three wire socket and then just plugged into that. But I tend to agree with LeanGreen, if the unit doesn't call for a ground, you should be fine with the fact that the old ground is just sitting there.
posted by HuronBob at 11:09 AM on August 21, 2012

Positive and negative are terms applied to DC circuits. Residential wiring is AC, so it's "hot" and "neutral."

It sounds like what he did could work just fine, but connections made with wire nuts should be contained in an electrical box, not just hanging out where they can be easily fiddled with. It's not clear how he handled that part.
posted by jon1270 at 11:10 AM on August 21, 2012

Response by poster: Follow up, based on reading I have been doing:

Is it okay for the wire joins (the wirecaps, or marrettes as they are also called) to be dangling free like that? According to my reading, if you join two lines behind a wall or ceiling, it must be done in a junction box. I can't tell if this is true if it's (a) next to a fixture like the fan and (b) is accessible when you remove the louvre of the fan...
posted by Dunwitty at 11:11 AM on August 21, 2012

Response by poster: Sorry Jon, couldn't see your post when I posted my follow up question. He definitely left the wire nuts dangling (the wiring from fan to socket is only 6 inches long).
posted by Dunwitty at 11:13 AM on August 21, 2012

You might want to call the City about this. In most places, only the home owner or a licensed electrician can legally perform electrical work like this.
posted by monotreme at 11:14 AM on August 21, 2012 [8 favorites]

It's theoretically fine, but you're supposed to make any connections like that in the box. It'd be a real job to try to explain to someone on the internet with apparently no electrical experience whatsoever (correct me if I'm wrong) what would constitute a safe, though not technically correct connection. if you're uncomfortable, talk to your landlord.

Don't make a federal case about it. You've gotta try pretty hard to fuck up an installation like this in such a way that it would be unsafe.
posted by cmoj at 11:16 AM on August 21, 2012 [2 favorites]

This is not the sort of problem that's likely to start a fire; the primary worry is that a wire nut comes off (perhaps loosened by vibration of the fan) and either someone touches the wire itself, or it touches and electrifies an ungrounded metal surface which someone then happens to touch. Even if one of those happens, it's unlikely to be a big deal unless that person is standing barefoot on a wet basement floor, or perhaps has a pacemaker.

It sounds like the splices are usually hidden behind the fan cover / "louvers." If that cover is metal, that's a bit of a worry. Less so if it's plastic.

You could add a measure of safety by simply wrapping the wire nuts and an inch or so of the protruding wires with a couple layers of electrical tape.
posted by jon1270 at 11:26 AM on August 21, 2012

Response by poster: Okay, it sounds like I now know what I needed to know. It's probably okay, it technically should have been done with a junction box, and I'll ask my apartment complex manager about it, but not in a federal case manner.

Thanks to everyone! Not sure if there's a "best answer" here, you all seem to mostly be in agreement.
posted by Dunwitty at 11:26 AM on August 21, 2012

Wait, there's a socket in your ceiling space and rather than just plug the two prong plug into that he spliced it to the old one? Am I following this correctly?

Anyhow, free hanging wire nuts are NOT a good idea as they don't withstand more than casual stress when you're using them to join twisted solid wire. If we're talking about stranded wire here, that's even worse.

The way this should have been done (if it needed to be done at all) would be to use crimpable butt connectors.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 12:22 PM on August 21, 2012

Having an unlicensed kid take responsibility for electrical wiring is folly. I do not know California law, but it might be illegal since your landlord must provide safe housing for you. It surely is a lot of risk for the kid to be in charge of fire danger.
posted by Cranberry at 1:15 PM on August 21, 2012

It sounds like this particular job is probably more sloppy than unsafe, but I'd be very concerned about what other sorts of electrical projects this kid has done in the building. There may be actual fire hazards where you can't see them. I'd strongly consider talking to your local tenants organization to get their advice about how to report or trigger an inspection.
posted by quince at 2:39 PM on August 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

quince gets to the meat of the matter: if the kid starts with a fan and does a Homeowner's Special on that, what's he doing on the really hard stuff?
posted by wenestvedt at 12:37 PM on August 22, 2012

Dunwitty writes "Is it okay for the wire joins (the wirecaps, or marrettes as they are also called) to be dangling free like that?"

It really isn't. Splices are required to be put in boxes for many reasons most of them safety related.

• The box has wire clamps minimizing force on the splice that would tend to pull it apart.
• When the splice fails the box contains the bare wire ends preventing them from coming into contact with people, conductive surfaces or flammables.
• If the splice fails in spectacular fashion the box prevents sparks and melted insulation/conductor from hitting combustible material.
• A box is designed to have a cover plate attached allowing us to locate the box; parachute splices (ie splices not in a box) tend to be hidden within finished surfaces compounding all the previous concerns.

Having said all that if your fan is a typical bathroom exhaust sort of fan the ceiling enclosure might satisfy the requirements of a being a box. Strictly speaking around here this kind of work has to be performed by a licensed electrician; though it is extremely common for unlicensed maintenance people to perform this kind of work.

Of concern is the unattached bond wire (the green). Depending on where it goes and whether the housing is bonded that could create a potential shock hazard.
posted by Mitheral at 7:30 PM on August 26, 2012