Speaking of electrical issues, I had to tackle a couple of different gremlins over the past week and I got my ass whipped in the process. Started with flickering lights in the garage and kitchen. We had a couple space heaters on the garage circuit, but it wasn't tripping a breaker and even after unplugging them, the issue persisted. So I replaced the switch, which is 29 years old at this point, but that wasn't the issue. I didn't have time to chase it down any further until I came home the other day and the garage door wouldn't open. No power to the circuit, but the breaker wasn't tripped. I reset it 3 times before power came back, so I ran to town and got 2 new breakers, one for that circuit and one for the kitchen. The new breaker fixed the garage, but not the kitchen. So back to the drawing board...
Again, I replaced the switch to no avail. I tightened all the new LED retrofit can lights to make sure I had them tight. That wasn't it. Pulled the new light/fan combo I installed last week and you guessed it, that wasn't it. Finally called my dad who wired the house and he was convinced it was a neutral issue, so I pulled every outlet and switch on the circuit to double check all the neutral connections. By process of elimination, I worked backwards (lesson learned) to the problem. The neutral for that circuit was effectively disconnected from the buss bar in the service panel. Somehow, over 29 years, that screw worked itself out and the wire was just barely in contact with the bar. I called dad back and said "next time you say 'start at the beginning' maybe say that first and not last"
Again, I replaced the switch to no avail. I tightened all the new LED retrofit can lights to make sure I had them tight. That wasn't it. Pulled the new light/fan combo I installed last week and you guessed it, that wasn't it. Finally called my dad who wired the house and he was convinced it was a neutral issue, so I pulled every outlet and switch on the circuit to double check all the neutral connections. By process of elimination, I worked backwards (lesson learned) to the problem. The neutral for that circuit was effectively disconnected from the buss bar in the service panel. Somehow, over 29 years, that screw worked itself out and the wire was just barely in contact with the bar. I called dad back and said "next time you say 'start at the beginning' maybe say that first and not last"
