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rdcrags wrote:My favorite true electrical story: The appliance store had delivered a new stacked washer/dryer to our new townhouse. After sliding the unit in place and plugging it in, one of the men grabbed the flexible vent hose and reached up to the aluminum vent pipe to slide it on. The other guy said "Wait a sec, touched the vent pipe with his tester and said "Hmmm, haven't had one of these in a couple of years." Someone had driven a nail through a hot wire into the vent pipe, lighting it up. They ripped off some sheetrock (drywall to you Northerners) and found the errant nail.

No one commented on my wisecrack about frenchmen. How about this: "Seen on e-Bay: '50,000 used rifles from France. Never fired. Dropped once.' "

I hate to tell you how many times, as a telephone repairman, I have seen something similar.

Had a lady who complained that the light in her utility room, which was rarely turned on because the ambient light from the kitchen provided enough to see by, flickered every time the phone rang. The Romex from the light switch had a clumsily installed staple holding it in place. The staple had been driven through the jacket and had penetrated the insulation of the hot side as well as the ring side of the telephone line, which had been run immediately adjacent.

When the phone rang, 96v 20Hz was just enough to make some entertaining effects with the incandescant light bulb. They didn't want me to tear up the sheetrock (and we called it that up north too) until I showed HIM on my meter that there was a dead short between the hot side of the switch and the phone line. When I tore open the wall, there was the staple, just a couple of inches below the switch.

I didn't repair the electric wire, just pulled the staple and left the wall open and told them to call an electrician, s they complained to the phone company that I had: A) damaged the wall; and B) not fixed the electric wire. The phone company, for once, took my side and told them to call an electrician, and sue their builder.

I have multiple other tales of similar situations.

RPB wrote:

wally775 wrote:Jeeper,

# 1 RULE. DO NOT MAKE YOURSELF PART OF THE CIRCUIT.

IANAE
Proceed at your own risk.
Pm me if you have any questions.

True, it makes circuit diagrams impossible to draw ... I don't recall a symbol for humans in a circuit.

Now I have to go look in my CAD files, I have one, kind of cute actually, drawn by a friend in the Engineering Department of NY Telephone Co.

What everyone said above, get a meter, or at a minimum a tester, and use it.

I used to have my Journeyman ticket, a very long time ago, but I still do a little here and there, and was a telephone man for an entire career.

First of all, you haven't quite provided enough information. How do you intend to get the power from the switched outlet to the sconces? Are you going to hard wire from the outlet, or just run a power cord? Yes, if you tap off the outlet properly, hard wired, you will accomplish your aim, but also make sure, even if unlikely, that the switch isn't controlling more stuff than the one outlet. This sounds like a common bedroom wiring scenario, where, say, a bedside lamp might be controlled by a switch next to the door so the outlet is split with one side constantly live and the other switched. But I had a house here, in Plano TX, where the switch also, probably because the previous owner did some amateur electrical work, very amateur, controlled a full outlet on the other side of the wall.

Be sure, if you choose to hard wire to the switched outlet, that you choose the proper half of the outlet (duh? right? Seen it done wrong as late as last month at Home Depot.) and also, and this might be counter intuitive, make sure that the lights are not on one breaker and the outlets on another, 120v might not fry you, but I have seen 48v surprise people, including me, enough to inflict a nasty bruise and minor cuts just due to the flinch. I have seen a wiring setup where the outlets on the second floor of the house were all on one breaker, and the lights and fans were on a separate one.

I have seen attempts at wiring a three way set of switches result in a constantly energized white wire.

I have also survived 440 volts, three phase, coursing through my right arm. Left a hole in the palm of my right hand big enough to cradle an M&M and it took the better part of 30 years to close up all the way and still is an angry red spot at times.