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I finally found a 22 year old phone line short in an attic in Phoenix, and it took 11 hours
Last Tuesday I got sent out to a house in Phoenix where the panel kept showing a zone fault every time it rained. I figured easy, bad contact on a door somewhere, maybe 45 minutes tops. Nope. I spent the first 3 hours testing every contact, then I realized it was only zone 4 so I unplugged the wires and the zone went clear, which meant the short was in the wire run itself. This house had a finished attic with about 18 inches of clearance and blown in insulation that looked like it had not been touched since 2003. Around hour 6 I found where a cable staple had been hammered way too hard into a joist and crushed the jacket, but the wire inside was still barely touching so it only shorted when the wood swelled up from humidity. I cut and spliced it with a B connector and wrapped it up, then it took another 2 hours to climb back out and put the insulation back so the homeowner would not notice I had been up there. Eleven hours for one staple. Has anyone else run into a staple that was basically a time bomb waiting for a rainy season?
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victor_carr5419d ago
Man, an 11 hour call for one bad staple is brutal, and that humidity thing is wild. I would have bet money it was a bad contact somewhere, not a crushed jacket that only acts up when the wood swells. That staple was sitting there for over 20 years just waiting for the right rain to ruin your whole day.
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