wiring woes

agmantoo · #1 11/08/06, 10:39 AM

I hired a person to supervise a remodeling of a mobile home. I had used him previously and his work was great but now he is on meth which I did not know. He had a drywall crew to redo the inside and the wiring was totally fouled, nothing was marked and the receptacles and switches were just cut from the wires. I have managed to get everything going with the exception of one overhead light in a bedroom. The light has the black hot but the neutral is open. I get 120 ac from the black to ground, nothing off the neutral. I think there must be a utility box covered by the drywall and the neutral is broken there. Is there some type of device that I can get to trace the hot black or the none functioning neutral? TIA.

mohillbilly · #2 11/08/06, 12:48 PM

Get this...........

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshow...TOKEN=71513967

boonieman · #3 11/08/06, 04:05 PM

I have a suggestion for you to try if you haven't already. Normally, an overhead light won't be on a circuit all by itself. You said everything else is working. Usually, it will pick up the neutral and hot from some other device, like a wall receptacle. I would pull out the closest receptacles away from the wall and look on the backside where the wires are connected. If a receptacle is feeding another circuit it will have four wires on the backside, two hot, two neutral. If you find one that you think might be feeding the light circuit, check that the neutral wires are making good contact, or that the little metal tab on the side of the receptacle didn't somehow get removed or broken on the neutral side. Hope you find it.

tiogacounty · #4 11/08/06, 06:34 PM

If you are looking for a standard receptacle or switch box, that you suspect has been sheetrocked over, and if the box was properly spaced off the face of the stud. (the face of the box is 1/2" or so, past the face of the stud) the box is easy to find. Take a four foot level and use it as a straight edge. Slide it along the wall and look for a hump. Do it vertically and horizontally, mark the hump both ways. If your marks intersect, there's your box. Carefully take a drywall saw and cut the box out. Don't saw deeply and make sure the power is off. I've done this many times and it works.

ponyboy123 · #5 11/13/06, 05:36 AM

Boonieman is kinda right, the light should be on the same circuit as something, but let's hope it is additional lights and not a wall receptical. Find the nearest light fixture on both sides of the non functioning fixture and drop them both from there box. Find out which side power is coming in from and exiting and this should lead you to the non functioning fixture. If this prooves fruitless, any neutral wire will do, they all hook back to the same bus bar in the panel, Find the most accessable and hook into it and run a sigle white wire to the fixture.

Rockin'B · #6 11/13/06, 11:27 AM

Sorry I can't help, but sure can relate. I've had one crack addict and one meth addict working for me. Both now long gone. It's really a shame that talented people get caught up in something that destroys their ability to even show up let alone the quaility of their work. The crack addict did such great work too.

agmantoo · #7 11/15/06, 07:42 AM

Success! I borrowed an expensive wire tracing transmitter and receiver and with the power off and the transmitter on it only took a few minutes to locate the problem. It actually took longer to read the instructions than to locate the fault. The drywall guys/meth head/somebody had taken the receptacle from the box and pushed the wires in and preceeded to cover same with drywall. Thanks guys!