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dej142

wrong wire gauge used - how big a deal?

dej142
10 years ago

Yesterday I had a repairman replace a breaker because my dryer wasn't heating (I first replaced the dryer, then realized it was an electrical problem rather than a broken appliance...but I really like the new dryer, so that's ok).

In replacing the breaker, my repairman noticed that several wires were the wrong gauge for the breakers they are attached to. He felt the wires and none were warm.

We had a contractor remodel our home 5 years ago (a down to studs remodel). The contractor normally built decks, etc., but assured me he cound handle a whole home remodel, and we're in a rural area and I didn't have much choice. Per our contract, he was in charge of upgrading or replacing all wiring as needed. I'm not sure if he did or what all he did. We don't have codes here and we didn't have a separate inspection of his work.

Over the last five years, we've found several instances of mistakes or shoddy work or just incompetence, so now I'm worried about our electrical. Do we have a major fire hazard? Is this a fairly common thing?

We will hire an electrician to look into this, but in the meantime I just wanted to ask how big of a deal this is. It's been five years since our remodel and we haven't had a problem with breakers tripping, etc. The blown breaker happened last week when I flipped the breaker to reset our washing machine (I stopped our washing machine midcycle and the only way to reset it was to flip the breaker). When I did, apparently there was a power surge that blew the breaker.

Thanks for any advice!

This post was edited by dej142 on Thu, Apr 4, 13 at 15:33

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