Shocking Electrical Wiring

As part of our renovations, we have made sure we are getting all the correct permits and inspections. As part of the process for getting the electrical permit, not only does Matt have to take a electrical test on the NEC code book, but we have to submit a whole house wiring diagram. To do that, we needed to know where our existing wiring went. So we started a week-long discovery of our electrical wiring, mainly by shutting off random breakers till something went off.

Well, we now have every socket, light, and appliance we can think of mapped out, and our house is a complete mess. Halfway through we stopped trying to describe the circuits by room and instead made a map of the house with every socket marked and just numbered them according to the position of the breaker they were on. We found out that the house violates code about 5 different times, circuits just go wherever, and we still can't identify three 240V breakers, two 120V breakers, and what runs our smoke alarms. We do know that most likely one of the 240Vs runs our air compressor for the AC system and one runs the water well, but we can't figure out which ones those are. Below, are our hastily sketched drawings with the circuits marked. Just try to follow the numbers around.

Basement

First Floor

Attic

Luckily, we were able to plan out a new wiring diagram that uses the same amount of circuits, fixes the code violations, reuses quite a bit of the old connections and still isolates the rooms better. Hopefully, it will be approved by the electrical board when Matt passes his test.

 

Update: After rigorous testing we have determined Matt is a dolt. The two 120V circuits that were unknown are marked quite clearly on the schematic above. Matt just forgot to mark it on the switchboard layout. Also, it turns out almost all of the smoke alarms in the house are not wired, but only battery operated. Finally, the unknown 240V connection is also running to the AC unit. Somehow the AC compressor takes 1 240V wire and the AC air handler takes 2 240V wires.