Running around like a chicken with my head cut off and taking a sledge to my drywall doesn't seem like rational behavior
But it would be really fun.
Sorry, hate to have sounded like I was lecturing, but glad you're getting someone to take a serious look at it. I wasn't necessarily advocating demolishing your drywall en mass.
EDIT: It was more like urging you to get an expert to demolish the right parts.
1) I'm pretty sure it's the only hole. I can survey a majority of the exterior of the house from ground level and I have pictures of the roof which was newly installed less than 12 weeks ago from every conceivable angle
2) I called my dad today in the middle of the gulf of mexico who has been an electrical engineer for 30 years and I asked him repeatedly about imminent danger and he doesn't believe it's a major risk, so long as the bulbs are removed from the fixture, which was done
3) I already scheduled an electrician to audit the wiring. So I'm not sure what more I'm supposed to do. Running around like a chicken with my head cut off and taking a sledge to my drywall doesn't seem like rational behavior before someone with a license can actually look at it. If the electrician can't fix the problem then I can engage my insurance about covering serious interior work.
Believe it or not, frayed wire can still conduct a current despite the switch being off, plugs unplugged, and lightbulbs pulled out.
Now imagine that, resting against some insulation, with the red and black wires crossed because a rodent chewed into them.
Your dad is trying to placate you and make you not worry. But also, electrical engineer != electrician. (Your dad, I'm sure, is pretty smart!)
It's unlikely to cause a fire if it hasn't yet, but that doesn't mean it won't.
Flip the breaker until the electrician gets there. If the light is fluorescent, let's hope it's just a bad lamp or ballast, or the socket is so old that it just needs to be replaced and not because some rodent chewed through your shit.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
My dad doesn't sugar coat anything. If you knew him you'd understand. And he has done residential electrical work. He gave me a step by step of exactly what the electrician would do tomorrow, in order, for each of the three or four things that might be wrong. So I'll score him on his accuracy and we'll find out.
He said that because of the proximity of the fixture to its switches, it's likely that the entire circuit can be pulled out of the wall and re-run without breaking the drywall.
Hopefully yes, but there's no guarantee that it's isolated in the loop of the room, either. The electrician might just use the wires as a pull/fish line.
I'm also hoping the varment didn't damage your fire-breaks, either, but that's just childs play compared to frayed wire.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
My dad doesn't sugar coat anything. If you knew him you'd understand. And he has done residential electrical work. He gave me a step by step of exactly what the electrician would do tomorrow, in order, for each of the three or four things that might be wrong. So I'll score him on his accuracy and we'll find out.
He said that because of the proximity of the fixture to its switches, it's likely that the entire circuit can be pulled out of the wall and re-run without breaking the drywall.
That depends entirely on how the wire was run. If there is any point when the wire is stapled along a joist, you're gonna have a bad time. If the fixture in question is linked into the circuit off another fixture/outlet (Which, judging by you telling us there are a lot of things on this circuit, sounds probable), you're gonna have a bad time.
If there's damage to the wire somewhere in the walls, there's only two options for an electrician.
1) Find the start and end point of the wire. Disconnect them. Connect new wire to the end of the old wire (there's a lot of ways to do this) and pull it all the way through. Problem with this is if the wire runs in any strange manner, was a tight pull, etc. there's a risk of losing the connection between the new and old and having the new wire sitting somewhere in the ceiling/wall. In that situation, you're forced to...
2) Tear open the ceiling/wall along the wire's route to have access to it (Or a few select holes that allow access to specific points along the route, such as tight corners so you can do #1 safely). This is the better option, as it allows you to really see the extent of any possible damage and to run the new wire safely. It's also the shittier option as you're gonna have a bunch of holes and shit.
We generally did a combination of 1/2, depending on the route of the wire and what we were looking for. I can tell you for sure, in this situation we would've opened the initial entry section to see if it was compartmentalized. If the wire damage was there and the rodent didn't have access to anything else, great success, easy day. If there's access to more areas, we'd strongly encourage finding every area the rodent could've accessed.
Just because that is the only fixture that's acting up doesn't mean the rodent didn't have access to, or damage, anything else. You might not find out until it's too late.
Hopefully your electrician can knock out an easy #1 pull for you and everything will work out fine.
The electrician thinks the rodent issue is a coincidence with the light. It happened to be working when he came, but he pulled the fixture out, there was no evidence of anything with fur ever being in the immediate vicinity of it. However the fixture itself was a cheap one and was in very poor physical condition. So we put a new one in.
He thinks it was either the fixture itself, and also we found a bonus cause, which is that this breaker is also connected to an outdoor socket, and he said that it gets water in it, it will wreak havoc. So he had a little gadget to demonstrate this, and lo and behold, the breaker tripped AND my FiOS battery backup unit tripped its socket as well... which has happened several times since I moved in, and we didn't know why. He says that it's likely that when it rains hard, the socket is getting wet (the plate is loose), and it's mucking up that circuit, which has the problem fixture on it.
Mucked up circuit + shitty 20 year old plastic fixture = light only works every now and then
So i need to water proof my outlet.
He said he doubts rodent involvement, but if it happens again it will require drywall work to prove it.
Also he says that I have a cadillac circuit breaker box.
The electrician thinks the rodent issue is a coincidence with the light. It happened to be working when he came, but he pulled the fixture out, there was no evidence of anything with fur ever being in the immediate vicinity of it. However the fixture itself was a cheap one and was in very poor physical condition. So we put a new one in.
He thinks it was either the fixture itself, and also we found a bonus cause, which is that this breaker is also connected to an outdoor socket, and he said that it gets water in it, it will wreak havoc. So he had a little gadget to demonstrate this, and lo and behold, the breaker tripped AND my FiOS battery backup unit tripped its socket as well... which has happened several times since I moved in, and we didn't know why. He says that it's likely that when it rains hard, the socket is getting wet (the plate is loose), and it's mucking up that circuit, which has the problem fixture on it.
Mucked up circuit + shitty 20 year old plastic fixture = light only works every now and then
So i need to water proof my outlet.
He said he doubts rodent involvement, but if it happens again it will require drywall work to prove it.
Also he says that I have a cadillac circuit breaker box.
Posts
But it would be really fun.
Sorry, hate to have sounded like I was lecturing, but glad you're getting someone to take a serious look at it. I wasn't necessarily advocating demolishing your drywall en mass.
EDIT: It was more like urging you to get an expert to demolish the right parts.
Believe it or not, frayed wire can still conduct a current despite the switch being off, plugs unplugged, and lightbulbs pulled out.
Now imagine that, resting against some insulation, with the red and black wires crossed because a rodent chewed into them.
http://www.homeinspectionsbyjerrykellyiii.com/RodentsFires.html
Your dad is trying to placate you and make you not worry. But also, electrical engineer != electrician. (Your dad, I'm sure, is pretty smart!)
It's unlikely to cause a fire if it hasn't yet, but that doesn't mean it won't.
Flip the breaker until the electrician gets there. If the light is fluorescent, let's hope it's just a bad lamp or ballast, or the socket is so old that it just needs to be replaced and not because some rodent chewed through your shit.
He said that because of the proximity of the fixture to its switches, it's likely that the entire circuit can be pulled out of the wall and re-run without breaking the drywall.
I'm also hoping the varment didn't damage your fire-breaks, either, but that's just childs play compared to frayed wire.
That depends entirely on how the wire was run. If there is any point when the wire is stapled along a joist, you're gonna have a bad time. If the fixture in question is linked into the circuit off another fixture/outlet (Which, judging by you telling us there are a lot of things on this circuit, sounds probable), you're gonna have a bad time.
If there's damage to the wire somewhere in the walls, there's only two options for an electrician.
1) Find the start and end point of the wire. Disconnect them. Connect new wire to the end of the old wire (there's a lot of ways to do this) and pull it all the way through. Problem with this is if the wire runs in any strange manner, was a tight pull, etc. there's a risk of losing the connection between the new and old and having the new wire sitting somewhere in the ceiling/wall. In that situation, you're forced to...
2) Tear open the ceiling/wall along the wire's route to have access to it (Or a few select holes that allow access to specific points along the route, such as tight corners so you can do #1 safely). This is the better option, as it allows you to really see the extent of any possible damage and to run the new wire safely. It's also the shittier option as you're gonna have a bunch of holes and shit.
We generally did a combination of 1/2, depending on the route of the wire and what we were looking for. I can tell you for sure, in this situation we would've opened the initial entry section to see if it was compartmentalized. If the wire damage was there and the rodent didn't have access to anything else, great success, easy day. If there's access to more areas, we'd strongly encourage finding every area the rodent could've accessed.
Just because that is the only fixture that's acting up doesn't mean the rodent didn't have access to, or damage, anything else. You might not find out until it's too late.
Hopefully your electrician can knock out an easy #1 pull for you and everything will work out fine.
He thinks it was either the fixture itself, and also we found a bonus cause, which is that this breaker is also connected to an outdoor socket, and he said that it gets water in it, it will wreak havoc. So he had a little gadget to demonstrate this, and lo and behold, the breaker tripped AND my FiOS battery backup unit tripped its socket as well... which has happened several times since I moved in, and we didn't know why. He says that it's likely that when it rains hard, the socket is getting wet (the plate is loose), and it's mucking up that circuit, which has the problem fixture on it.
Mucked up circuit + shitty 20 year old plastic fixture = light only works every now and then
So i need to water proof my outlet.
He said he doubts rodent involvement, but if it happens again it will require drywall work to prove it.
Also he says that I have a cadillac circuit breaker box.
Interesting that you have a schmicko breaker box and the light fitting was a cheapy. And you can get nice sturdy weatherproof outdoor sockets quite cheaply.
And buy traps I did. One in the attic, one in front of the hole in the garage.
Garage was a no-go. But the attic trap worked almost instantly.
One thing they don't put on the trap instructions though
retrieval
it was big. really big. about the size of a guinnie pig. certainly as long, maybe not quite as fat. tail of about 6-8 inches.
I will redeploy the garage trap to the attic as soon as the smell clears out. Even through the painters mask it was strong.
i didn't bother reclaiming the attic one. it served its purpose.
EDIT: I guess I should mention that I've only had to deal with mice in my home before, and the occasional opossum in the yard that my dogs kill.
Unless you are just wearing a human suit for retrieval?
Florida is the worst bro.
Awesome that you caught it though.