can I ask about house wiring?

B

bdmicarta

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Feb 16, 2012
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We are doing remodeling and I seem to have one circuit in the house that I cannot turn off with breakers. This is a 35 year old house, one breaker panel, no obvious funny business with previous modifications or such. I can turn off all of the normal breakers but yet my kitchen sink disposal and one switched light on the same circuit do not turn off. Only if I flip the master breaker does it kill power to the disposal.

I have some large breakers that control air conditioner, electric furnace, oven, electric water heater, stove. I have not turned all of those off because I wouldn't think a disposal would be on one of those circuits, but 2 are off because we had to temporarily remove the oven and stove.

Any reason why a wiring abnormality would leave a circuit hot? Are there breakers that you flip but still maintain contact? Could it be wired partly through one of the 220 breakers?
 
Do you know which breaker is supposed to control the disposal?
Often the disposal has a dedicated breaker, or almost dedicated. Have you mapped out what each breaker controls?
See if there is a breaker which doesn't kill anything when you shut off that breaker.

edited to add: If you find one that doesn't kill anything when you shut it off, see if replacing it fixes the issue.
 
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Is the switch for the “light” actually the switch for the disposal? Or does it actually control a light? Serious question.

Also, have you tried turning off every breaker one at a time to check which one may turn off the power to the disposal? Or just ones you think might be it?

Is the disposal direct wired or plugged into an outlet?

Is there a dedicated breaker for the microwave? Or refrigerator?

I have come across this before, and I had to turn off two breakers, I cant remember why.

Paging Dcdavis Dcdavis ;)
 
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Sharp & Fiery said:
Is the switch for the “light” actually the switch for the disposal? Or does it actually control a light? Serious question.

Also, have you tried turning off every breaker one at a time to check which one may turn off the power to the disposal? Or just ones you think might be it?

Is the disposal direct wired or plugged into an outlet?

Is there a dedicated breaker for the microwave? Or refrigerator?

I have come across this before, and I had to turn off two breakers, I cant remember why.

Paging Dcdavis Dcdavis ;)
Click to expand...

The disposal is direct wired to an armored cable coming out of the wall. There are 2 switches near the sink sharing the same supply wire, one controls the disposal, the other controls an outlet in a cabinet above the sink that we have a light connected to. Two or 3 times I've turned off all of the small breakers one at a time. I have not turned off all of the few large breakers and I have not turned off all of the breakers at the same time. The microwave circuit is shared with other outlets in the dining room on the other side of the wall. The refrigerator is on a third circuit along with another outlet on that side of the room. So in the kitchen to turn off all of the non-switched outlets I have to turn off 4 different breakers.
 
Try those other breakers that you haven't tried yet and see what happens. If that doesn't do it, then sounds like someone tapped directly into the bus in the panel for that circuit, which would be very bad. Either that or the breaker that is for that circuit has failed in such a way that shutting it off is not actually breaking the internal connection, in which case knarfeng's suggestion is spot on.
 
Sounds like you need to try all the breakers. If you can't find it then you may need to pull the cover on the panel and test the output of each breaker to see if any are stuck on and like mentioned above, wired into the buss bars or into one of the large breakers.
 
I noticed the same thing with the stove vent fan and light. The only way I could get it "off" was turn off all the electricity to a house.
 
Maybe I changed one mystery for another.

The 2 switches were still hanging out of the wall waiting for tile to be installed and sealed. I got ready to put everything back and we noticed if you pushed the switches towards the wall the light went out, pull the switches back out slightly and the light comes back on. So there is something loose. I get all my tools out, pull the switches out further and look back there with a flashlight.

I see 2 black wires and one red wire coming into the box and going into a single wire nut, and one more black wire coming out of the wire nut and going into the switches. I'm thinking that something is loose and while wiggling around 2 of the black wires come out of the wire nut but they are barely twisted together and make intermittent contact. The 2 that came out are apparently a supply wire and the wire going to the switches, so move it until it makes contact and both switches work.

The red and other black wire still go into the wire nut. I test them because I can reach a small part of the red wire that is bare and these wires are also hot. So I'm guessing that there were supply wires from 2 different circuits going into this switch. I tightened the wire nut on the red/black combo and added a wire nut to the 2 black wires, put it all into the box and put the cover on.

So the new mystery is why are there 2 different wires coming into the box that are hot? Maybe there were 2 supply wires but there would be no reason for that because a second supply wire didn't do anything in the box. Or maybe that box is intended to supply other outlets beyond and one of them is crosswired to another circuit.

If there were 2 circuits connected in this box that explains why turning off the breakers one at a time wouldn't turn off power in this box. I should have been able to find a combination of 2 breakers off that would have cut the power but who has time for that. Now that I have separated a couple of wires it should be possible to turn off breakers one at a time and cut power to the disposal.
 
Sharp & Fiery Sharp & Fiery I just saw this.

B bdmicarta are you still having problems finding a breaker? Turn off all of your double pole breakers as well. You could have a sub panel somewhere that your not aware of. Also at times people will get cheap when wiring and use split neutrals on 120v circuits. When you do that you have to use a double pole breaker. That’s just the first two things that pop into my head. Breakers do go bad as far as not opening the circuit, it’s not extremely common but it does happen.

As far as two circuits in a box that is extremely common. If they are tied together tho and on different phases it’ll dead short with both on. If they are on the same phase it’ll hold. Both breakers will have to be off to kill the power. You create a back feed into your panel which is how people can get hurt tho
 
Go ahead and kill the big (220v) breakers. While not common, it is possible to pull just one leg off that and use 110v. From your color description, it sounds like they may have stolen 110 from somewhere.
 
Get a wire toner and trace the leg from disposer to circuit breaker panel.i do this with irrigation valve wires.
 
cj65 said:
Get a wire toner and trace the leg from disposer to circuit breaker panel.i do this with irrigation valve wires.
Click to expand...
Speaking of toner...
We moved into our previous house 7 years ago. The house apparently had a lot of wiring installed- there was a network switch and a small patch panel in the closet. But we could not find a single internet outlet anywhere in any of the rooms, and could not even find a plug for a telephone landline. My nephew came over with his toner and found one telephone jack up under a cabinet. He also found which wire in the closet connected to the cable company router. I had to make a cable by cutting into a normal patch cable and splicing it to naked wires in the closet and we had our land line. For internet we just ran everything wireless.
I wish I had a toner, maybe I need to buy one.
 
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