[donf]

Good day all,

What a treasure trove I found this morning. My Lady had me searching in the garage for Halloween (****) decorations stored up on the rafters.

What to my surprise do I find, behind a pegboard screen, but a 30 amp 240 AC receptacle. But wait, its live!

So off to the service panel I go to open the breaker. What no breaker listed for the circuit. How can that be?

So I follow the cable from the newly found 240 V receptacle and behind another pegboard that has the dryer receptacle, I find the tap.

So I go and open the dryer breaker and before I remove the 240 circuit, I test with a meter and (wait for it) one leg of the circuit is still hot.

Then I remove the panel cover and find the breaker (wrong one for the panel). Handle did not have enough throw in it to open the circuit on both poles. <actualy, the back of one pole had literally blown away>

When I get the dryer receptacle open, I find (wait for it), an aluminum feed for the dryer wire nutted (bare AL to Bare Copper) to a copper feed to the receptacle < and Al and Copper conductors under the screws.> The insulation is melted away and the connections are very weak!

Well all is safe, at least on the dryer circuit, the feed to the receptacle has been removed, (once again Home Depot has profited) I replaced the dryer feed with a copper cable. And I'm trying to find the correct breaker for this panel. Its an ITE split bus panel which I unfortunately do not have the money to replace! "Dirty words"

I wonder exactly what else lurks behind the rest of the walls in this place.

Any one want to volunteer to rewire a home from AL to CU for free. Oh, and just for good measure provide all the listed equipment and permits also for free? Yuk - yuk!

[Fr_Chuck]

OK so what you are saying it was all your wife's fault for making you get into the attic "right"

[donf]

Absolutely!

I should have found a reason to avoid spousal dictates. I know better!

[tkrussell]

F-r-e-e is a four letter word to an electrician.

F

Fr...

Fre... e

I tried, but leaves a bad taste in mouth.

Now I need some scotch to rinse my mouth out.

Lol.

Glad you found it Don. Keep searching for these presents left by the previous DIY'er.

[donf]

I hope you find a real nice single malt.

Well for the update, I found the breaker at HD. When I pulled the problematic breaker I found that one pole had blown completely loose and that's why the circuit had one leg hot with the handle in the off position.

There were two taps at the receptacle. One was copper and AL in the receptacle screws (two dissimilar conductors). Plus the conductors under the caps.

I now have it down to new 30 amp 2 pole breaker, new 10/3 copper and a new four wire receptacle.

I changed out the line cord for the dryer for a four wire connection.

One thing left to do is to replace the "J" box. The new receptacle does not fit in the old box.