Shocking!

When last we left our intrepid heroes (i.e. us), we were dealing with some seriously scary electrical problems. So about a week over when the electrician came to take a look, we were convinced (ok, just me--D is a bit more level-headed) that the house was going to go up in flames.

The electrician crawled around in our attic space for a while, looking at the wiring. (Since our energy guys are coming back to fill this space in and seal the hole, the below pictures probably represent the only pictures we'll ever get of our "attic." None of these pictures are actually of the spliced wire problem--no way was I crawling around in there to get to the problem.)

He came to the splice pretty quickly and noticed that it had been done as a way to bypass a short circuit. He guessed, correctly, that if he fixed the splice with a junction box, he would trip our circuit breaker. So he fixed the problem but created another one: finding the actual source of the short circuit.

We had two options: he could crawl around up there looking for the place where the wires were connected wrong or he could just start laying new wires. The first option could potentially be cheaper if he found the problem quickly (once he started with new wires, it would take a while to get them all laid out and installed). However, if he couldn't find it for a while (or even at all), it might turn out that we should have just put in the new wires. But we opted for the gamble and he started hunting.

The entrance hole to the attic was in our master bedroom, so that's where he started. He checked and took apart (in this order) our closet light, our main light/ceiling fan, our bedroom light switch, our two lights in the hallway, our light in the hallway closet, and our main light in the extra bedroom (which he confirmed was not rated to hold a ceiling fan--more electrical box and joist fun later when we decide to install one)

FINALLY he reached the light switch in our extra bedroom.

All the short circuits and the fire hazards and this was the culprit:

Not only was it the culprit, but it turned out to be a stupid problem. The grounding wire wasn't correctly wrapped and two pieces of metal were touching, causing a short. The attic splice had been made as a work around for what literally took 3 minutes and about 2 inches of electrical tape.

So in the end, about 5 cents in supplies and 4 hours in labor. Oh well, that's how it goes sometimes. The electrician was very nice and we definitely felt comfortable with his work and pricing, so at least now we have someone we can rely on the next time something breaks.