My garage outlet caught fire from a loose connection I found last month

I was swapping out a old outlet in my garage last month and noticed the wire was only wrapped halfway around the screw. That loose connection had been arcing for who knows how long and the plastic was black and melted. The outlet was in a box behind a shelf I never move, so I never saw it. I replaced all the outlets in my house after that and found two more with the same problem. Did anyone else find scary electrical stuff when they started doing their own repairs?

3 comments

3 Comments

victor21929d ago

Not sure I see it the same way. Replacing every outlet in the house over one loose connection sounds like overkill to me. A loose screw on one outlet doesn't mean the whole house is wired wrong. Chances are that outlet just got bumped or was never tightened down proper from the factory. Wrapping wire half around the screw is a common mistake but it happens. You probably would have been fine just checking the rest of the outlets for tightness instead of swapping them all. Did you test the new ones with a plug-in tester to make sure they were wired right?

rowan_butler9329d ago

Just barely working until they aren't" - that's basically the story of every house built after 2005, isn't it? I swear some of these new builds have the electrical equivalent of a check engine light that's been on for years but nobody wants to pop the hood. But yeah, I gotta side with the crowd here - swapping every outlet is like burning down the kitchen because the toaster popped up too soon. Half the fun of owning an older house is finding all the weird wiring choices the previous owners left behind, and a loose screw is pretty low on the panic scale. Did you at least keep the old ones in a box in the garage "just in case" like a proper hoarder electrician?

the_joel29d ago

Exactly what @victor219 said about plug testers. I found a loose neutral on a brand new outlet when I tested it after the swap. Makes you wonder how many houses have outlets that are just barely working until they aren't.