Worst week of my career - three service calls in a row with hidden fire damage

Last month I pulled a panel cover in an older house near Portland and found the entire back of the bus bar charred black, but the homeowner swore nothing was wrong. Two days later another call where a junction box had been arcing inside a wall for weeks and nobody noticed until the smoke came through the drywall.

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jason12d ago

That's actually a solid way to look at it that I never really thought about before. I used to get annoyed thinking about all the extra time and hassle, but you're right that catching these problems early is the real reason people call us in the first place. Guess I'll try keeping that in mind next time I find a mess behind a panel.

thomas29112d ago

Man I gotta say I see this completely different. Hidden fire damage IS the job, not some freak occurrence. Every time I pop a panel off I EXPECT to find something nasty, that's just how it goes when you're dealing with old houses and DIY handyman specials. Finding a charred bus bar or arcing junction box doesn't mean it's a bad week, it means you caught it before it burned someone's house down. That's literally the whole point of what we do. If all you ever saw was clean copper and tight connections you'd be out of a job pretty quick. Maybe think of it as you saving three families from disaster instead of just having a rough schedule.