That one week where every job was a 3-way switch nightmare

Last month in Springfield, I had three calls in a row for flickering lights, and every single one was a messed up 3-way circuit in an old house. The worst was a 1940s place where someone had used the white wire as a traveler, and it took me a solid two hours with my tester to trace it all out. It was just one of those weird runs where the same problem kept popping up. Anyone else hit a streak like that, where it feels like the universe is testing you on one specific thing?

3 comments

3 Comments

ryan3697d ago

Tell me about it. I had a whole month of nothing but backstabbed breakers in old apartment panels. Every single call was some weird double tapped mess from the 70s. Felt like I was stuck in a training video loop.

the_simon7d agoMost Upvoted

My old boss used to love those backstab connections, said they saved time. We still find them holding up fine in a lot of those 60s buildings downtown.

scott.miles5d ago

Yeah they saved time for the guy who installed them, but they just push the real work and the risk down the road. It's a lazy shortcut that makes every future job in that panel harder and more dangerous. I've seen too many loose connections and melted plastic from those things to ever trust them. They might hold until the next time someone breathes on the wire wrong. It's not worth the few minutes they saved some guy fifty years ago.