TIL a 22 year old panel swap in Boise turned into a 14 hour day because of one buried junction box
Had a panel replacement scheduled for 8am at a rental house in Boise, figured it would be a clean 5 hour job since the old box was a 100 amp from the 80s and everything looked simple enough on the walk through. Around noon I found a junction box buried behind the drywall in the hallway closet where somebody had tied three circuits together with wire nuts and no cover, so I had to cut open the wall, trace everything back, and redo it just to get the breakers to stop tripping. Does anyone else start adding a drywall patch clause to their estimates on older homes, or am I just getting soft in my old age?
Reminds me of a crawlspace in Nampa last spring where I found a christmas light extension cord feeding a whole bedroom, had the homeowner standing there like it was normal. Took me an extra 3 hours just to untangle that mess before I could even start the actual work. Buried boxes are the worst because you can't see them coming on the walk through.