Catastrophe Averted

 I have been having problems with an outlet in the barn for some time now.  I keep a radio plugged into it so I can listen to it while I am riding in the barn.  It started tripping the ground fault whenever the wind blew.  And the wind blows a lot around here.  When I had some work done on the house, I asked them to fix the outlet at the barn.  They replaced the outlet which didn't fix the problem.  They said whoever wired the barn did a poor job and put the staples in too tight which cut through the insulation and was causing it to arc.  They said I needed to get the original people back to fix it.  So, I called them.  Said he would be here that week, Never showed up.  Called again.  Didn't return my call.  In comes my wonderful brother in law and son in law.

 Terry is always up for a challenge.

 There was lots of testing, some rewiring, and presto, outlet fixed.  But there were two others that were on the same circuit which didn't work either.  I said I never used those, but Terry was up for a challenge and kept searching for the problem.

And he found it.  Where the wire went between the rafters and the metal siding, the insulation had rubbed off and had arched enough to burn a hole through the metal siding.  I guess it could have started a fire.  So, when the wind blew, it pressed the siding up against the wire causing it to trip the circuit.  I wasn't crazy about the wind thing. 

After the other people had replace the outlet, half my lights quit working.  Apparently, it was a bad switch.

The two in-laws got that working too.   Terry also said that the people that did the original wiring had done a good job.

Then, while we were at it, M installed an outlet in the crawl space for me.  I told him I was watching a YouTube video on how to do it.  He said he could do it for me and had all of the supplies.  Who could turn that down.  Maybe that is all of the electrical work I will need for awhile.