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Got called for a simple keypad swap that turned into a 3 day crawl space adventure
Honestly, the job was just to swap an old 6160 keypad in a nice house. Took the old one off, went to put the new one on, and the whole zone list went nuts. Spent a full day just tracing wires back to the panel, no luck. Ngl, I finally found the issue on day two. The original installer, maybe 20 years ago, had run a single zone wire through the attic, down a wall, and into a completely different crawl space to hit a motion sensor first. Took me another day to re-run a clean line. Has anyone else ever found a hidden junction like that buried in insulation?
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tyler8228d ago
Yeah, but here's the thing. You say "always check for a hidden splice in the insulation" like it's that easy, but in my experience those splices can be anywhere. I've found them taped to the back of a stud, buried under blown-in cellulose where you can't see a thing, even stuffed into a wall cavity behind a vent. The original installer probably didn't even think of it as a "time bomb", they just wanted to finish the job and get home. Your mileage may vary, but I'd say instead of assuming it's in the insulation, you gotta start thinking like that old installer. What was the path that saved them the most wire or the most ladder climbing? That's usually where you'll find the mess. It's not a fun lesson to learn, but after a few days in crawl spaces you start to get a feel for where the shortcuts hide.
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jade6182mo ago
Oh man, that's the worst! Classic installer logic right there. "Hey, I'll just save five feet of wire by routing it through a nightmare maze." Finding that must have felt like winning the world's worst lottery. You just know they were laughing about it twenty years ago, sipping a soda while they buried that time bomb.
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