Chasing a ground fault for 6 hours yesterday on a simple office rewire

I was swapping out old receptacles in a 1970s building and kept getting a ground fault on one circuit that would not clear. After 6 hours of pulling my hair out and swapping breakers, it turned out to be a tiny nail through the romex in the wall that nobody saw. Has anyone else spent a full day on a problem that ended up being something stupid simple?

2 comments

2 Comments

holly_williams1mo ago

Devil's advocate here. Six hours on a nail through Romex sounds like a rookie mistake from someone who skipped the basics. A simple visual inspection of the wall cavities before closing them up would have saved all that time. Or using a toner and tracer from the start instead of blindly swapping breakers. Blaming the "stupid simple" fix just means you didn't do the prep work right. Next time, map the circuit first and check for obvious damage before tearing your hair out.

grant.richard1mo ago

Hold on, six hours? You're telling me this guy spent six hours tracing a short from a nail through Romex? That's wild. I gotta call you out on this, @holly_williams, because I'm sitting here trying to picture that. A visual check before closing up walls is common sense, sure, but a toner and tracer from the start? I don't know a lot of guys who carry one on every job, especially for a simple residential call. Most of us are just flipping breakers and checking plugs until we find the problem. Six hours is still a lot of time, though. Maybe they were just unlucky and the nail was in a weird spot behind insulation or something.