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Excellent tip for checking tapewire under wallpaper


chellebelle

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I learned an excellent way to trace a broken circuit in a house that's wallpapered. When Dan and I tapewired Tia Bella, we checked for power at each step, and again after all wallpaper and trim installed. It worked fine. That was several months ago, and we hadn't worked on it for a while.

Last week, we had time to install the outlets around the baseboards, and tested before we did them. No power in the entire room and the one above it. Lucky for me, we did the house in sections as it was built when I got it and that's how it worked out. Otherwise, we would have no power anywhere.

After several frantic emails to Dawn Reese at her store, she gave the best tip ever to find the exact location of the broken circuit under wallaper.

1.Place 2 pins into tapewire, 1 in each color of the tapewire. I remembered to make a diagram as I was wiring, so only had to measure up from the floor to locate the tapewire run under the wallpaper.

2. Disconnect the lead in wire from the junction splice at the beginning of the wiring. (leave it connected to the transformer and power)

3. Put the 2 prongs of the lead in wire against the pins in the wall.

4. Test for power just beyond the pins.

5. Move the pins along the run until you find the broken circuit.

Sadly, my entire run was shorted out, most likely due to wallpaper paste seeping into the eyelets at splices, causing a short, so I'm removing the wallpaper and trim, will replace the tapewire, wallpaper and trim. This time I will remember to cover each splice with scotch tape to protect them from moisture.

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