i'm throwing this house out the window

[ouchouch]

Yes, that's how I feel about my Beacon Hill. ARGH. My lights doesn't work!!! Okay see this...

I have a chandlier in the dining and living room, of course. The tapewire starts from the kitchen up to the bathroom, into the second floor hallway and into the bedroom. A few weeks ago the lights in the dining and living stopped working. I had this problem before, it was the junction splice and it wasn't securely on....because of that there was smoke coming from the light in the dining. That was the first uh-oh. AND NOW I tried everything, junction splice, the adaptor, the lead-in wire since it was bent and loose. BUT NOW THAT WASN"T THE PROBLEM. I lifted the hardwood floors in the second floor hallway, very carefully might I add

..and sigh. This is not good. Something's melted. I guess that's where all the smoke was coming from!! Yes I said smoke. So now I don't know what to do. Maybe put in a new light? Fo' reeeaalls I want to throw this thingout the window. I'm seriously going to put this up for auction cause I had enough of it.

[caitejay]

Oh my goodness, I wish I had some good advice for you!

[Shy Spirit]

Gulp .... poor you, and poor BH! I know nothing about wiring, so can't offer any helpful tips, but hang in there. Someone here is bound to know what you and the house need. Don't do anything drastic.

[Wolfie]

Now now Mary....you don't mean that now. Dry your eyes now, and do wipe that nose.....it'll be OK. Deb will come and talk you through this I'm sure. She is a lighting expert. I'm not a lighting expert, and if I saw smoke in my dollhouse you better believe I would be screaming for help! Anyway let's just ask Deb to look in at you, OK? Write to her....send her a nice PM..... She can help! I know she can....

There, feel better?

Hugs,

Wolfie

[chattycathy66]

Hang in there ....don't toss her just yet....I had similiar problems and I know just how you feel. Darrell gave me some great advice and now everything is fine! I had trouble with those sconce adaptors shorting the whole thing out! Basically, I started over, disconnected all my lights up to the point I had trouble, and then reconnected. Could you have a brad "out of" or even one too near the edge of the tapewire? Have you tested any of the lights that don't work? (you know, touch the wires to the lead wire prongs? ) Maybe it's not your connection, it' could be the light that was smoking. I don't know too much, have to save that for the experts, just want to lend a little support and let you know that a couple little wires, some brads and some tapewire aren't going to beat you Be strong, I know help will come along soon !

[melva]

If you need too take a minute(don't throw your her out). When I run into a problem like this I can't move on until it's solved. I would try this after checking all the tape connections and lights. if your tapewire is connected to all three floors I would sever the connection between each floor. Then plug the junction splice into the other floors to see if they are working. Test the tape in different spots to see if its working. You can always reconnect the tape wire when you find out where the problem is. I would say to check your chandliers in another plug if you don't have them hard wired.

I had smoke and blew out my lights once because the wires from my round wire were touching. Another time I put some really wet wallpaper over my tapewire and blew out all my lights. I was in tears. The next morning I had electricity but lost a couple of bulbs out in my chandlier. Don't give up i'm sure you'll find the culprit.

[Hallowell]

Step away from the house for a bit and work on another project until you are ready to try it again. Don't give up on it, you'll end up regretting it. Good luck and hang in there.

[ouchouch]

AEILHTAIWERH!! I can't do any of that because the wallpaper, mouldings, baseboards and such are all in!!There is no tapewire visible to test anything...hence why I had to lift up the floor. Oh and wouldn't you know it, the lights that DON"t work in the house are the most expensive chandeliers in the whole house??

Thank you everyone for our concerns. I just need to step away again. Before I make a decision to chuck it.

[Minis On The Edge]

Don't feel sad honey. Sometimes our houses throw fits at us because that makes us more fond of them when it's all done

This is why I always use Hardwire. I have had problems with tape wire forever darrellandmelissa are the ones that knows tapewire inside and out. He (Darrell) has helped people figure out what was wrong (It's kinda spooky cause it's as if he was there or something ) but that is how well he knows tape wire. I say send them a PM

[Wolfie]

Venting is good, yes, venting is good......but lower please...... And do not through that gorgeous dollhouse out the window yet! There is much that can be done no matter what has been done to the house.....now relax, breath.....slowly........

wolfie

[Deb]

Poor Mary. <pouring a cup of tea and giving you a hug> I wish I could offer some advice about tape wiring, but I avoid that stuff like the plague. I taped wired one house and it worked okay for awhile. After it quit working, I got frustrated with trying to fix it and just took the lights out. Now I use hardwire exclusively. Tracy's suggestion of contacting Darrell is excellent coz he's definitely the tapewire guru. Teresa and Peggi are in the expert category too and might be able to help.

Stepping away from it for awhile is a good idea. Do you have another mini you can work on in the meantime? I find that when I get really frustrated with something not working right, if I work on another project, it helps me put it all in perspective.

Hang in there sweetie. It'll all work out okay.

Deb

[caitejay]

I say forget the tea - pour yourself a big glass of wine, ignore the house for a few days, then come back and systematically test where possible, or re-tape and re-connect on surfaces that are exposed.

[Minis On The Edge]

Poor Mary. <pouring a cup of tea and giving you a hug> I wish I could offer some advice about tape wiring, but I avoid that stuff like the plague.

I thought you told me you used Hardwire Last night I could not remember for sure (My brain kept telling me to SLEEP) . Mary, I hope you do ask one of the experts here about the tapewire. It's a shame when something does not to work and you put all of your energy into it.

[prariegurl]

I don't have much advice for the wiring. It sounds like you have checked everything except the tape itself. Sometimes there is a crack in the metal part, even though the tape part looks fine. Just set it aside until you feel calmer, and then go over everything meticulously.

If you do decide to chuck your BH out the window, be sure to tell the message board where and when it will happen. I can guarantee you there will be a gathering of miniaturists waiting under the window to catch it. Kinda like bridesmaids vying for a bouquet, except the crowd will be even more ruthless and desperate.

[Anna]

If you do decide to chuck your BH out the window, be sure to tell the message board where and when it will happen. I can guarantee you there will be a gathering of miniaturists waiting under the window to catch it. Kinda like bridesmaids vying for a bouquet, except the crowd will be even more ruthless and desperate.

Seriously though, please take a step back so that you don't have to take to that "solution" but if, just if, you would end up going there :welcome: can you give atleast appr 12 hours warning, ;) wait, better make that 24 hours so that I might be able to catch a flight to be there along with the other brides maids, oops dollhouse rescue crew ;)

HUgs and here is for hoping that ou will be able to solve this soon!

[grazhina]

I partially tape wired the first dollhouse I built, a Heritage . I say partially, because the lights worked, then they didn't then one set did and one didn't. I finally said the heck with it and forgot about the lights.

I bought a a round wire light kit a couple of years ago. One of these days I'll do a lit house, but so far I haven't felt the need to.

Relax, finish the house you have, enjoy, forgedaboutit!

Try roundwire next time, maybe......

[havanaholly]

I'm with Grazhina. When I'm asked to build a house I offer lights, but so far all my requests have been for none. Eventually I'll wire one for myself, I guess. I was never all that nutty about lights in dollhouses when I see them, although seeing one of Tracy's fireplaces with a flickering flame is truly magical.

[Shy Spirit]

If you have tried everything and you still have problems, is there a dollhouse store anywhere near you? Usually the staff can give advice, or even fix it for you. You have put so much into that house already - you just can't get rid of it.

I think dollhouses are beautiful with lights, but still haven't tried it for myself. I didn't even know there were roundwire kits! I hear so many sad stories of tapewire failures and frustrations, I really would prefer to use roundwire .... whenever I have the nerve to do it.

[darrellandmelissa]

What you are describing is a short circuit. This happens at places where connections are made. Either adding a tape to a tape, or at a socket or lighting fixture. This is why it is so important to test AGAIN and AGAIN. Anytime you add ANY connection, stop at test everything again and make sure lights installed still work. Then if they don't you most often will find your problem at the last connection you added.

However, that doesn't help you when we have the entire house wiring connected and it's not working. Someone above gave some good advice. In order to zero in on the problem you'll have to cut the ciruit into sections and apply power to each section one at a time. It's helpful that you have the picture of the tapes so you can see where they are. If you can narrow the problem down to a single section not working you won't have to be digging out the wire in the other sections of the house that ARE working. Once you've narrowed down to one section of the house (like one floor) that isn't working, then cut that section in half and find out which direction to go.

Yes, it takes time and it means you have to undo some of your work, but if you go about it methodically and logically you can minimize the amount of repair work needed drastically.

Something to check I noticed in your picture, is in the room with the bathtub. From the floor I notice you have two wires connecting to the horizontal wire on the side wall and another wire running back across the floor connecting them again. It looks kind of like a box shape that's folded up onto the left wall. Normally multiple connections are not a good idea. It's ok as long as ALL of the connections are the same polarity. In other words, make sure you always have the brads connecting the LIGHT conductor in a tape to the light conductor in the tape it's connected to and the dark one to the dark one.

In a related story about reversed polarity I created a short this way in a house I remember. It was one of the first houses I had done and my connections weren't as well as the ones I make now. And in years of sitting in humid garages and such and being moved around the lights stopped working. With a test setup I made with needles on the end of a wire connected to the transformer, I poked around the house and found out where I could get lights to work and found that a run between the first and second floor had somehow lost its connection. (that's called an OPEN) To fix it I installed a socket on the first floor and another on the second floor and ran a home made extension cord from one plug up to the other and glued it along the edge of a wall and painted it to match so it wouldn't be so obvious. Later, in moving the house around more the bad connection fixed itself and the lights all went out! This is because the POLARITY of my "extension cord fix" was backwards from the underlying (flakey) tape wire connection. That means when the power is on, I had a SHORT circuit. The fix was to take either end of my "extension cord" and "REVERSE" it. (flip the plug over and plug it back in). Now the polarity of my cord matched the polarity of the bad tape wiring problem so if it worked or not we wouldn't have a short. If your connections in that bath aren't all connected to the SAME polarity you may have the same kind of problem.

I may be slow to respond because work is busy but you can write me off list and I'll try to get back to you quickly to help you get this fixed up.

Hang in there. You can do it. So can all the others who responded but haven't done this yet. LOL!

hugs n smiles,

Darrell

[Minis On The Edge]

I just recently started lighting my houses 2 years ago. It's funny because once you do it and see it, it is very hard to not add lights to a house (at least for me). That Beacon Hill is such a beauty that I would stand waiting to catch it too. :welcome:

[Minis On The Edge]

There's the electricity master!! Thanks Darrell! :welcome:

[More Minis Dollhouses]

Ohh Mary Im so sorry that you had this electricity disaster. Thank goodness that Darrel will help you out of this.

I had a similar problem once when I was building a house and decided to electrify it. I had bought all of this expensive stuff but for some reason, I could never get the third floor to light up. No matter what I did, only the first and second floors would light and as soon as I would run the tape wire to the third floor, everything would stop. I actually gave up on the electricity but not the house. Of course, I hadnt done any interior decoration like you have so I didnt have to mess around with already built things. I just lost a lot of money scrapping the wiring out.

Im sure this can be resolved. I had wanted to throw out my Glencroft so many times out the window too but I stuck it out and youll see its worth it in the end.

[chesterfieldzoo]

I like the hardwire myself as well.

[ouchouch]

Thanks everyone for the advice and support. I stepped away for awhile and came back to it, checked very carefully and found that I had tape on electrical tape. The electrical tape was protecting bare naked wires from the chandelier and that wasn't a very smart thing to do on my part. I cut the excess wire down to where the brad tie up to it. It wasn't helping that there was one too many tapewires going every which way, which Darrell was right on. Everything works fine for now. I hope and cross my fingers. So back to working on the house, which just needs a coat of paint and to install a few of the windows, then I'm done. Actually, I'll be playing around with more window treatments before I try to sell it. I can't keep such a big house. I don't have room. :wub:

[KathieB]

Hooray! I'm glad you persevered, Mary! And its eventual owners will be glad, too. :wub: