Stupid mistake - Electrical question

[Larry Browning]

When I built my shop 2 years ago I had the electrician install a 220 circuit for my future dust collection system. As you all know I bought the Oneida Gorilla. So I am now ready to use the circuit. Apparently I didn't put the wire in a box befor the sheetrock went up and now the wire is somewhere behind the sheetrock and I only have a vague idea of where it is. :mad: Do yoou guys have any great wisdome as to how to find this wire? I was wondering if there is some kind of device that could locate detect it, kind of like a stud detector.

Larry

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Do you know what stud cavity it is in? If you do, just cut your hole for the box and stick in your hand and find the wire.

If you don't know what cavity it is in, I'm not any help :)

[Jamie Buxton]

Yes, for instance http://www.newark.com/product-details/text/catalog/68941.html

[Jack Wood]

I hope that wire is capped off and taped if you have turned the juice on:eek:especially if you go looking for it with your hand:rolleyes:

[Larry Browning]

An Electrician friend told me that as long as I couldn't attach something to the end of the wire, he didn't know of any other way to find it other that cutting holes in the dry wall. (which I don't want to do). I thought that if I could turn off the power to all circuits except the one I am looking for, maybe there was something that would find it.
Jamie,
Does the device you gave the link to need to have something attached to the end of the wire before it will work?

[Bruce Overholt]

If possible, and your comfortable, find the cable in the the Service Panel and follow it to the point where it enters the wall. With help from another person, tap near the wire to locate where in the wall it is. If it is not this easy, using a tracer is the only practical way.
Rather than buying a tracer, I believe there are a few Stud Sensors that will locate wires and other obstructions within the wall. I would try the stud sensor approach first.
Last resort, is to go in after it. That is, locate where you would like to put a box, and cut in a New Work box with ears for drywall, and hope for the best. Put the hole for the box in according to the instruction paper that usually comes with it.
If you're unlucky, the worst case is you'll have a hole to repair.

Bruce

[Ken Garlock]

Larry, not to worry :)

Go up in the attic and look for a wire going down through the top plate into the wall below. With a little measuring and transferring of those measurements you should be able to hit the space between the studs where the wire is hidden. :cool: This process has worked for me in my shop attic :)

Cutting a hole in the sheetrock is no big deal. Make you best guess and rough out a hole for the receptacle box. SAVE the cutout just in case you guessed wrong. If you did guess wrong, take a small piece of 1/4" plywood that is longer than one of the dimensions of the hole, and narrower than the other dimension. Drill a hole in the middle, and thread a string through the hole and knot it several times. Reach in the sheetrock hole and clear the dust off the back of the sheetrock. Slather some yellow glue on the surface of the plywood and slip it into the hole and up against the sheetrock. Use the string to pull the plywood up tight to the SR and devise a way to keep pressure on the plywood until it dries. After a few hours remove the string and glue up the back of the cutout and the exposed plywood. Put the cutout in the hole and you are home free. From there on a couple coats of spakling and some sanding makes it look like new. Been there, done that more times than want to remember :o

[Kurt Voss]

You didn't happen to take any pictures before the sheet rock went up did ya? I've found them very helpful on a number of occasions.

[Jamie Buxton]

Here's a page with more of these circuit tracers --- http://www.electrical-contractor.net/The_Store/Wire_Tracers.htm

[Mike Holbrook]

Simple answer to your question is yes. My Home Depot stud finder has a metal detector on it. I think Lowes and Home Depot offer stud finders with that feature.

[Jamie Buxton]

Larry --
Yes, those circuit tracers need to make an electrical connection to the cable. I'd presumed that your cable runs from the breaker box to the shop, and it is lost at the shop end. If so, you'd inject the signal from the breaker end.

[Larry Browning]

Larry --
Yes, those circuit tracers need to make an electrical connection to the cable. I'd presumed that your cable runs from the breaker box to the shop, and it is lost at the shop end. If so, you'd inject the signal from the breaker end.
I do not understand "inject the signal form the breaker end" I am no electrician and do not understand some of these technical terms. like "inject the signal" what does that mean? Do you mean to turn on the breaker while having all other breaker turned off?
The wire is connected to a breaker and at the other end each wire is capped with a wire nut(I presume). I know that the wire leaves to breaker box at the bottom. From there I am pretty sure it runs through a couple of studs, along with several other wires and then goes up to close to the ceiling somewhere. This is all in the same room. The wire is probaply only about 10-12 feet long.

[Larry Browning]

Hooray!!!!! I found it!!!!!!!
I actually found a photo I had taken before the sheetrock went up. It was not very clear and the area I was interested in was very dark. Bit it did show the wire leaving the breaker panel and whick stud well it was in. I cut a hole up close to the ceiling in that stud well, but found nothing. So I decided to try one more spot lower on the wall where the photo showed the wire to be. I hit right inside the box where the wire was!!! Wow, what luck. As it turns out, they had sheetrocked right over the box. What a bunch of duffuses. Well I guess I will patch the other 2 holes.
Thanks to everyone who tried to help me.

Larry

[Randy Meijer]

Just for future reference, Radio Shack has a little gizmo about 6" long and about the size of a carpenter's pencil that will detect an energized circuit. Costs about 10 bucks as I remember. It is really designed to determine if a partuicular conductor is energized or not and is meant to be used in "close" proximity to the wire; but you don't have to actually touch the wire or have bare copper exposed. In actual application, it will register an energized wire up to about 2" away. It's not really designed to "FIND" wires but might work in a pinch and is really handy to have to check a conductor before you cut into it.

[CPeter James]

I have one of those and use it all the time. It really works great and could save you a shock. Well worth the price. Mine was a gift, so I don't know how much it cost.

CPeter

[Ron Taylor]

And for another future reference...

Find a friend with a good metal detector, the treasure hunting kind. It will be able to discriminate between the copper wire and other non-ferrous metals like nails, etc. If you know the general area, finding the wire will be very easy.

[Randy Meijer]

Interesting idea, Ron. I bought a cheap little M/D at a yard sale for $5 or so for my moments of stupidity when I drop a critical small part in the lawn!!! I'll have to dig the thing out and see if it is sensitive enough to detect conductors in the wall. Since flowing electricity generates a magnetic field, I wonder if electrical conductors would be easier to locate if the circuit was "on" and some current flowing?? I will check it out this weekend!! Thanks for the idea!!

[Chris Padilla]

As it turns out, they had sheetrocked right over the box. What a bunch of duffuses.

Larry,

I "found" an outlet just like that...sheetrocked right over. The interesting part? I found the outlet from the "back" of the wall that was open to the wasted space under stairs. This was during my garage gut so I carefully yanked the outlet and box out...nice perfect indentations are in the back of the sheetrock! I was thinking "doofuses" as well.... :)

[Fred Voorhees]

You didn't happen to take any pictures before the sheet rock went up did ya? I've found them very helpful on a number of occasions.
Kurt, that is an excellent idea and one that I myself used when I was building my bar room. When the old drywall walls were off and I was roughing in all of the new wiring, I took lots of pictures of the wiring to know roughly where it was, mainly for avoiding it if I needed to do any odd nailing into the walls. But, pictures can help in a variety of ways and can easily be kept on the computer or on a disk for future reference. This is a great idea for anyone contemplating work such as this.

[Chris Padilla]

Fred,

I just post 100s of pics on SMC...let them keep track of the pics! hahahahaha