Fix Tripping Circuit

The circuit that is used for the microwave, the fan for the kitchen wood stove, and the outlets next to the oven/range is tripping and the problem needs to be diagnosed and corrected. I've tried putting this circuit on a different circuit breaker and it trips on the other breaker and I've tried seeing if the breaker trips when this circuit is not connected and it does not. There is an overload of resistance between the hot and neutral legs but there is no resistance between the hot and ground wires so it appears that there must be a short between the hot and ground wires. I could try disconnecting the ground wire from the circuit at the electrical panel make sure that the breaker does not trip to check this.

I initially thought that this section of wiring through the attic that drops down in front of the chimney was part of the circuit but I suspected that the bats caused the problem.

I then hooked up this wire locator where you connect a transponder to the wiring and receiver that detects what circuit the transponder is connected to and it turns out that this wiring is not part of this circuit.

I got a sharpie and started marking out the wiring in the attic that appears to be part of this circuit. It appears to be one of these wires that runs to this corner of the attic. The first wire I thought it was from this tool turned out to be the stairway lighting when I followed it and the second wire I thought it was I found out was the kitchen lighting after I cut it. It appears that the receiver can pick up the transponder from wires that run alongside the subject wire through "bleeding" of the signal. Unlike my tool it looks like there are other wire tracers that can distinguish wires by forming a short which may help us make this distinction since our subject wire has a short although I would have to review these more to make sure they do what I think they would do.

From playing with the resistance across my multimeter and my transponder/receiver, I believe this circuit has the following setup.

Basically my strategy to fix this outlet is to disconnect part of the circuit and if the breaker still trips then there must be a problem upstream of the portion that is disconnected. I have previously disconnected the wiring from the microwave, kitchen right outlet, and fan switch and it has still tripped. Therefore, the problem must be with the wiring must be somewhere from the breaker box to Junction Box 2 assuming that my circuit diagram is correct. The problem with this is that this wiring is difficult to access in the attic and in the wall it is tucked between a masonry wall and a wall between the kitchen and the staircase. To get to the wiring in this gap it seems that the only way is to either cut a section from the wall in the staircase or to try to remove the panels without damaging them. The plumber who came to fix the apartment plumbing after the pipe froze simply broke the panels and screwed them back into place. Alternatively we could cut a section in the stairway and then nail it back when we are done. Unlike drywall you can't get it quite back to the way it was and you will still be able to see the cut seam but that has been done in the past in a few places to access the plumbing. I also tried pushing through the finish nails with a punch but this didn't work well but from experimenting with prying the panels out and letting the finish nails slide though it worked well.

The easiest way I can think of wiring this all back up is shown below. It would involve however not wiring the switches back up.

I believe we have the following options:

• Repair the existing wiring

  • The advantage of this is we will still be able to use the switches but we need to be able to find the problem. I can't find the wiring in the attic or basement. The only remaining idea I have is to punch through the finishing nails in the wall paneling in the stairway to access the wires and between the masonry and the wall.

  • Another idea is instead of fixing the wiring we can run new wiring and modify the circuit without the switches. This new wiring can derive from other circuits, this circuit if the wiring is found, or from new cable if it can be pulled in the breaker box.

Mom decided that I should scrap both of these options and instead just not address this problem until someone that she trusts more than me is available.