03/29/2025
Electrical repair challenge of.the week! This was a difficult job that required patience, strength, and flexibility to complete. The metal conduit for this exterior outlet located under the pool deck ledge had rusted out at ground level and damaged the wires causing them to short out and burn completely through at ground level.
The repair involved hours of excavation with a hammer drill to chip out 6 inches of very dense concrete to access the buried conduit in order to reach enough solid wire to splice in a repair. Crouching under an 18 inch high ledge and squeezed in by an iron staircase made this a very tight and tough location!
Once I accessed the conduit, I carefully cut it back, then assembled a puzzle piece of compression couplings, connectors, new liquitite flexible conduit, and a conduit body to splice in the new wires. There was no practical option to fish in a completely new wire, so splicing was the only reasonable choice here. After the wires were repaired, I installed a new box and proper weather resistant GFCI outlet with a clear in-use cover for safety and convenience. The box and conduit were secured with clamps and screws drilled into the stone wall. Finally, I backfilled the hole with loose dirt and topped it with a thin layer of mortar mix.
A small but tricky repair job that left my legs sore for a couple of days, but glad I could get things fixed up for this client so they can safely plug in their Christmas lights next December!
