~journalyou-never-know-whats-behind-the-wall

You Never Know What's Behind the Wall

February 17, 2025 4:49 pm #home

Open wall cavity showing tangled old wiring, two junction boxes, and one exposed bare wire.

Electrical Spaghetti

You never know what is behind a wall until you open it up. This one had bare live wire mixed in with the rest.
Visual description

A wall cavity opened down to the studs. Old dark wires loop and cross near the top. Two black octagon junction boxes are mounted lower on the wall, one with a bare wire sticking out of it. A white pipe runs down the middle, with a section of pink modern cable nearby. Torn drywall edges show at the left and bottom.

I tore down a wall in the house and found this. A mess of old wiring, crossed and looped every direction, with two junction boxes buried in it. One of the wires was bare. Not capped, not taped, just bare copper sitting there. Still live.

This is the wall I had screwed into for shelving and a coat hanger. After I opened it up, I saw how close those screws came to hitting the wires. A couple inches off and it would have been a different day.

This is the thing about old houses. You never know what's behind the walls or up in the attic until you open something up. Somebody did this work years ago and just closed the wall over it. And it's not only old houses. Even newer homes have bad work hiding behind a coat of drywall and paint. You don't find out until you go looking, or until something goes wrong.

Glad I found this one before it found me.

Updated (2026): Here's the fix. Every wire that was loose or bare is capped now and sitting in a proper junction box. No more guessing what's live and what isn't.

It took tearing the whole wall open to get here, but it's done right this time. Next person who opens this wall won't find a surprise.

Updated electrical wiring in an open wall cavity, with wire nuts capped inside a blue junction box.

The Fix

The follow-up. Wires capped, boxed, and no surprises left behind.
Visual description

A wall cavity with wood studs on either side. A blue plastic junction box is mounted mid-wall, holding several wire nut connections with wrapped copper wire. Below it, an older gray metal box sits lower on the wall. White and black cables run vertically and horizontally through the cavity, along with two white conduit pipes.

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