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Accidentally cut through a live wire behind a baseboard in Denver
Last month I was trimming carpet in a 3rd floor condo and my knee kicker slipped, shoved the blade right into the wall. Turns out a low voltage line for the doorbell was stapled to the baseboard, no one flagged it. The ringing shorted out and the homeowner came running thinking the fire alarm went off. I had to patch the drywall and re-run the wire myself before finishing the job. Anyone else ever hit something stupid tucked behind trim that wasn't on the floor plan?
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stone.troy1mo ago
The doorbell wire thing happens more than people think, but what really gets me is how often the electrical work in older buildings just becomes someone else's mystery. I've done maybe two dozen baseboard jobs in Denver and half of them had some random wire or pipe that made zero sense on the original blueprints. It's like every house has its own secret layer of stuff that was added over the years, and nobody bothers to update the records. That's why I always run a stud finder that also detects voltage along the whole wall before I cut anything now, even if it takes an extra ten minutes. Saves me from the homeowner scream and the drywall patch every time.
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