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That one time a backstabbed outlet nearly cost me a service call in Henderson
Last Tuesday I was finishing a panel swap in an older house over on Water Street in Henderson, and right as I went to torque the last breaker I caught a whiff of that burnt plastic smell. Turned out the previous guy had backstabbed half the kitchen outlets and one of them was loose enough to arc behind the drywall. I killed the main, pulled every device on that circuit, and sure enough found scorch marks on two of them. Took me about 45 extra minutes but I pigtailed all of them onto the screws and wrapped the terminals with a bit of tape just to be safe. The homeowner said she had been smelling something hot for weeks and thought it was the dishwasher. She paid the extra hour without blinking and asked for my card for her rental down the street. Now I check for backstabs on every panel change no matter how quick the job is supposed to be. Any of you got a go-to trick for spotting loose devices without pulling every single one apart?
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