I recently purchased a 1995 home in Charlotte. The house has gone through two renovations. The electric system works, however it looks a little disorganized and I would like to clean it up. I have no electrical skills. Any ideas would be appreciated. Specifically: It has a primary and a sub panel with lots of write-overs (see photos). At a minimum,it needs to have the labels re-done. Is this something I should do? I plan to have an electrician evaluate the panels. There are numerous (about 12) “dead switches” (wall switches that don’t appear to control anything….a result of all the renovations?) throughout the house. Is that something I should just live with? A lot of the power outlets are loose; took off the plate on a few and the screws holding the outlet are there but don’t seem to be tightening. I there an easy fix for these? My general inspector noted a few power outlets were inop or didn’t trip. (electrician) An outdoor corner security light that doesn’t work (electrician)
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" I have no electrical skills." You need just one: to recognize that you need to get a licensed electrician to come in and evaluate your system. That sounds like you have quite a few areas of concern that may involve quite a bit of investigative time for an electrician to trace out, and then potentially to do some (possibly extensive) rewiring, to make the whole system safe. A licensed electrical contractor will pull the necessary permits to do this.
Things you can do.
There are some things you can do. Get a old style radio and plug it in to each receptacle (turned on), switch off breakers and those mystery switches and see if you can identify where they go. A lot of those switches might end up being for switched outlets and they may only be one side of a duplex. Some electricians will turn a switched receptacle upside down.
You might also have a switch for outside receptacle/light or for something in the attic/crawl space.
Label everything once you figure out what it is.
Yeah, at the very least you can do a survey of everything, identify as many breakers as you can, draw a map of the switches and outlets, noting which switch controls what, etc.
Thanks for the suggestion.....
You can at least get a non contact voltage detector and see what switches are "hot" - have voltage to them. Some of the switches that appear to do nothing migt be for switched outlets as suggested. The other poster sued the word duplex which might confuse you. Just know this, a switched outlet might control both outlets or it might only control the top (usually) or bottom outlet in the box.
That's why they suggested get a radio or a lamp to plug into each outlet. If the lamp works in one outlet but not the other, look for a nearby switch and see if that cause the lamp to light in the non working outlet. The suggestion for the radio applies if you want to see what circuit in the breaker box controls that outlet because you will be able to hear when it goes off when you find the right breaker. Doing all of this and using a non contact voltage detector is completely safe (well unless there is something really screwed up with an outlet in which case it may spark and scare the stuff out of you) and it will be a heck of a lot cheaper than paying a guy $$$$$$$$$$ to do elementary stuff.
Another thing too, some rooms may have switches that appear not to work because they were wired in in anticipation of a ceiling fan being there. I have dual switches in my master and one has never worked because it is there for a ceiling fan which we never installed. Usually, but not always, these would be switches side by side and one will work for the room light and the other will appear to be dead because you don't have a ceiling fan. I also have a "dead" switch in my kitchen that is there for a garbage disposal in the sink that has never been installed.
Edit: I put paragraphs in this post but the stupid thing takes them out. I'm not totally ignorant.