Hello,
Wondering if anyone has seen something like this before or what the cause might be (and suggestions).
I had to open up an outlet the other day and found the ground looked like someone had used insulated cable. Upon taking it apart further, it looks like there is an excessive amount of grease/residue on the ground wire - making them look essentially black. On this the box grounding locations are also nearly completely black. After a quick wipe there was some blackening on the end still (perhaps real oxidization) - I lightly sanded it off before reinstalling this one. At this point I did not mess around with the box grounds.
I checked all our switches and outlets in the house, and a number of them exhibit this with the grounding wire to various degrees (some appear like whatever is on it is 'fuzzy' almost like someone put grease on it and then pure black dust) . Some however are perfectly normal with not a hint of a problem. Some within the same switch box 1 side will be fine, the other will show some gunk on it.
I have not fully inspected hot/neutral but on this one they appeared to be clean (from what I could see).
(before any cleanup)
(after a quick wipe, and showing box grounds)
This is a ~20 year old house in Canada. This is a cheap townhouse condo build so I would expect the bare minimum and cheapest materials have been used.
Could this be residue left behind from the manufacturing of the cable to begin with? And over the years seemingly just the ground has managed to collect gunk on it? I only suggest this as a possibility because I stripped some spare cable (not original to this house) I had laying around and the white (nylon) where the ground wire would be had some black stuff in there and the ground wire felt a little greasy.
Thanks so much.
Wondering if anyone has seen something like this before or what the cause might be (and suggestions).
I had to open up an outlet the other day and found the ground looked like someone had used insulated cable. Upon taking it apart further, it looks like there is an excessive amount of grease/residue on the ground wire - making them look essentially black. On this the box grounding locations are also nearly completely black. After a quick wipe there was some blackening on the end still (perhaps real oxidization) - I lightly sanded it off before reinstalling this one. At this point I did not mess around with the box grounds.
I checked all our switches and outlets in the house, and a number of them exhibit this with the grounding wire to various degrees (some appear like whatever is on it is 'fuzzy' almost like someone put grease on it and then pure black dust) . Some however are perfectly normal with not a hint of a problem. Some within the same switch box 1 side will be fine, the other will show some gunk on it.
I have not fully inspected hot/neutral but on this one they appeared to be clean (from what I could see).
(before any cleanup)
(after a quick wipe, and showing box grounds)
This is a ~20 year old house in Canada. This is a cheap townhouse condo build so I would expect the bare minimum and cheapest materials have been used.
Could this be residue left behind from the manufacturing of the cable to begin with? And over the years seemingly just the ground has managed to collect gunk on it? I only suggest this as a possibility because I stripped some spare cable (not original to this house) I had laying around and the white (nylon) where the ground wire would be had some black stuff in there and the ground wire felt a little greasy.
Thanks so much.