Do they brighten or dim? Notice any other lights in the house acting strange, or any electrical oddities in general? And can you take a picture of your panel?

I replaced an entire garage :)

Yeah that's probably better advice tbh. Don't listen to me!

Yep. You lose that center-tapped service neutral to the transformer, your 120V phase legs are now in series, which can cause severe overvoltage (up to 240V) or undervoltage depending on the balance of the load. You may also end up with dangerous current on metal appliance casings depending on the grounding system's impedence. It might be the single most dangerous failure for residential split-phase systems.

Don't worry about it at all, wood is a natural product and variation WILL happen, even after you've fixed plasterboard to it it will continue to expand and contract for many years...

TLDR: plasterboard it, it's fine.

^ This. The answer is ALWAYS JB Weld. Or duct tape.

Appreciate your time and efforts.. the tabs are still present on both sides of the outlet.. and everything has been inspected and tightened in both boxes

A wooden wedge is all you need, don't overthink it.

If you can slip the gear off the bar, then maybe do that, mix up some JB Weld and slather the inside of the gear and the bar and slide it back on. That will usually stick well enough. I fixed a sewing machine gear that way about fifteen years ago, still holding fine.

You really really need to not worry about this amount of variation. When you attach drywall just don’t suck the screws ultra tight at these points on the wall. Or do and mud the drywall it flush later. Depending on how you lay your sheet rock it’d would be quite tricky to shim this. Cutting and sistering the studs would be easier if you really are concerned

Funny how so many more receptacles have been replaced than were ever installed in the first place...

That's what i vote for. Ask them how they disabled it, because we can't figure out how to re-enable it.

Yea he's joking. It's actually pretty good

OP is just replacing a receptacle. 😉

they took the bricks out to burry someone down there my man, that's just the extra dirt left

> Wouldn’t just shimming out the few studs in this case be the easiest route overall

Yes- in my experience, it is much easier to shim a few than to grind/remove a stud that is bowed out. No need to get them perfect, just within 1/8" for flat drywall.

As for the why, there are two things to help in the future:

1. Watch out for large bows when selecting lumber. The stuff from the big box stores can be really bad. Sight down each piece as you select it.
2. Match all the bows into the same direction when building the wall. You won't notice if all the lumber bows out 1/8" in the same direction... but if one bows the opposite way, you now have 1/4" to deal with.

Shims are great!!!

Can you call the movers and ask what they did to keep the door open? Maybe one of the guys put the pin or screw in his pocket and forgot. He may bring it back. If nothing is missing they may assume you know how your door works. And may (should) be willing to come back.

I renovated a shed last year by taking a skil saw and cutting the bottom 3 feet of exterior panels off. Then, I ran a 1x2 transition strip and Hardy sighting from the transition to the base. Also replaced the plywood on the doors, caulked and painted. Everything came out great, and the shed should be good for quite a while longer.

Your plan sounds fine to me. Someone really made your life easy by running that wire. Make sure the box itself is weather-resistant and grounded, and get the deepest one you can find because GFCIs are chonky.

Technically, your local jurisdiction probably requires permits to install new receptacles. Practically speaking, this is very low-risk. But keep that in mind.

edit: lol in the last two days I've probably installed 40 outlets/switches, including figuring out how to AFCI a weird old MWBC and deal with a busted Carter 3-way, but apparently DIY doesn't think I know what I'm doing

> Back prime and paint the

Back prime is a very short way to say "prime and pain the back side of anything you put up", I was specifically talking about priming and painting the back side trim itself in that case. You would also generally want to put at least one coat of paint on the front after installation to cover up the installation marks. I'd usually prime the whole wall and the front & back of the trim, give just the corner of the building and the backside/edges/end of the trim a coat of paint then re-prime the front of the trim after installation then paint over the whole thing. This is possibly overkill but it gets all of the surfaces nicely coated and is something resembling best practices.

For drainage and moisture prevention on the base you basically have two problems you're trying to solve.

First is to ensure that running water from like rain and snow melt will drain around the building and not into the building. So if the dirt up slope has slumped in along the foundation you'd want to dig it back a smidge and ideally grade it out to an even slope so it's less likely to slide in quickly. If it's loose dirt it's also probably a good idea to put something like some landscape fabric and bark chips or sod down to keep initial erosion from happening. This also means you should eyeball the overall drainage on the upslope side to ensure that there aren't any dams that water can get trapped behind. If the dirt isn't built up to where it'll block drainage and is stable then generally try to avoid disturbing it to much as that will likely increase future erosion (so it's kind of a trade off.. if there's a problem.. fix it.. but if there isn't then don't.. heh). Naturally compacted soil is usually fairly stable (moreso than most homeowner "compacted" anyway).

The second problem is vegetation and debris that can built up on top of the soil. This can/will wick moisture up and hold it in contact with the building and prevent it from drying out which will cause rot. This is often a problem around buildings where folks don't dig the down the dirt enough

One thing to remember about moisture is that it needs to be able to move. Ideally it moves to the outside of and away from the building. If you look at "good" (from an engineering perspective aesthetics are a separate problem heh) construction you'll start seeing this in all phases of the design from site prep to building shell design to window install to how exterior trim is designed and applied.

If you want some really interesting (interesting is I suppose relative.. heh) reading on building design https://buildingscience.com/ has a bunch of really fascinating articles and papers on building design and how they can go well or wrong. You can search for basic concepts there with google like "site:buildingscience.com back prime trim" (minus the quotes obvs).

Example relevant to the trim question: https://buildingscience.com/documents/building-science-insights-newsletters/bsi-015-stress-relief

Electrician here, you should take everyone’s advice and contact a licensed Electrician to trace out the wires and see exactly what is what.

Now that that’s been said, were I to come and look at this issue, my first check would be to ensure that the little tabs on the outlet are still there. (Little red squares in photo) You could be getting an opened neutral if that tab is busted. The blue power wire looks to just carry onto the next outlet or device. Meaning that this outlet will only work when the switch is on.

Whenever we install a switched outlet we would leave the bottom outlet with constant power, and only switch the top half of it. This is when you would remove the little tab on the HOT side, to separate it. The neutral tab should still be intact.

Next would be to check that the wires are all Connected well under the marrettes or wire nuts. Wires will sometimes break or snap at the marrette through over tightening.

I drew up a quick wire diagram of what we know from the photos.

If those tabs are gone for whatever reason, I would replace the outlet instead of trying to add more wires.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/718892278931783726/1080189524740681849/IMG_1393.jpg

Hope this helps a bit.

in IT we like to say "there's a defect somewhere...." looks at computer, looks at user.

Heavy duty L brackets. Amazon has a decent selection

No Problem, I hope the project goes well.