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I urge you to get a licensed electrician out immediately. You are courting disaster. A good electrician will diagnose the issue and help you make your house safe. If funds are a problem, perhaps the repair or update can be done in stages.

Your burnt outlets are a warning sign that must not be ignored. We had a similar issuediscovered when when a wall caught fire. Had we been asleep or away, we would have lost everything or much worse.

This is a little complicated for me, because she says it's done this since they bought the place in the 1970s. It's hard to get her to understand the danger of it, or to get her to spend a chunk of money on it, when she thinks that it's just a quirk :-/

I'm led to think that it's a bad ground since it seems to happen to every outlet and doesn't flip any breakers. So right now I'm thinking about replacing that myself, and then go ahead and schedule an electrician to come out next month anyway.

Can I drive in a ground bar with a regular sledge hammer? Or is there something special done to keep it vertical?

Get an electrician, electrical work needs to be inspected unless you want to take a chance and burn your mother's house down...

Good luck

I agree, spend the money for an electrician, to make the house safe. The pretty stuff can come later. Safety is the biggest concern. That house may even have the old aluminum type wiring. She is probably lucky, that there hasnt already been a major fire. A new roof, new plumbing, and wiring, and solid siding, to prevent rain from coming in, are the most important things, you can do, to keep her safe, and to protect any other work you are doing that cost dollars. If those things arent any good, then its just a waste of money to improve things otherwise.

This is not a situation where you can save money. You're trying to balance saving some money versus a house burning down and/or someone dying. Even if it was simply a grounding issue, the electrical system is compromised and banging a grounding rod in with a sledgehammer is not going to fix the main problems. I appreciate if money is tight, but it's totally unsafe and will get more unsafe the longer this goes on. At least start by paying an electrician for an hour or two to diagnose the situation.

toxcrusadr-

I agree that a non-pro can replace outlets (presuming they know how to properly connect wires to terminals), but a non-pro may not be able to assess if the existing wiring is correctly done and/or if it has been compromised.

I thought that only the owner can do electrical work without a license.

Get a licensed electrician. Arcing can have a variety of causes, including overload, improper grounding, the use of improper wire connections with certain types of wire material - like aluminum, and other things.

Electrical problems improperly remedied can lead to fires. Scorch marks should never be seen, so problems already exist. Get an electrician.

Folks seem to be missing the part about this being his girlfriend's mom's house. He does not have the liberty to spend her money. If the house was purchased in the 70's, then the owner is likely retired and watching her pennies.

What is her financial situation? Is she a senior? If yes, are there any support services in your area who can aid in an assessment? There are a lot of non profits out there who are helping in this way, hopefully there is one in her area.

For the pros: What is the likelihood that a cinderblock house built in the 1950's was properly grounded?

Aluminum wiring was not used in houses before the 1960"s https://structuretech.com/aluminum-wiring-2/ so that's a good thing. Probably not the issue here. BTW, this guy on his website has a lot of handy tips. Here's one that may be helpful re: electrical https://structuretech.com/how-to-inspect-your-own-house-part-5-electrical/

What else could be wrong that is causing the issue?

What kind of information does the owner need to make a decision to get it looked into? How does she make decisions? Become a psychologist!

Any family friends who are electricians? People from her church? Do you have a local NextDoor app that you can ask for help on?

This kind of issue with a senior is the worst. So far so good, why worry about it now? You're just trying to spend my money. (Sorry Mom, just quoting you).

All the best to you on this. You are a good daughter's boyfriend.

Good suggestions. I hope he finds someone local who can take a look for cheap or free. I can't believe it costs $2500 just to have someone look at it.

Other than the fact that it would remove the original outlets so a future electrician could not evaluate them, is there any risk (beyond the obvious) in replacing outlets? If the outlets themselves were worn out and causing arcing, and replacing them fixed that problem, that's one issue fixed.

If plugging in too many devices or ones with too high of a current draw is melting outlets, that's a user problem. On that 6-position adapter, what was plugged in that melted it, a heater? They will often use most or all of what a standard outlet circuit can put out (15 or 20 amps) and should be plugged in direct, not through an adapter. Look at the circuit breakers - what are the amp ratings ?

Folks seem to be missing the part about this being his girlfriend's mom's house. He does not have the liberty to spend her money. If the house was purchased in the 70's, then the owner is likely retired and watching her pennies.

That's exactly it, @tozmo1. She's a custodian at a school right now and a widow, making $18k /year, and she's hoping to retire at the end of this year. She's definitely pinching every penny, and when I brought this up the whole family blew up at me! How dare I try to scare her in to spending a bunch of money she doesn't have!

:-/

It ended with, "if you want to pay for it then go ahead".

On that 6-position adapter, what was plugged in that melted it, a heater?

@toxcrusadr, when I saw it there were two 6-prong power strips plugged in to it (the kind that look like surge protectors but really aren't). One went behind a TV stand and had the TV, Roku, DVD player, and VCR. The other was easy access and only had her phone charger and another charger that she uses for a flashlight.

She could have had a heater plugged in to that one in the past, but it feels kinda unlikely since there's not a place for it there.

Look at the circuit breakers - what are the amp ratings ?

I'll look tomorrow, but I'm guessing that they're mostly 10-15A. If they have a breaker box instead of a fuse box, then I'm sure her (now deceased) husband will have been the one to install it.

This is going on day 5 and it only takes an electrician 1 day to check everything and correct the issue and make it right... Maybe 2 days for a handyman who knows and understands wiring, do the work at a more reasonable rate if a licensed electrician is not needed to do that work.

As penny-pinching goes, you said it, and the family heard you, not much else you can do unless you care what might happen and you are willing to lay out cash and she can pay you back or whatever arrangement you want to make with her, etc.

Not much else you can do here, you got good advice unless you want to keep this drama going until Christmas and it will get you nowhere.

With that said, everything is up to her, she is a grown woman and if she is willing to take a chance with faulty electricity knowing there is a chance the house could burn down with her in it or not, I'm sure she got some marbles upstairs to understand the risk and possible outcome.

Good luck

I wouldnt put any more time and effort into fixing anything. Unless the house is safe to live in, the extra work, and money are not worth you putting a lot of time into. Apparently, none of this bothers her, since she has lived this way for years. You are only the boyfriend of the daughter, not the child. Let it all go, and let her own family, who obviously doesnt care much either, deal with it. Get on with your own life. If you have a house, put your time and dollars into that. I know your heart is in the right place, but, sometimes, that just isnt enough.

If it were me at this point, id simply make sure she has working smoke detectors and call it a day.

Exactly what I said, @Dave... the fire department installs smoke detectors for free for the elderly, so I just sent an email to them this morning :-)

Thank you for being a kind and caring individual. People like you make this a better world. Good luck.

Jason:

(1) I hope your girlfriend appreciates you. You sound like real decent guy.

(2) I was raised not far from GSO so yeah, I know that lady. Or at least a dozen like her. Poverty inures them to disaster. Give it up. Not gonna happen.

(3) What Dave said. Smoke detectors. An electrical-rated fire extinguisher for early Christmas. Inspect egress from the bedrooms, and make sure she can get the window open. And have girlfriend make sure her homeowner’s insurance is up to date.