Contractor caused electrical fire. What kind of repairs needed?
Hi,
We had some electrical work done by a contractor recently including replacing recessed lights, moving outlets, and moving light switches. In our living room, we had a light switch moved a few feet to the right and elsewhere, had 3 light switches from two electrical boxes moved into a single new electrical box. The work was done by one of the contractor's guys. As a result, we lost power to some lights/outlets upstairs, and the plan was for the contractor to resolve that the next day. I thought that would be the extent of the issues, but at night, I was flipping the living room switches to test them when I heard a "thunk" and the light momentarily dimmed. I wasn't sure what to make of it, but about 10 minutes later I could smell burning plastic and rubber. While trying to find where it was coming from, we began to smell burning wood. Nothing inside or outside of the house was visibly on fire. But then we were outside and started hearing wood cracking and saw white smoke coming out from the garage attached to the house. An electrical fire had started there. Thankfully, it was put out quickly and had only burned a very small section of our roof. Everyone was fine. The fireman discovered a circuit breaker had tripped, and when he switched it back on, sparks came out at the same spot in the garage. He shut it off and theorized there was a short on that circuit due to improper wiring done by the contractor's guy.
The contractor offered to open the walls where the work was done to see what his guy did and resolve the issue, but at this point I'm looking for a proper electrician to fix things (my fault for not vetting the contractor beforehand on his electrical credentials). My question is: What should I expect would need to be repaired? Besides fixing the cause of the short, would there be circuit damage to fix/replace such as wiring, switches, outlets, and lights? I don't know much about electricity, but my understanding is that a short means the current will go where it normally doesn't. Would I have to trace its path and also fix anything it touched/heated along the way?
Thanks in advance for any insight.
-James
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