Modern Ranch Plans

How to find a dead wire in a wall/ceiling?

We just bought a house. The pitch of the roof is almost non-existent. It’s a late 50′s modern (at the time) ranch. We do not have an attic. The roof and the ceiling run parallel with about 8 inches of space between. We are installing a vent in the bathroom and plan on hooking it up to a pre-installed dead outlet. The people who we bought the house from were in the middle of renovations when the husband passed away, leaving a lot of jobs undone. There is a vanity light in the bathroom controlled by a switch by the door. The switch we want to connect the vent to is by the toilet. The switch was covered up with one of those blank outlet covers. There is romex coming up from the basement and going up the wall,, but without a closed circuit. Just beyond the stud box (?) is where be lose track of the wire. We are not sure where they ran it. We are thinking, over the shower, over the toilet or in the middle of the room. How can we find the wire if its dead?

unfortunatly there are no gadgets or tools that will help you find this dead wire. The best bet is from the swtich, run a new wire, or pull the old one down and re-run it.

unless you can make it live, adn then use a stud finder with the feature of aso inding wires to follow it. but it may be a little bit more difficult.since you are cutting a hole in the drywall for the vent, can you not use that newly made access into the addict to help you run the correct wiring?

Stunning Modern Ranch