Home Repair: Electrical issues

Electrical work here in Bolivia leaves something to be desired.  I am not boasting when I say that I understand wiring and electrical better than the electrician that wired our house.

The start of the problem is that the MAINS coming into our meter from the street is AWG14.  Yes, 14 gauge mains.  While that's sufficient (at 240V) for the average Bolivian family, I daresay we tend to overdraw it.

Then take the way our home was wired.  There's Breaker #1 at the meter.  This feeds Breaker #2 at the bottom of the stairs, out of which comes the patio light and 2 outlets.  From Breaker #2, we go to Breaker #3 in the kitchen, which feeds THE ENTIRE HOUSE.  Breaker #4 is in the bathroom, to control the electric shower head.

Yes, that's 4 breakers in series, with no parallels.  Great, huh?

So what happens when you're in the shower (drawing up to 22A), with a heater (8.5A), the dryer is running (another 8.5A), and your wife turns on the electric kettle (10A) to make herself a cup of tea?

Bad things:

If you click on the photo to make it big, you can see the two wires that shorted through the insulation.  The resulting arc broke both wires.  I thank God it happened in the ONLY junction box in the whole house.  Makes me wonder what happened to the 32A circuit breakers!!


Scenario #2:

Kaylee complained that the shower head was cutting out on her.  At the time, her brother was visiting and I was busy ferrying him around, so I didn't get to it.  Then one morning, she got a shower of sparks!!  Thankfully, I was in the bathroom at the time and quickly shut off the breaker.

A quick investigation later in the day revealed the problem:

Whoever installed this thing connected the solid-wire lines onto the stranded leads with just some loose loops.  The continual arcing over time broke the one connection.

I soldered and heat-shrinked them: