At least my house didn't burn down...

I expected what I found when I was changing out the ceiling fan in my office. The other fans upstairs were equally below code.

Par for the course. Of course all of the above was wrapped with copious amounts of electrical tape like the other connections I've seen in the house.

There's the bit of soldered stuff on the left that's the neutral an the one on the right is the two hot leads (fan and light) just twisted to the hot lead.

Sheesh.

The dumb thing is that wire nuts are easier to use than soldering anyway. And safer since it's a mechanical connector that is more resistant to heat stresses than a solder joint that can eventually crack. In fact that's exactly how I undid the joint, I merely untwisted it and the solder just fell off. It didn't even take a lot of effort.

Honestly I wasn't expecting the twist joint though... the other fans were soldered on all the joints. A few bumps and you have arcing -- and that is what causes fires.

Oddly, when I took the old fan down it was really hot too. I wonder if it was actually warming up the room when it was on. Whatever. It's gone now.

Sometimes I really wonder about people. Why would you think to do something the really hard way that's wrong when there's a far easier way that right?