Home Electric Question

[capt.joe]

I woke up to bad news sunday morning. Breaker had tripped on what was marked garage recepticles. Ended up that the PO ran all the exterior recepticles off that breaker. Lost power to the pond pump and pool pump. The pool pump wiring to the recepticle burned up shorting the hot and ground. Ran 2 more circuits for the pond and pool pump. I hope thats all the jerry rigging i find here!

 

[Deersniper270]

Problem solved. Neutral was broken and a hot wire had rubbed through the other hot wire.

There used to be a vine that grew near the line and it probably caused the rubbing and it finally failed.

Either way FPL was able to fix it properly and everything is back to normal function.

Thanks for the help!

 

[WRM]

Looks no bueno. Glad you got it.

 

[Deersniper270]

Looks no bueno. Glad you got it.

I’m glad it was easy and they fixed it quickly.

 

[WRM]

Meant to add this and forgot.

Amazon product ASIN 162710674X


I've got a number of references, but this is a really good one. Covers Ground Fault and Arc breakers (I've put in a couple based on this text) and standby generators. It has a wealth of the more current info on current for $20. One of the few I've run across that has good info on panels and subs and grounding. Even a good diagram and explanation of the insides of a pole transformer.

Also important, very readable.

 

[Cobrakaiju]

About 3 days ago, I started noticing we are getting a power surge to our house. It was in increments of one min and then three mins, then one minute and three minute. The lights would surge one time quickly in these intervals, getting brighter and then returning to normal. Now the surge is not super extreme but it is noticeable. I looked up online that it could be power grid, storms, or faulty wiring in the house. House is from the late 60’s and has not had any electrical work or changes in years. Also, when I start the clothes washer, the lights surge constantly like a weak strobe. Does not do it when the dryer is on. I don’t know what is going on. I reset all the breakers and the main house breaker and nothing changed. Any ideas?

This is a long response and has more information than an average person would actually "need" beyond the next sentence. You DO NEED an Electrician to diagnose a fairly dangerous situation, which could be a combination of several different cumulative "issues". IF, the wiring is Aluminum, well, that's a dead giveaway. full rewire recommended(legit, Aluminum makes anyone that's every worked in the electrical field cringe-personally most of us would pull copper for everything, and probably in a gauge larger than code requires-if expense was not an issue), and for God's sake, don't ask your insurance company....js. AC electrical grid actually causes a physical vibration at every joint, that's why we only use Al(in current code) for screw down connections on larger gauge wire(wire nuts will actually work themselves apart, old school electricians and some today will actually tape the wire nuts-modern connectors use springs and mechanical force to make the connections, with visible inspect ability in most cases. (aluminum oxidizes which pushes a joint apart, especially with a current applied over a gap, which in turn makes the gap wider...eventually creating enough gap for an arc-and that gets exciting very quickly) Some insurance companies will accept an "upgrade" to Aluma-conn connectors, but they are pricey, and only save a couple grand from a full rewire. Washing machines are on 110v AC circuit, so that would be a solid clue to the source(s)(220v on the dryer is heavier gauge wire, and two 110 legs-so you probably would not see the draw-down as spectacularly(heavier gauge wire always used mechanical clamps at the connections. The conductivity of wire is directly related to the temperature of the wire(which is the "how" breakers function)-so when it's hot outside, ALL that wire in your attic is heating up, so you would notice it during our recent heat spikes(sometimes this makes breakers trip-which are based on heat..and I'm going to throw this out there, IF there has been NO upgrades to your house electrical since the 60s, you have 60 year old breakers and EVERY time a breaker "trips" there is a theory that's a little less protection or an indicator that there is a problem...that's a lot of house to bet on a 20 dollar part---especially if there IS a fault and they are not tripping....). If the house is copper, then I'd suspect a loose or non-existent ground wire, clamp, rod. (the water table in Fl is fairly high, so after a couple of decades that 12 ft ground rod(now it's two and or tied into the foundation re-bar) can effectively be corroded away. Ive seen 18 inch ground rods pulled up from the ground wire from the service, especially toward the beach. There's also the most pain in the butt, FL power and light. the power company is allowed a 10% variance on the supplied voltage. that's why you almost never see a solid delivery of 110-120. as low as 99(bad for electronics AND motors, stoves take longer to heat up) or as high as 132 (old school incandescent lights show BRIGHTLY-reducing lifespan, electronic supply adapters wear out faster(excess energy supplied is dumped as heat-hello higher cooling costs), but give solid supply to systems, motors run REALLY well(think compressors on AC, ReFrigerators and Freezers(air cooled-but still dumping heat into living space)) so if they are delivering low at the service, any "defect" will display faster, especially when something with a load(like a washtub full of water overcoming inertia) starts up. Something I came across not long after Ivan, had a house putting out 160v, it was an underground transformer that had went bad(never got more than that out of the lineman that showed up within 30 minutes(Gulf Power). could also be a tree limb brushing against the transmission line, but that would be a lot more intermittent. PM me for the name of an Electrician I'd recommend. NONE of these issues are something someone without a background in electrical should DIY to fix.

 

[Cobrakaiju]

Im no electrician but i found it odd that we are told not to use aluminum. Guess what the meter plugged into? Aluminum. And the new one used aluminum also.

It's a large gauge stranded Al conductor locked down into mechanical lugs. Many Dryer and Range circuits are also AL. Solid Al home runs(110 outlets, switches and light fixtures(everybody always forgets that junction above the ceiling fan) are the danger points and caused A LOT of house fires as the conductors corroded and/or worked themselves apart from the AC 50-60hz vibration. The meter is mechanically locked into place, and if it's connection fails, it is disconnected, stopping the flow of current-preventing a dangerous situation. Circuit breakers in your house actually only protect the conductors....not your house or your person. That's why AFCI(Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters are now required for bedrooms and Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter equipped circuits within 6 foot of wet locations. AFCI are "smart" and help prevent shocks(nothing is fool proof) GFCI are for free flowing energy(toaster in the bathtub-js)

 

[Cobrakaiju]

This is what you need to do sometimes things just need to be tightened the power company will remove the meter you can then safely look at your connections . Maybe as simple as tightening a few co

Sad thing is I saw report other day that transformers and parts are, like everything else, on a wait list. But, that's good info.

OP seemed to indicate it was not being experienced on all appliances (only affecting certain breakers). Was this what you experienced? Seems if it was an issue on the supply side it would affect entire house. Maybe I misread what he said in his later post (#11).

Washer with a load of water in it is a HIGH draw to start and stop. The SAME thing is happening on other motors, but they are not as obvious. about 6 months after a hurricane, refrigerators and freezers start selling at the stores pretty frequently. A LOT of the time, the inconsistent ramping up and down of a generator wears the motors of the compressors out.

 

[Cobrakaiju]

That "shouldn't" be the source of a problem like that. My house was built in the 50s and virtually nothing is connected to ground. Also, ground rods need to be replaced like anything else, as they are not a "forever" item. Most are bonded, but you can get a solid copper rod if you want to pay for it. Grounding to a metal well casing is another option, but may not be "code".

Your place may be bonded to galvanized water lines.(which was "fine" when the entire water supply system was metal....but as soon as municipalities switched to plastic, that should have been pulled from the code book. The ENTIRE water supply system became a HUGE Earth ground and was "better" than a ground rod according to old school guys.) Even if you have replaced your plumbing, there may be galvanized in the ground and it may still be attached. Old school electricians would "Ground" every chance they came across-which actually can cause a voltage differential in old houses...it's a thing and causes some weird supply/delivery problems. FWIW, a lot of the really old guys were apprenticed and had little if no formal schooling on electrical supply systems-especially into the early 60s. Being an electrician effectively was, I pulled wire and didn't get shocked or dead.... Grounding "can" cause a problem like that and is often a contributing factor to more direct causes(basically the power companies neutral becomes the new bond creating an electrolytic process(humidity, temperature, current) in the house.)

"Problem solved. Neutral was broken and a hot wire had rubbed through the other hot wire.

There used to be a vine that grew near the line and it probably caused the rubbing and it finally failed."

 

[WRM]

IF, the wiring is Aluminum, well, that's a dead giveaway. full rewire recommended

I was surprised how relatively reasonable the cost was on the last client I had who needed a complete rewire from Al on a home. Not cheap, but less than I'd have expected.

Some insurance companies will accept an "upgrade" to Aluma-conn connectors,

Do not cheap out here. We are hemorrhaging insurers in FL. One more good storm and we'll be lucky to have any. Whoever's standing at the end of the day will avoid risk like the plague.

Your place may be bonded to galvanized water lines.

No. My water supply lines (my side) are galvanized, but not anywhere near the power service entrance. There is a ground rod, it's just that virtually nothing inside the house has a ground wire run to it. Was all two wire (hot and neutral) and all the outlets were two prong. When some work was done later, whoever put in three prong outlets ran the ground screws back to neutral with a pigtail on the new outlets.

 

[Cobrakaiju]

I was surprised how relatively reasonable the cost was on the last client I had who needed a complete rewire from Al on a home. Not cheap, but less than I'd have expected.



Do not cheap out here. We are hemorrhaging insurers in FL. One more good storm and we'll be lucky to have any. Whoever's standing at the end of the day will avoid risk like the plague.




No. My water supply lines (my side) are galvanized, but not anywhere near the power service entrance. There is a ground rod, it's just that virtually nothing inside the house has a ground wire run to it. Was all two wire (hot and neutral) and all the outlets were two prong. When some work was done later, whoever put in three prong outlets ran the ground screws back to neutral with a pigtail on the new outlets.

The only quasi legit way to "fix" two wire without a rewire is to put in AFCI/GFCI outlets. Technically, the ground wire runs back to the panel and is connected to the "neutral" bus(they are separate, but they are all bonded together via the panel itself, the BARE ground creates an "extra" path with the theory that if a fastener is driven through the jacket it will go to ground THERE as opposed to reversing along the neutral path(ie through a person "working" on a "cold" neutral) Again, the code is based on protecting your conductors and preventing fires(presumably a free flow condition from a hot to a neutral or bare ground will trip the circuit breaker(there is a whole old school conversation about circuit breakers, but it's about 20 years out of date with the tech available now-literally a chip on every circuit to monitor both conductors-it's why CI are so expensive in comparison to what they used to be-probably adds to the chip shortage....lol) your homeowner side being galvanized, some creative person in the past MAY have bonded to the galvanized line...inside the house. I've seen it. Has there ever been satellite tv service there...

You should get rid of the galvanized, if for no other reason than your water pressure will probably double.... :/ Make sure your ground rod is still good, and that the bond and nut are secure and good. It should also be bonded to another rod outside of 10ft or something(04 code?) that may have changed during updates, I know that now a stub is left out of the foundation rebar and that is the new preferred ground bond method, essentially, the theory goes, creating a larger potential grounding "sink", that's why the idiot satellite techs were told they couldn't simply drop a ground rod next to a dish.(I was a senior Sat tech TX/RX-got some stories about the ex-roofers and dope heads Satellites Unlimited would hire) The ground bond is NOT a lightning arrestor, and doing that ACTUALLY creates a voltage potential across the house wiring, connecting inside the satellite receiver.... BtB...that voltage potentiality actually might have encouraged strikes, according to research in Gainesville.

A lot of this stuff I had the misfortune of tracing back out. Satellite receivers used to be high load devices, the multi-satellite systems, especially when the local channels first became available use a voltage shift to communicate with the antenna to know which satellite feed to send down the wire. Being High load devices, essentially an DC Converter with a heatsink, the longer you need to "push" voltage over a wire, the more current you have to pull-especially over Coaxial cable(not exactly the most efficient conductor---:/), supposed to be a signal wire, not a power wire, a lot of house wiring issues would converge at the satellite box. I've been to houses that had burned out 17 receivers(I think that was the record before I arrived and isolated the various problems-MOST techs would just swap the box on a Trouble Call and somebody else would get sent out a week later). Newer systems are digital in nature and have removed the voltage shift, the dish antenna now has a separate continuous power supply(it has a chip that digitally communicates with the box)