Electrical Problems

[Umfriend]

Actually I just installed Cat6 around the house, to Luke's room and to the lounge for the HTPC.

I seem to remember there was just some thing you would do after the rewiring job was done......

[Brian Ellis]

I threw a ring main in my garage two weeks ago. why are they dangerous?
Let me dig out a good read on electrics..

Well, for a start (and this is just one of the dangers, but a very real one which has caused many fires): the ring is wired in a cable which is inadequate to carry the whole current of the ring, on the principle of the current flows both ways to the point(s) of consumption. However, if there is an accidental break in the circuit, nobody notices and the current may flow just one way through inadequately dimensions wires for the number of amperes. It is, however, much easier to install because of the thinner wires. Then there is the fact that the it is permissible for the earth wire to be thinner than the phase/neutral. If the earth-current breaker fails, this means that it is the earth wire that would fail in the event of a phase-earth fault, potentially leaving the body of a metallic appliance live. Then, the phase-only switch in the socket and the fuse in the world's worst designed plug leaves the user at the mercy of the electrician who has accidentally wired the socket the wrong way round, not to mention it is physically possible to put a 13 A fuse in a plug attached to an appliance drawing only a fraction of an A and whose lead is dimensioned accordingly. Then the rules for wiring in bathrooms are so archaic, it leaves no choice for consumers needing to use an appliance therein, than to bring in a trailing extension lead from outside the bathroom, a practice that is infinitely more dangerous in the presence of water than a properly installed power socket. The number of bathroom electrocutions in the UK is higher than on the Continent which has more modern electricity regs. Etc.

[Claymonkey]

ooo pictures... and I just found my mavica 91 in my boxes. I'll have to take some pictures.... and upload them with computers with no floppies...... Guess I'll have to set one up

[Claymonkey]

alright I have a couple of floppies worth of pictures to show you all... now I just need a drive.

I got a call from my landlord today. He and the electrician (friend?) went and turned out a bunch of stuff in the apartment today and didn't blow the power. Now he's not saying he doesn't believe us but they weren't able to blow the power. He said they turned on the toaster, microwave, lights and TV. Basically he is protecting his *ss I think. However, he said he changed the breaker from a 15a to a 20a. I told him my misgivings since I wasn't sure if the wiring could handle it. He says the electrician said going up 5a with the wire shouldn't be a problem but that going to 25a or 30a would be. Anyway, tonight when I get home my roommate and I will test the power and see what we can see. If it blows I'm knocking on his door and showing him. I'll also be uploading those pictures tonight.

[schmosef]

I seem to remember there was just some thing you would do after the rewiring job was done......

beer?

[KeiFront]

He says the electrician said going up 5a with the wire should be a problem but that going to 25a or 30a would be.

I guess this should be: "He says the electrician said going up 5a with the wire shouldn't be a problem but that going to 25a or 30a would be" or am I wrong

[Claymonkey]

oops.. yes fixed. Welcome to my wonder world of typos.

[Tjalfe]

14 gauge cable is only officially rated at 15A,true, it will not fail till it has some 160Amps in it, but there is a safety margain in it ( rather huge I know but still).. check the local electrical code.
I hope you at least have a proper ground connection in your cable, as many in my house ( build 1958) did not have ground, except the outlets for the bathroom and kitchen..
Personally I would run a 60A cable up there and add a sub panel, but he is probably too cheap for tha

[Claymonkey]

I'll post pics tonight of what I have. I'm going to go with too cheap as well. All the sockets in the apartment are three pronged w/ ground. A LOT of boston is still two prong *shudder*

I'm still trying to get answers from official departments but they tend to either pass you on to someone else or not be there.

[Tjalfe]

all the outlets in my house when I bought it was 3 pronged, just most of them the ground prong was not connected to anything.. you may want to check that.. get plug in circuit tester if you don't want to peek inside

[Claymonkey]

yeah that would be like my landlord. Just change the outlets to look like they have ground.

[Tjalfe]

yeah that would be like my landlord. Just change the outlets to look like they have ground.

ground is needed for a surge protector to do its job.. you may want to check this

[Claymonkey]

Ok I realize this thread is REALLY old but i never posted the pics. This problem has become a moot point but I thought I'd share. Expect a new 'exciting' thread from me soon.

So in the end what happened is that my landlord's 'electrician friend' came with him while we were at work. As he put it they tried and tried but couldn't blow the breaker themselves. BUT, since he doesn't think we aren't telling the truth about the problem he swapped out the 15amp breaker for a 20amp breaker. I brought up the fact that the wire probably couldn't handle the extra 5amp but he countered saying that if they brought it up to 25 it would be a problem but just 20amp is fine.

Anyway, the swap fixed a lot of the problems and we stopped blowing power 5 times a day. We still unplug the fridge before we microwave or vacuum though. I also got renter's insurance as soon as I bloody could during this period.



Here we are in the basement. Each apartment has it's own breaker box and if you notice none of them are configured in the same way. From what my landlord told me he has done a lot of hte wiring himself after the initial setup. Often drilling in from the bottom from the lower apartments and running wire himself.


Here's our beast (this is prefix)


Close up of the dial


Close up of the box. Notice that you have the main 60amp where if I had more than one breaker all would be feeding out of that central one. At the moment you just have the 20amp (15amp here)


For context here are the neighbors.


...and the box with the cover off


Speaking of the cover here is the back of the panel with 'useful' info


and finally here is the other side. That wire housing seems to be the only thing coming from my breaker box.

Anyway, better late than never and maybe it's even interesting. Keep your eyes peeled for another thread going into detail about why I don't care about this anymore.

[az]

Wow, ONE fuse for the whole flat?

[Claymonkey]

YEP!!!! Two bedroom apartment and as soon as the fridge kicked on the apartment would go dark. After the breaker was changed it would only happen if the fridge kicked on while something big was running.