Electric surges after electrician

[Former Guest]

Ok here's a video showing what he did below. There is two four socket outlets that run 2-435 cfm fans on a orange extension cord and a 400 watt all on one quad with the other quad running barely anything and three doubles which are dedicated to each 1000 watt and AC unit. The little breaker box has 80 amps. The main box has a breaker that supports 120 amps; 40 for kitchen, utility and dining rooms with 80 amps for a sub panel box for the grow room. The two 20 amps on the top and bottom of that breaker operate the lights that have broken probe ballasts which happened right after the guy installed the stuff. They work but it has to be really warm in the house before they turn on. My house and mom house both had surges. My house is a 40 amp wire that runs underground. I know it's small but it's sufficient to run what I need. That is on it's owner breaker. The living room also had the surge and it has it's own breaker too. The dining kitchen utility rooms did not experience the surge and that is the one that is sharing the breaker with the grow room. My house is the one that normally gets a slight surge but the main house is not effected until today as far as having to reset clocks but the flouro ballasts both broke at the same time oddly. He set this up a few months ago and since then there have been weird issues. He is long gone now because I told him I would pay him the full amount when he finished the job because he wanted to go home early and come back later that week. I told him I would give him half now and half on completion and that pissed him off but he kept canceling his appointment to start the work so after waiting weeks I was hesitant to pay him and have unfinished work. So I can't ask him or rather won't to come fix things. Is it something I'm doing? Coincidence? Him piggy backing off of another circuit? Thanks!

Video of how it's set up http://youtu.be/2HrTREmXtr8

 

[rives]

"This video is private. Sorry about that."

Sounding a little spooky from your description, though. What are "three doubles which are dedicated to each 1000w and AC unit"?

 

[Former Guest]

Double socket outlets. I fixed the video. Thanks rives!

 

[Former Guest]

The AC has it's own socket in the grow room. It's not even hooked now for winter. There are two 1000 watts on mag ballasts that occupy the other two double outlets

 

[rives]

Well, at a glance it looks like you are seriously overloaded. It would be good if you could "map" out the circuits. Take a light/radio/whatever and plug it into each of the receptacles and turn off the breakers until the light/whatever goes out. Take notes, make sure that each half of each receptacle is on the same circuit, meaning it goes on & off with the breaker. Each receptacle can potentially be split fed with two circuits, or all four of them could be on the same circuit.

It appears from the panel that the top left breaker controls the room lights, the bottom left breaker is for the 4 receptacles over the top of the sub, the top right is for the receptacle under the sub, and the bottom right is for the air conditioner. Verify all of these.

IF the lights up above are on one circuit, it is too heavily loaded. A 1kw light will pull about 1100w when you add in the ballast losses. So, 2200w/120v=18.33 amps. You are limited to 80% of the breaker rating for continuous loads (anything exceeding 3 hours), so a 20a circuit should be limited to 16a. When the lights turn on, the current will spike up above the running current.

 

[DrFever]

Now i am far from a electrician rives is probably your man
What i think maybe rives will correct me is your Extension cord Gauge how far are those cord being used from actual light or fans i believe for every 10 feet of length you need better gauge cords
could this be causing the over loading also you should run power surge per each light prior to actually plugging it in wall if so do you have the proper joules per surge protector all these little things add up

 

[Former Guest]

I set it up exactly how he told me to and I listed all my equipment I wanted to run, plus he's a grower too. I thought if I spent $600 on a referred electrician my set up would work. I will test and draw out a map of everything and get back to you. Thanks!

 

[rives]

If the breakers haven't been tripping, then it may work ok. The 80% rule is code, but is mainly to eliminate nuisance tripping with weak breakers or in a hot environment. It may be as simple as one phase is too heavily loaded and you need to move some of the load around to get things balanced out.

So you say that your house runs off of a 40a feed - is that also somehow tied into this sub-panel circuit?

The two adjacent 20a breakers at the main panel (above and below the 40a sub-panel breaker) both say "Lights KDR Utility" - is that for your house, or your mom's?

 

[Former Guest]

I don't have surge protectors hooked up. I saw a thread with Titan timers that were melted so I was asking the store clerks about my timer and they say it's okay to use one light per outlet although I don't think this is it. I will go buy some surge protectors tonight before lights on in six hours.

 

[Former Guest]

So are you saying that your house runs off of a 40a feed, is that also somehow tied into this sub-panel circuit?

The two adjacent 20a breakers at the main panel (above and below the 40a subpanel breaker) both say "Lights KDR Utility" - is that for your house, or your mom's?

My house runs off the main box seperate from the breaker that feeds the sub panel. The kdr is my moms house that runs kitchen dining room and utility/ laundry room lights only. Appliances have own breakers.

 

[Former Guest]

No breakers have tripped. Mostly what happpens is my lights blink when the 1000 waters turn on. I was reading that thread about the timers and decided maybe I should gàve one bulb turn on and a few minutes later have the second one turn on even though they have their own breaker. The lights blinking happens only twice or three times a week? It's not big but last night my 400 watt ballast turned off and one 1000 watt turned off during the daytime cycle in bloom. I'm running 400 veg and 2000 bloom.

 

[Former Guest]

I'm curious if my 400 ballast which has turned off before due to it overheating would cause a surge when this happens?

 

[rives]

Ok. Map out what you've got, that's what we need to start with.

It may all be fine at the sub, but if the bulk of the load is on one phase (one of the two hot wires feeding the sub), and coincidentally your mother's house has most of the load on that same phase, then the overall load could be seriously imbalanced. There are two hot wires that come from the utility - each one carries 120v and they are separate phases - between them you get 240v. Ideally, you want the loads to be balanced on each phase as closely as possible. If you wind up with all of the load on one phase, you can get some ugly voltage drop on the circuits fed by it. When you get voltage drop, the amperage goes up, and it's a vicious spiral.

 

[rives]

I'm curious if my 400 ballast which has turned off before due to it overheating would cause a surge when this happens?

It could. As I said above, if you have one phase loaded too heavily and your ballast drops out, then the voltage on that phase is going to spike when the load goes away. Anytime a load is turned on or off, it impacts the voltage to an extent.

 

[Former Guest]

This 400 watt ballast has been giving me issues with overheating.

 

[Former Guest]

He labeled the outlets above the sub panel and told me I could run both my 1000 watts off that one alone and use the other outlet to run 1400 watts. This is what I was going to run but I turned off the thousand watt in veg. The outlets are supposed to handle that much but after reading I pulled the thousand out of veg and plugged the 400 into the quad below to give the 1000 watt bloom bulbs their own dedicated outlet. This was originally going to operate the 3400 watts with room to add more lights but after he finished I saw what he did and learned a little more about electricity and saw I do not have power to run that so I choose 2400 watts instead.

 

[rives]

The two receptacles over the top of the sub - the top left one feeds your (2) 1kw lights in the garage (bloom), and the top right one feeds the 400w veg lamp? The receptacle in the veg room in the video that is fed through the PVC and over the ceiling is the A/C circuit, bottom right breaker?

It looks like you have the veg 400w fed from both the upper right receptacle, and from the lower right hand "quad" receptacle.

*edit* By "recepts" on the top right breaker, you are referring to the 4-plex receptacles under the panel?

 

[Former Guest]

The two receptacles over the top of the sub - the top left one feeds your (2) 1kw lights in the garage (bloom), and the top right one feeds the 400w veg lamp?
THAT IS HOW HE TOLD ME TO PLUG THEM IN BUT I FELT THAT WAS UNSAFE SO I RUN 1 1000 W ON ONE AND THE OTHER ONE ON THE OTHER SIDE AND PLUG THE 400 INTO THE RECEPTACLE BELOW THE PANEL BOX.

The receptacle in the veg room in the video that is fed through the PVC and over the ceiling is the A/C circuit, bottom right breaker?

YES

It looks like you have the veg 400w fed from both the upper right receptacle, and from the lower right hand "quad" receptacle.

400 is in quad below sub box

*edit* By "recepts" on the top right breaker, you are referring to the 4-plex receptacles under the panel?

I'm assuming it operates both quad outlets which he said I could plug in fans, pumps etc

Answers in quote

 

[rives]

Assume? You'll never make it as an apprentice!

Ok, if you have a 1kw lamp plugged in top left, and a 1kw lamp plugged in top right, and the 400w plugged in underneath, and the A/C isn't running, then you already have the loads split up about as well as you are going to. The panel is set up so that the top two breakers are fed by one phase, the second pair down is fed by the other phase, and they will alternate down the panel that way. If this is the way that your load is arranged, you have 1kw on one phase (the light plugged in top left) and 1400w on the other (the light plugged in top right and the receptacle load below the panel).

*edit* You did check and make sure that the upper and lower outlets in each receptacle went on and off at the same time, with the same breaker, correct?

 

[Former Guest]

That is how it's set up and I think I may not be cut out for apprenticeship lol. It has to be this broken screwy 400 watt ballast. I have a 600 I can replace it with. Would that be okay to plug into the same spot?

I went out there and flipped the switch and what you said would happen did. It shut off the quads. Now the bulb is not firing up and just looks red but no light.