Electrical Crisis!!!!!!!

[sensirocker]

yeah growtime, i think your absolutely right.... i can tell there have been some renovations to the house and possible cover ups as you said. I will get around to searching the house eventually, but ive spent so much time on this bs im ready to take a break.
My question now.... is it safe to leave my electricity in this current state? In other words, would somethign like the microwave/toaster blow out combo cause a wire to be exposed or something? Im just trying to make sure that everything is cool now that i have a safe power source....

thanks,

sR

p.s., totally sweet aero grow you have going their growtime! Im really liking how clean your setup is.... how much did all of that cost?

 

[ItsGrowTime]

I cant comment much on your current power state but remember that your house is old so avoid putting too much juice on a single circuit. Just run extension cords around the house to small appliances to limit the load on any particular circuit. Old wiring just isnt designed to handle the juice of modern electronics (your lights included). I couldnt run my TV, home theater, PS2 and a hair dryer at the same time without tripping breakers. I didnt even have a grow light then!

Thanks for the props on my grow. Itll get even better in a few weeks once I harvest then plug in 10 female clones! Honestly? Ive spent well over $1K on everything. By everything I mean building materials, tools (hole saws are $$$), nutes and supplements, cloning supplies, etc. If you wanted to build a similar system by itself, minus the tool cost and nutes and all that, it would only be $100 or so. Its the extras that kick your ass.

 

[Guest]

Man I'm with thorodee on this one,you have to have a GFI receptacle somewhere that needs to be reset I betcha

 

[HeadyPete]

Tough call man. These old places can really get SNFU'd when home hobbyist electricians decide to 'do it themselves'...

Keep plugging away. Persistence pays off and something that is not apparent today may come perfectly clear tomorrow. It has happened to me, so I say, "Stick with it" and we will try to help best we can.

Like It'sGrowTime said, run a couple cords to spread the load to multiple circuits to be extra safe.

 

[Guest]

So, im not sure if i will ever fix this problem.... i opened up the kitchen plug:

and tested the two wires coming into it for power with a voltage meter, and they had nothing... this means that the plug is probably ok, but there is probably some random ass breaker somewhere in the house that i will probably never find....

so what do you guys think?

Have you checked all the plugs that arent working front and back for scorching it might not be the one in the ketchin thats fried .

 

[SpacedCWBY]

You may try replacing the breaker that runs that part of the house. Didn't think of this in my last reply, but I had a breaker go bad several years ago. Switch felt normal, looked normal, but was bad.

Just to test the theory here, swap the breaker from the dead circuit with one of the SAME amperage from a known good circuit. That'll tell you right away, for sure! A sparky would come in and charge you $100 just to do that.

If it's not a GFCI, you haven't been screwing or nailing anything to the walls and it's not the plug itself, pretty good bet it's a breaker. Just be careful in the panel, things can get a little hairy, um, I mean scary, in there.

 

[Guest]

Best/worst advise

Best/worst advise

Looking at those pictures, you’re playing with fire for sure… pun intended
Shut down your grow. Better to be without weed then without life…

If your renting from a rental company, write a polite letter stating that your in fear of the place burning down/your life. Get it notarized; send copies to the rental company and the owner, registered mail. Do these for aleast three months sending two bids (electricians) with the last one. After another month if no one comes to fix it, hire one of those electricians to do the work and take it from rent. You might want to talk to a lawyer first (to find out your renters rights), but most states do allow this.

It is tearing down some bridges though.

ADDED
If you can, get an appointment to talk with a civil judge in your county, it’s free and he tell you if you can do this. Lots of pictures, take some to the building inspector see what he says, get him to put it in writing to add to the letters.

 

[sensirocker]

im not worried about asking my rental company... i know they would fix it if i didnt have my grow going....
a microwave and a toaster cant really do that much more than trip a fuse... its probably somwhere i cant find.... right now i have stable power that is on its own power line and has its own fuse... you can see in the pic....

 

[Guest]

1) not to be obvious but have u hit test then reset on the plug in the picture?
2) do u feel comfortable with electricity?( if not call your own electrician if its a big prob then u only paying service call and have rental company fix)
3) if u feel comfortable with elec. then can u trace down the wires from the one pictured? if they have no power and roomate was using toaster and micro and blown this will be your prob circuit(checking all junction box all the way back to breaker box)
4)if no power still (and again i repeat only if u feel comfortable with elec.) remove the cover panel from breaker box and check both sides of each breaker to see if they have power(could be a bad breaker this happens if its old or gets reset alot springs wearout)
* lastely i repeat only if u are comfortable with elec. should u ever open a fuse box and stick a voltmeter into it
heres what happens when someone who has no clue does elec. work
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=48398
there is alot of help here so dont go into this without being totaly comfortable with what u are doing

 

[Guest]

But ya know what they say about opinions...

But ya know what they say about opinions...

im not worried about asking my rental company... i know they would fix it if i didnt have my grow going....
a microwave and a toaster cant really do that much more than trip a fuse... its probably somwhere i cant find.... right now i have stable power that is on its own power line and has its own fuse... you can see in the pic....

The shuting down of the grow was more because of them coming to fix it. Back in post #28 the picture of the breaker box is what I'm talking about. See those cloth covered wires, when I bought this house the power company wouldn't even turn on my power untill I replaced them, and it was a good thing because they were so old that the plastic under the cloth was all cracked and pieces missing/green wire. And that off white wire that could be coated wire, outlawed many years ago because of it over heating. It looks like the house has been rewired aleast four times but never updated after the first time. Ya the watts your running isn't a real big strain on a circuit by it's self and you "could" keep using it. But if they would fix it, I say let them, you'd be alot safer in that house.