this is weird

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:jawdrop:I just play with the circuit panel at my house and find out, the hall way lights and the launchdry room light cant turns off at all, I try to disconneted every breaker but those light wont turn off? what the hell is going on.:lol:wondering what circuits supply those lights.
 

SG-1

Senior Member
I would turn off all the breakers except the MAIN. Then see if the lights are out. I supect the ungrounded conductor from one breaker is tied to the ungrounded conductor of a second breaker. If this is the case, then you would have to turn off two branch circuit breakers.

If the lights went out when you turned off all the branch circuit breakers, then turn the breakers back on one at a time, then back off, to see which breakers are supplying the circuit. Only the MAIN & one branch circuit breaker may be on at the same time.

My other thought is that one of the breakers is stuck in the "ON" position. By disconnect every breaker did you mean that you removed the wire from the breaker or just moved the paddle to the "OFF" position ?
 

iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
:jawdrop:I just play with the circuit panel at my house and find out, the hall way lights and the launchdry room light cant turns off at all, I try to disconneted every breaker but those light wont turn off? what the hell is going on.:lol:wondering what circuits supply those lights.

Do you live in a single family home or is it an apartment building?
 

Dennis Alwon

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
My sister in law has a condo and I went there and could not turn off one receptacle. It was on a common wall to another condo. Apparently they go the wires mixed up in the opposite apartments.
 

RICK NAPIER

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
If it is two circuits mistakenly tied together you would have parallel feeders to that circuit. This would mean if it is 20 amp circuits it would be on 40 amp feed to to that circuit.
 
I would turn off all the breakers except the MAIN. Then see if the lights are out. I supect the ungrounded conductor from one breaker is tied to the ungrounded conductor of a second breaker. If this is the case, then you would have to turn off two branch circuit breakers.

If the lights went out when you turned off all the branch circuit breakers, then turn the breakers back on one at a time, then back off, to see which breakers are supplying the circuit. Only the MAIN & one branch circuit breaker may be on at the same time.

My other thought is that one of the breakers is stuck in the "ON" position. By disconnect every breaker did you mean that you removed the wire from the breaker or just moved the paddle to the "OFF" position ?
I did not remove the wire, I only move the paddle to the OFF.
thanks for the suggestion and will give it a try
 

ggunn

PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
Location
Austin, TX, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
If it is two circuits mistakenly tied together you would have parallel feeders to that circuit. This would mean if it is 20 amp circuits it would be on 40 amp feed to to that circuit.
And? It's not like it would push too many amps through the circuit.

If it is two circuits crosswired, it probably happened in the walls, not in the breaker box. If that's what happened there was a 50:50 chance that the joined circuits would be on the same leg of the 240V supply. If so, you get what the OP is seeing. If not you get a surprise when you turn on the breakers. ;^)

If it's in the walls, good luck finding it.
 

ptcrtn

Member
stealing power

stealing power

I ran into a similar problem. Tried to turn off circuit to the of new home owners garage. I turned off main at panel and power to garage still on. Finially found it going to his neighbors garage. The neighbor said he lived their 5 years and had no ideal his power went to that garage.
 

jeremysterling

Senior Member
Location
Austin, TX
I did not remove the wire, I only move the paddle to the OFF.
thanks for the suggestion and will give it a try

Even though the breaker that intentionally supplies this circuit is off, this is the exact situation that demands we all should test for voltage before removing the opened breaker's load terminal conductor.
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
A friend of mine lived in a condo once where a neighbor started getting very low electric bills. It only went on for a few months, and then went back to normal, and then back to very low. This cycle happened a number of times.

She mentioned this to the manager of the complex after a few years. He was able to correlate the periods of low electric usage to the times an adjacent rental unit was not being rented because he had noticed unusually high electric usage while that unit was vacant. OOPS.

I don't recall if the wiring was switched between the meters or the electric company had gotten the meters wrong in their records somehow. IIRC, the solution the electric company had in mind initially was to rewire it, but eventually the electric company agreed to just switch the billing.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Had two adjacent apartments one time (government housing - owner paid utilities) that had central boiler with each apartment as a separate zone. Thermostats were conneced to opposite zone controls. Had been that way for nearly 30 years as far as we knew. Was only a big problem when one apartment was vacant, which did not happen very often or for very long. They did get a lot of complaints of one being too hot or too cold over the years, which makes sense. You get hot you turn your thermostat down - makes the neighbor cold so they turn theirs up - making you even hotter
 

jmellc

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
Occupation
Facility Maintenance Tech. Licensed Electrician
My sister in law has a condo and I went there and could not turn off one receptacle. It was on a common wall to another condo. Apparently they go the wires mixed up in the opposite apartments.

I've seen a few of those.
 

mbrooke

Batteries Included
Location
United States
Occupation
Technician
I have seen this in aparments and rental condos before. Had on instance of the hall and bath lighting tied into the common hallway lighting in an apartment. Owner was lucky on that mistake:D
 

RICK NAPIER

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
I had a beach front condo once with power in only half the unit. The owners would leave a balance with the utility to last the winter. They did not know their children were using the unit and used up the balance. The utility shut off power and the unit was back fed from a kitchen circuit tied into the neighbors kitchen circuit supplying power to half the unit.
 
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