ElectricianJeff
Senior Member
- Location
- Southern Illinois
I'm curious as to situation I encountered today, I apologies in advance if this turns out to be a long story but hopefully someone can shed some light.
Last Friday evening around 7:00 my wife and I were returning from dinner when I received a phone call from a customer who I had did a 100 amp upgrade a couple of years ago. He said " the wires had burned off his house and he had no power". It just so happened that I was about 10 blocks from his house at the time so I would stop by and take a look at it. This is a overhead service with the transformer on the pole in his front yard. His entire triplex had burnt about 2' from the transformer and dropped in his front yard. They were still hot to the touch when I arrived. I looked at his panel and he had no tripped breakers. There had been no storms that evening. I told him to call the POCO, have a cold one and wait for them to come fix it. It was about 95 degrees at the time. I heard nothing further on this.
Today I got a call from a customer who asked me to come by and look at something. It just so happens this customer is on the same side of the street about 6 houses down from the fellow I visited with on Friday. I had installed a whole house generator from him last summer along with a bunch of small stuff. His cable had gone out on Saturday and the cable guy had been there earlier. He handed me a baggy full of burnt and melted splitters and RG-6 that came from the cable box on the outside of the house. He had no interruption of power on Friday evening. I discovered that the ground wire to the plumbing had been severed near the entrance in the home. He had a new hot water heater installed a couple of months earlier and the plumber had installed a new plastic water line to the new HWH and had spliced in about 2' of plastic in the main line with no jumper. The #4 thhn had either been cut with a hacksaw or may have burned through I couldn't tell for sure. I have trouble believing that the ground saw enough voltage to burn up. There is no ground rod outside since this installation is quite old.
The owner also mentioned that his wifes blender "ran funny" when she used over the weekend which made me think there was a neutral problem and I had him call the poco to come out and check their connections at the pole.. I plan on jumping around the plastic the plumber installed to bond his plumbing along with reconnecting the ground upstream of the splice.
I have to suspect the friday night problem had some to do with his cable box burning up. However he is not on the same transformer as the fellow up the street.
Can anybody shed some light on what happened here?
Thanks
Last Friday evening around 7:00 my wife and I were returning from dinner when I received a phone call from a customer who I had did a 100 amp upgrade a couple of years ago. He said " the wires had burned off his house and he had no power". It just so happened that I was about 10 blocks from his house at the time so I would stop by and take a look at it. This is a overhead service with the transformer on the pole in his front yard. His entire triplex had burnt about 2' from the transformer and dropped in his front yard. They were still hot to the touch when I arrived. I looked at his panel and he had no tripped breakers. There had been no storms that evening. I told him to call the POCO, have a cold one and wait for them to come fix it. It was about 95 degrees at the time. I heard nothing further on this.
Today I got a call from a customer who asked me to come by and look at something. It just so happens this customer is on the same side of the street about 6 houses down from the fellow I visited with on Friday. I had installed a whole house generator from him last summer along with a bunch of small stuff. His cable had gone out on Saturday and the cable guy had been there earlier. He handed me a baggy full of burnt and melted splitters and RG-6 that came from the cable box on the outside of the house. He had no interruption of power on Friday evening. I discovered that the ground wire to the plumbing had been severed near the entrance in the home. He had a new hot water heater installed a couple of months earlier and the plumber had installed a new plastic water line to the new HWH and had spliced in about 2' of plastic in the main line with no jumper. The #4 thhn had either been cut with a hacksaw or may have burned through I couldn't tell for sure. I have trouble believing that the ground saw enough voltage to burn up. There is no ground rod outside since this installation is quite old.
The owner also mentioned that his wifes blender "ran funny" when she used over the weekend which made me think there was a neutral problem and I had him call the poco to come out and check their connections at the pole.. I plan on jumping around the plastic the plumber installed to bond his plumbing along with reconnecting the ground upstream of the splice.
I have to suspect the friday night problem had some to do with his cable box burning up. However he is not on the same transformer as the fellow up the street.
Can anybody shed some light on what happened here?
Thanks
she could tell by the excitment in my voice when the guy said the electric lines had just burnt off his house that we were stopping