B
bthielen
Guest
I'm not sure where to post this so if you mods think it would be better in another forum, please move it.
Thought I?d share a close call we had recently. Maybe this is something for you construction workers to keep in mind.
Last week I was out of town for work. One evening while talking with my wife she mentioned that she could smell smoke like an electrical fire. She finally tracked it down to the full-voltage wall thermostat for the electric baseboard heaters in our kitchen so I had her kill the circuit.
Yesterday, I finally got an opportunity to replace that thermostat and what I found surprised me. It wasn?t the thermostat that was the problem and I don?t know how this situation can possibly be avoided using current wiring practices and materials. When I installed that thermostat originally, the bare grounded wire had come into contact with the insulation on one of the ungrounded conductors and over the years somehow managed to wear through the insulation enough to begin arching. How can this be avoided when we're stuffing wires into a box? It wasn?t enough to trip the circuit breaker but enough that the insulation on that wire got charred and brittle. We were that close to having a house fire.
Fortunately, my wife discovered it before going to bed that evening or she and our daughters could very easily have been trapped in a house on fire because that thermostat is located on the same wall as the stairway to the 2nd story. Now I can?t help but wonder about all the other device boxes throughout the entire house. I know when I install the new thermostat I will be watching real close that those wires don?t contact each other.
Would an arc fault circuit interrupter have detected this condition?
Thought I?d share a close call we had recently. Maybe this is something for you construction workers to keep in mind.
Last week I was out of town for work. One evening while talking with my wife she mentioned that she could smell smoke like an electrical fire. She finally tracked it down to the full-voltage wall thermostat for the electric baseboard heaters in our kitchen so I had her kill the circuit.
Yesterday, I finally got an opportunity to replace that thermostat and what I found surprised me. It wasn?t the thermostat that was the problem and I don?t know how this situation can possibly be avoided using current wiring practices and materials. When I installed that thermostat originally, the bare grounded wire had come into contact with the insulation on one of the ungrounded conductors and over the years somehow managed to wear through the insulation enough to begin arching. How can this be avoided when we're stuffing wires into a box? It wasn?t enough to trip the circuit breaker but enough that the insulation on that wire got charred and brittle. We were that close to having a house fire.
Fortunately, my wife discovered it before going to bed that evening or she and our daughters could very easily have been trapped in a house on fire because that thermostat is located on the same wall as the stairway to the 2nd story. Now I can?t help but wonder about all the other device boxes throughout the entire house. I know when I install the new thermostat I will be watching real close that those wires don?t contact each other.
Would an arc fault circuit interrupter have detected this condition?