B
bthielen
Guest
Had an interesting situation in my home this past weekend. A friend is considering installing a "dual-fuel" electric boiler heating system in his shop. For those that may not know what this is, our electric utility offers a "dual-fuel" program where an electric heating or cooling system can be applied and receive a $.032/KW hour rate in exchange for allowing the system randomly shut down during peak electrical demand. This is similar to off-peak electric water heating. The difference is with off-peak power is only applied at night. Anyway, my friend asked if he could see my system so he could better understand how it works before he made his decision to install it. I wanted to show him how the connections are made to my existing service entrance so we unlocked and opened the control relay enclosure (I know, it's not entirely legal to do this). Good thing we did! We happened to find a 10awg. wire that had been overheating and melted the insulation. Upon inspection I found that one of the terminal screws on one of the relays that were installed by our utility, when the box was assembled, was not tightened down on the wire. I replaced the wire and called our utility so they could inspect the box and replace their lock. If I remember correctly, there was a thread recently that questioned whether loose connections could cause arcing and cause this type of problem. I would think this supports the answer, YES!! I got lucky and averted a fire.
Just thought I'd pass it along.
Bob
Just thought I'd pass it along.
Bob