Call-Back on a Service Call

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This kind of situation does happen when you take on troubleshooting and you can't always figure it out the first time. I had a customer this year who gave me a lot of work call me a few weeks ago that her deck outlet was tripping the GFI in the basement. I knew from previous visits that she used an electric wand to start her charcoal grill, so that was the first thing I checked - sure enough, it tripped a kitchen GFI and the megger showed me that it had a low resistance to ground (it worked in non GFI recepts). She got a new wand and all was well... for a few days. She calls back that her garage outlets aren't working. Voltage readings show me hot and ground are ok, but no neutral. Receptacle tester trips the same GFI in the basement that feeds the deck. Turns out GFI had no neutral on the load side and had likely burned up from constant tripping from the charcoal lighter so I replaced it. All was well for three more days when she called back and said that it tripped again. This time she tells me that she had an extension cord plugged in on the deck for the wand, and left the extension cord plugged in overnight. When she went to unplug it before some rain, she noticed the end was warm - no load on it, but warm. Remove the receptacle to find water, a mud wasp nest and backstabbed wires. Replaced with new Hubbell TRWR receptacle and keeping my fingers crossed that this time I got it... :)

Pricing is tough on a call like this. On one hand, there's no way to find all those issues, or predict that a GFI is ready to fail internally all on the first trip, OTOH, I can't be going back for free just because the problems are related in some way. I ended up giving a hefty discount but scheduled the calls for when I was in the area, at my convenience - no special trips.
 
Update

Update

I had forgotten about this thread until someone revived it.
After the second visit, all was well for over a month. Then I get a call saying they lost power to the room again.

I went back and of course when I get there everything is working. But I wasn't about to leave without checking things out. I loaded up the circuit and went to the panel to check the voltage and current. The breaker tripped and my meter showed around 18A. The breaker was only a 15A so I thought they were just overloading it. So I decided to swap the breaker out to a 20A since they already had #12 wire run.

I still felt uneasy and didn't want to come back to this again so I decided to just dig into this as deep as I could.

First of all, you would need to know I was getting conflicting info between the HO (lady) and her son. The lady originally told me 1/2 the room was out and that's when I found the two bad 3-way switches. When she called the second time she said it was all out and that's when I found the loose neutrals and replaced the breaker which looked a little suspect due to corrosion on the screw/lug, but looked ok on the stab.
The son wasn't sure if everything was out or just 1/2 the room. So I just put their info aside and checked the panel and found several loose neutrals. Tightened them all up, ran everything for a while, then left.

Ok, back to the update. After replacing the 15A breaker with the 20A, I took the hot off the breaker and traced it up to where it entered the panel so I could see which neutral wire went with it. As I said I found several loose neutrals before and wanted to see if this was one of them. I thought I had found the right neutral before, but apparently didn't because of the way they were twisted and crossing each other.
When I traced the neutral down I found it had been hot and the insulation had melted and fused to two other neutrals that were close to it. So I cut off the burnt neutral above where it was burnt, spliced on a new piece of wire and relocated it on the bar.
Turns out the threads of the screw on the neutral bar had welded it's self to the hole, making it appear tight when checking with a screwdriver. But although the screw was tight, it wasn't all the way against the wire making a loose connection. IMO, that's what caused it to overheat and melt the insulation off.

This was about 2 weeks ago and all seems well now.
It was just odd that I found more than one problem that could have caused the loss of power.
 
Little Bill said:
I had forgotten about this thread until someone revived it.
After the second visit, all was well for over a month. Then I get a call saying they lost power to the room again.

I went back and of course when I get there everything is working. But I wasn't about to leave without checking things out. I loaded up the circuit and went to the panel to check the voltage and current. The breaker tripped and my meter showed around 18A. The breaker was only a 15A so I thought they were just overloading it. So I decided to swap the breaker out to a 20A since they already had #12 wire run.

I still felt uneasy and didn't want to come back to this again so I decided to just dig into this as deep as I could.

First of all, you would need to know I was getting conflicting info between the HO (lady) and her son. The lady originally told me 1/2 the room was out and that's when I found the two bad 3-way switches. When she called the second time she said it was all out and that's when I found the loose neutrals and replaced the breaker which looked a little suspect due to corrosion on the screw/lug, but looked ok on the stab.
The son wasn't sure if everything was out or just 1/2 the room. So I just put their info aside and checked the panel and found several loose neutrals. Tightened them all up, ran everything for a while, then left.

Ok, back to the update. After replacing the 15A breaker with the 20A, I took the hot off the breaker and traced it up to where it entered the panel so I could see which neutral wire went with it. As I said I found several loose neutrals before and wanted to see if this was one of them. I thought I had found the right neutral before, but apparently didn't because of the way they were twisted and crossing each other.
When I traced the neutral down I found it had been hot and the insulation had melted and fused to two other neutrals that were close to it. So I cut off the burnt neutral above where it was burnt, spliced on a new piece of wire and relocated it on the bar.
Turns out the threads of the screw on the neutral bar had welded it's self to the hole, making it appear tight when checking with a screwdriver. But although the screw was tight, it wasn't all the way against the wire making a loose connection. IMO, that's what caused it to overheat and melt the insulation off.

This was about 2 weeks ago and all seems well now.
It was just odd that I found more than one problem that could have caused the loss of power.
Click to expand...

:DLove when you still remember the little things.

My first post:
I'm kind of split on this, you did go out once and make some repairs, but and even you said it, you didn't check the wires in the panel.

Whole house not off, probably not even that whole circuit was off, going off then coming back on, almost always an indication of a loose connection.​
 
Flatpad said:
You unplug everything in the house, then check a second time. This requires moving just about everything in the house to be sure. Then you remove all light bulbs including attic and crawlspace and the ones outside in the fixtures that need to be opened up, some of which need a ladder to get too. Remove and disconnect every GFCI, including the ones outside of the house in outdoor boxes/covers. Remove and disconnect smoke detectors. Disconnect the furnace. Remove and disconnect motion detection lights. Remove and disconnect every dimmer. Disconnect the door bell transformer. And probably a few other things that I am forgetting.

You do all of that, and THEN you do all the work of actually doing the meggering, and also find the fault- all in 20 minutes, everyday?
Click to expand...

I am not going to claim it can be done in 20 minutes, but one suggestion is once you have unplugged things removed lamps, etc. to test the circuit with meter in low resistance range before megging. If you have anything but an infinity reading you likely still have something connected to the circuit.

But this testing only tests the premises wiring, you have to remember that unplugged equipment could contain problems also, so just megging things and telling the customer everything is fine will result in callbacks when they plug the defective equipment back in.
 
kwired said:
I am not going to claim it can be done in 20 minutes, but one suggestion is once you have unplugged things removed lamps, etc. to test the circuit with meter in low resistance range before megging. If you have anything but an infinity reading you likely still have something connected to the circuit.

But this testing only tests the premises wiring, you have to remember that unplugged equipment could contain problems also, so just megging things and telling the customer everything is fine will result in callbacks when they plug the defective equipment back in.
Click to expand...

Well 20 minutes is a long time ;) but ...

The megger is the second step, measuring voltage drop is the first while you do it your removing smokes/gfi's and unplugging appliances etc (also a good time to check smokes and gfi's and offer to replace them if there old). Write down your results then meg the combination of the two and recording your results is key.

This is a basic service I advertise for $100 as a diagnostic anyone with a bad outlet light not working etc then we quote the repair and anything else we find. We also show the customer what we are doing how the test equipment works what we are looking for etc then if we find an issue we show the customer which reinforces the need. For instance the most common thing we find with a megger is loose but working connections. After you measure for drops and you have your megger connected you can plug a plug tester in and lightly shake each outlet when you find a loose connection the megger will jump when you shake it. Pull it apart and show the customer chances are you find some discolored wiring from heat. Now your in a situation where your using technology to find root causes and reinforcing your customers hierarchy of needs. Instead of just "Fixing the bad outlet" your solving there problems and addressing there truest concerns. The end result is a better repair/service, fewer call backs, higher dollar amount per invoice and happier customers.

Anyone ever meg there own house? You may be surprised, measure and record your voltages first tho just put a post-it at each outlet and write the voltage then meg from the panel make your notes on the post-it. Then pull a few devices apart where you have questionable results. See how long it takes it isnt as hard as it sounds obviously your not going to do it in 20 minutes only I'm that good ;). Really efficient and effective. It also eliminates any need to work or test anything hot beyond sticking a tester in an outlet.
 
Gold said:
After you measure for drops and you have your megger connected you can plug a plug tester in and lightly shake each outlet when you find a loose connection the megger will jump when you shake it.
Click to expand...

You don't need a megger for this test, in fact putting a heavy load on the circuit is probably going to find this problem. Meggers are for finding high resistance not low resistance. The loose connection is a low resistance until a load heats it up - then it becomes higher resistance but not so high you need a megger to measure it, if it is that high of a resistance then it already fails a go/no go test with a simple continuity tester.
 
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