Rant Of An Electrician
Rant Of An Electrician
While I am never surprised by what may or may not cause electrical problems, I can tell you in the last week I have corrected 4 hum issues at a HUGH Church, a major Cable channel, an apartment building and a data center.
Everyone of them had the exact problem in various forms, a grounded neutral downstream from the main service or separately derived service, each and every error was a byproduct of sloppy electrical work. IN each and every case the electrician was given the opportunity to find the problem and in each case they said they had expended all possible avenues and the issue was with the equipment. I try not to be blinded when I investigate these issues but based upon my past experiences I always look for ground current first, when a building has separately derived distribution systems it simplifies locating the problem over a building with 208/120 distribution.
Accidentally grounded neutrals such as 6/32 cut into the wire, wire nut fell off, neutral intentionally grounded downstream for what ever reason (OH THEY LOVE THAT GREEN SCREW), defective busway neutral shorted to ground, neutral from one transformer tied into circuit of another transformer. Primary Neutral pulled into a delta wye transformer and connected to the secondary XO/Neutral/grounded conductor, 120 branch circuit neutral connected to a 277 vac circuit, neutral bonded on the load side of the Window Ct of a GFP system, EGC tied into neutral bus downstream of main service and of course a EGC utilized as a neutral because they forgot to include a neutral in the circuit, (I have seen this on 20 amp branch circuits and on a 400 amp feeder).
Then there was the electrician at a code seminar I was at 3 years ago that asked why manufactures packaged a 10/32 X 1" green screw with every panel, BIG MOUTH me butted in assuming He did commercial work and I said not to worry throw them away, WHOOPS he does track homes and had a large box of these screws. I stuck to my guns and told him to throw the evidence away.
So if sometimes I seem cynical, short or just upset, consider that I just cannot believe the lack of care lack of education and just plain sloppy work I see EVERYDAY and it really bothers me. I go out of my way to assist educate help and it seems to me MOST do not care WHICH REALLY BUGS ME.
*Hum- not always in the audio but also in video seen as hum bars-scrolling lines...Used here as an all encompassing term.