I am thinking of buying a used mobile home. There is some speculation that the home has possibly been stuck by lightning. My father is a licensed electrical contractor and I work underneath him but we have never dealt with anything that has been damaged by lightning. My question is what do we look for to determine whether the home has been stuck or not other than the obvious which would be inspecting all outlets and fixtures. There doesnt appear to be any smoke or burnt wires inside of the outlet boxes. THe only reason we have any concern is because a "handyman" was called in to repair an A/C return and the homeowner claims he sprayed coil cleaner(specified for outdoor air handler use only) on the coils inside the air handler and it seeped through a hole in the floor and onto several wires beneath and burned them to the point of shorting out. The "handyman" claims it is lightning damage...the homeowner claims its the handymans fault. Any ideas on how to get to the bottom of the actual cause of this problem?
Lightning Damage Detection
- Thread starter kyled86
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mdshunk
Senior Member
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Hire a forensic scientist to take a sample to the lab??kyled86 said:
I'm no lightening expert, but I should think that a megger would prove out any stressed areas
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- Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
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- Service Manager
As this page was loading, I was thinking "megger" and saw Marc's post and about headed back out the door - but I looked a bit closer and came to a different conclusion. It sounds as though the problem has been located, just a cause remains to be seen.
In that case, the megger's work is already done, IMO. A visual inspection would be the determiner whether it was lightning or chemicals that destroyed the wire.
All things being equal, mobiles are cheap. Why not just buy a new one?
In that case, the megger's work is already done, IMO. A visual inspection would be the determiner whether it was lightning or chemicals that destroyed the wire.
All things being equal, mobiles are cheap. Why not just buy a new one?
mdshunk
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:grin: Oh, brother.georgestolz said:
Another option is to call Radio Shack. Last time I phoned them, they answered with, "Helllo RadioShack. You've got questions, we've got answers."
Seriously though, I thought that the OP was concerned with whether there was any other damage besides this suspected chemical burnt spot. In that case, a megger would root out any others, I feel. Rodents prefer to chew on mobile home wiring, as they can easily get underneath and use the floor and wall insulation as a superhighway. I normally think rodent damage when I roll on a mobile home service call with dead circuits.
allenwayne
Senior Member
Don`t think I have ever seen a mobile home with a split unit.All we have here are package units a/c + heat,guess i have been in florida to long.
When I go to a mobile home service call for dead part of a circuit , all I can think of are those cruddy one piece receptacle/switch/box devices.I hate those things.
When I go to a mobile home service call for dead part of a circuit , all I can think of are those cruddy one piece receptacle/switch/box devices.I hate those things.
The handman who repaired the wires that were supposed burnt by chemicals...claims there was an outlet burnt out and blown out of the wall in one of the bedroom...after inspection of all the outlets...on the outside as well as the inside of the boxes themselves I cannot find any visible problems. The homeowner got rid of the handyman after he told him the whole ac system was toast and never paid him for changing out the one wire that was burnt. I am starting to think the handyman is just PO'd with the owner because I fired up the A/c the other day and it works flawlessly...heating and cooling. I was just curious if there were any other signs of lightning damage. The homeowner is still blaming it on the handyman and his coil cleaner and the handyman is saying that the lightning done it. Ill try to get underneath today and see where the chemical seeped to and see if it burnt any other parts such as the insulation.
brian john
Senior Member
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- Leesburg, VA
If a visual inspection shows no damage, I would megger the conductors, neutral/grounded conductor to the phase/line conductor and then both conductors to ground.
If all readings are in an acceptable range, new outlets, switches and lights and your ready to go, if not either run away or set it on fire, in which case you better run as arson is illegal in all 50 states.
If all readings are in an acceptable range, new outlets, switches and lights and your ready to go, if not either run away or set it on fire, in which case you better run as arson is illegal in all 50 states.
brian john said:
LOL...that brightened my day...I think we have it traced down to being a problem within the furnace itself. I cannot find any sign of where wires have been burned due to chemicals...nor lightening...except...some of the wires inside of the inside unit or furnace or whatever you guys like to call it. Some of the insulation on the wires seem to be pitted. The homeowner mentioned touching the unit at the time of all these problems and getting a pretty strong shock...this was recently after the unit had been sprayed with coil cleaner. Im starting to think the handyman was afraid he ruined the AC with the coil cleaner so he started to blame it on lightning. Does this sound like a possibility to anyone? There was also a loose ground subfeeding into the home...the 4th wire wasnt tightened down like it should be which may help explain the cover on the unit shocking him.
- Location
- Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
- Occupation
- Service Manager
mdshunk said:
Marc, I'm curious about this. Could you clear out your Inbox, that we may discuss it?
If I offended you in some way, that was not my intention.
Simply put, if someone walked up to me in person and said something along the lines of the opening post, I'd reply "Dang, I bought my double-wide for $30k brand-new, are you sure you don't want to keep looking around?"
Now that more info has been provided, and it sounds like a lot of drama over a single appliance, then I would take that advice back and agree that the megger will ease any troubled minds over the wiring.
Anyway, if you like to chat about it, my inbox is currently open.
georgestolz said:Marc, I'm curious about this. Could you clear out your Inbox, that we may discuss it?
If I offended you in some way, that was not my intention.
Simply put, if someone walked up to me in person and said something along the lines of the opening post, I'd reply "Dang, I bought my double-wide for $30k brand-new, are you sure you don't want to keep looking around?"
Now that more info has been provided, and it sounds like a lot of drama over a single appliance, then I would take that advice back and agree that the megger will ease any troubled minds over the wiring.
Anyway, if you like to chat about it, my inbox is currently open.
I have never used a megger before...I dont beleive we even have one...that I am aware of. We do...however have some sort of device that we use from time to time to determine if an underground wire has a fault in it. Say for instance we have buried a wire from a home to an external building etc. We also have some attachments that we hook up to it to locate the actual place where the fault is occuring. This may be a similiar machine because we remove all loads and take the wires loose from the panel box. I am not sure though. I cant even tell you what the thing is called. I do operate it from time to time though haha.
brian john
Senior Member
- Location
- Leesburg, VA
We don't own a megger.
I have always worked for contractors that furnish and use meggers, I can't imigine not owning a megger anymore that I would do electric work (commercial and large residential) without a wiggy.
Personally I would NEVER energize a switchboard, feeder or much a less busway with out first meggering it. ESPICALLY busway, we insist on each piece being meggered when it shows up at a site, as each piece goes up and then the completed section each day.
I have 20 employees and 25-30 meggers that we furnish to all employees and train them on the proper use.
I have always worked for contractors that furnish and use meggers, I can't imigine not owning a megger anymore that I would do electric work (commercial and large residential) without a wiggy.
Personally I would NEVER energize a switchboard, feeder or much a less busway with out first meggering it. ESPICALLY busway, we insist on each piece being meggered when it shows up at a site, as each piece goes up and then the completed section each day.
I have 20 employees and 25-30 meggers that we furnish to all employees and train them on the proper use.
I may be wrong...but from reading other threads on this forum...I get the notion that a megger will not expose insulation damage unless the hot leg/legs is/are making contact with the ground or neutral conductors. As I said I may be wrong...but there seems to be mixed opinions of the use of meggers on this forum especially when it comes to megging romex wire. By the way...I have removed every receptical and light switch as well as examining the meter base and sep and have found no signs of any type of lightning damage....everything looks just as if it was just rolled out of the plant yesterday. All of the wires are original and intact.
brian john
Senior Member
- Location
- Leesburg, VA
http://www.tpub.com/neets/book3/7o.htm
In lieu of any other test equipment available for verifying the insulation of conductors, the level of security a megger offers in the hands of a qualified person and this is the industry standard for insulation resistance testing equipment under 600 VAC. Believe me a megger is the piece of test equipment to own after a wiggy, multimeter and amp clamp.
In lieu of any other test equipment available for verifying the insulation of conductors, the level of security a megger offers in the hands of a qualified person and this is the industry standard for insulation resistance testing equipment under 600 VAC. Believe me a megger is the piece of test equipment to own after a wiggy, multimeter and amp clamp.
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