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RJohnsonMasterElectrician

RJohnsonMasterElectrician

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Right now ??, previously VT
I couldn't find a section for general pics of electrical equipment etc. So hope this is the right place.
When I remove electrical equipment that has had issues I take pics of them for my reference and to give to Inspectors so they can use them to teach code classes.
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These receptacle pics came from a rental that had their fuel delivery refused due to money. So they were heating this apartment with electrical space heating equipment and you can guess what happened next. Oh yea it was Knob and Tube wiring. If you look close at screw you can see the conductor literally welded itself to it.

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This was an old fused style panel being used for off peak hot water. If you look closely there's a hole the size of your fist between the two fuse holders. It got so hot it melted the back of panel away and caught the back board on fire which led to a structure that we were called to. The fuse on the transformer never tripped, it was hot until the power company showed up and pulled the meter.
The owner of the property kept seeing his bill go up but just attributed it to the college kids taking longer, hotter showers.
 
Everybody's seen receptacles like that but the panel, it looks someboby put that on a BBQ pit, it doesn't look like electricity did that.
 
dcspector said:
"Yeah yeah" I quote again....Was that service equipment? Or Load side equipment? GEC vs. EGC.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure Greg, it looks like 6 gauge, at least from inside the panel, and it seems to be a GEC. But, The K&T type insulation on it outside the box makes it seem like it might be an EGC.

I'm thinking sub panel. What do you come up with?
 
You know what Greg, I really didn't even notice that hole. But it looks like it could have come from a service entrance or a feeder. That's some old gear and OCPD's back then, well. I think I know what you're thinking, Service entrance. I'm still thinking sub panel.
 
Sam I am not a fire investigator (have been on a few) but it appears to have been a major fault which did the damage and caused the fire. Just "guessuming" at this point. Looks like SEU....could be service equipment but I don't know. The old days and hard to tell what they did.
 
I really can't say I know either but the amount of evenly distributed carbon in that thing causes me to think it probably wasn't an electrical fault that generated it.

Edit: there's a seperation wall in there that the carbon somehow didn't care about. This thing had no dead front on it when this happened.

Extra Edit: And it looks like it must have been upside down facing the carbon source.
 
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dcspector said:
"Yeah yeah" I quote again....Was that service equipment? Or Load side equipment? GEC vs. EGC.
Click to expand...

Service equipment.

The conductors coming through the top of the panel are the feed conductors. the one on the left is a phase conductor and the one on the right is the neutral conductor. The other phase conductor completely melted away. The solid copper conductor you see went to and old ground clamp on the water main before the meter. The panel was installed before ground rods were used or at least none were installed at the time.
 
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