Playing a bit of detective...

M

ModbusMan

Senior Member
Location
Cleveland, OH
Occupation
Building Automation Engineer
Following on from the "Tracing breaker.." thread, just looking for group brainstorming. In keeping with forum rules, I want no discussion of actual work or stuff like that, I'm just curious what the assembly might come up with... Here's the scene (some details updated since I went and looked at my notes again this morning):
- My house was built in 1979
- The line in question is a 6/8 3W+G THW that had been connected and energized to the house's FedPac panel. When the panel was swapped, I had the electrician leave it disconnected because we couldn't find anything that it went to. Five-some years later, I still haven't.
- This line appears original to the house. It's run together with other shared-neutral circuits that supply the second floor, and the outer jacket's style and aging is consistent with other large original lines (e.g. clothes dryer)
- It's the only stranded line in the house. Everything else is solid.
- The wire goes up the side of the house together with the other 2F wires and crosses over the family room, where I lose it (and the others) in blown-in insulation.

So basically... what might it have been for? I ruled out an RV port or attic exhaust fan two years ago while doing the roof and siding. The previous owner's hot tub wire was removed completely during the panel replacement. Since this one goes over the first floor ceiling, it's not an out-building of some kind. Given the house's age, might the original owners have also been iron lung users? What other equipment of 45 years ago could pull upwards of 12kW (assuming it was connected line-to-line)?

(Mods: I thought about putting this in Campfire since it's hardly work related, but it's also electrical which CC isn't, sooo...? Move wherever it makes most sense if this isn't it)
 
ptonsparky said:
Iron lung would predate that wire. Hot tub or a feeder to a panel somewhere would have been my WAG and it would have been added after '79.
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Yes and no... I remember seeing public-interest articles just a year or two ago about how there were still a tiny number of Polio survivors using the things, and for a kid born in '49, they'd be 30 when the house was built, so just entering middle age. Or a family taking care of a senior (more likely?). No idea how much those things weighed (could a 2FL bedroom handle it?) or their power consumption, which is probably why it popped into my head. A sub-panel could make sense... the original FedPac was undersized and already had a sub right next to it, but I would have expected something to go dark when the wire came off the breaker, and that didn't happen.

readydave8 said:
Outbuilding that's no longer there

Edit: many times would run thru attic to get to other side of house to reduce digging
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But during the construction phase, why go through the attic (climbing over open framing and pulling more wire) when you can run a straight-shot through the unfinished basement? Seems like extra work, extra material, and extra chances to get hurt.
 
OldBroadcastTech said:
Electric furnace to supplement heat on the 2nd floor ?

Just a S.W.A.G.
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Hmm... that would be unusual for my part of the country (Cleveland has always been a natural gas kind of place, even when it goes 'BOOM'), but a little extra action on the baseboards probably wouldn't have raised many eyebrows, at least as long as shag carpet wasn't also involved. As for being a SWAG, well, that's what we're all doing in the absence of having found anything instructive :)
 
ModbusMan said:
their power consumption
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I thought iron lungs simply plugged into a normal 15A receptacle. They used a small vacuum pump to assist in breathing.

I was just at my son's relatively new house. There is a large NM cable that runs from the loadcenter to the utility room near the garage. It is not connected on either end and there is no breaker to feed it. Best guess is it was put in when the basement was 'finished' just because it might come in handy some day to someone.
 
jim dungar said:
I thought iron lungs simply plugged into a normal 15A receptacle. They used a small vacuum pump to assist in breathing.

I was just at my son's relatively new house. There is a large NM cable that runs from the loadcenter to the utility room near the garage. It is not connected on either end and there is no breaker to feed it. Best guess is it was put in when the basement was 'finished' just because it might come in handy some day to someone.
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Do they? I was familiar with how they worked, but zero clue as to how much power was actually required. Being a regular 15A device, though, would pretty much rule that out as being my missing ginormous gadget. It kind of sounds like your son has a similar thing going on... did his builders just leave the far end coiled up somewhere? It'd be nice if that's what's actually happened at my place... save a fair bit of money when it comes time to hire a guy to put in some Level 2 chargers if excess wire is just sitting there unused (but then... why was it landed on the FedPac? mysteries mysteries...)
 
jim dungar said:
I thought iron lungs simply plugged into a normal 15A receptacle. They used a small vacuum pump to assist in breathing.
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Yep, plug in to normal receptacle. A motor operates a bellows.

I had a distant cousin get Polio as an ADULT! Just a few years before Salk's vaccine came on the market. Not just a kid's disease. They had the first house generator I ever saw.
 
Frank DuVal said:
Kiln?
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Ooohhh, now that's an interesting idea! I don't know anything about the original owners apart from their names (via property records), but if they were crafty/artsy types, and the owners between them and me weren't, I could easily imagine an (improperly) drywalled-over workbox or loose end swimming in the insulation fluff.
 
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