My sister had some water penetration in her basement. Water apparently got into an outlet and caused smoke to emit from the outlet. Why would the circuit breaker not trip?
The wiring is all exposed and see says none of the insulation is melted.
What I think might have happened is the water would intermittently short out the contacts but be cooked off before the breaker trips causing the smoke.
I'll be going over there tonight I plan on testing the breaker and installing a new outlet.
Further details the water penetration is an on going problem their basement is ripped apart and the outlet in ? was laying on the floor. I know not the brightest thing when you have a leak in your basement
Look out for aluminum wiring. There's some gunk to clean it so it contacts properly.
(At the old house I had an Al-wired outlet simply smoke from resistive heating. Fortunately we were home.) ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
Democrats are best served up prepared as a hash
Otherwise the dogs will refuse to eat them :)
Because nothing was pulling enough current to trip the breaker.
Try this simple experiment: Plug in a soldering iron. Wait for it to heat up. Put some solder (flux core) on the iron. Look! Smoke! Yet
-- the circuit breaker doesn't trip.
So: you can get smoke, and no circuit breaker tripping.
You've got a hot spot, either from the water cooking off (without drawing lots of current), or from a wiring fault. I'd check for corrosion even if it _isn't_ aluminum wire -- if the basement is leaking now it's probably leaked in the past, and water + metal usually equals corrosion.
--
Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com
Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" was written for you.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html
I think that it was probably steam, rather than smoke, particularly since you say the insulation was not melted.
The breaker didn't trip because the wet outlet didn't draw enough current to trip it.
--
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI
peterbb4 (at) interchange.ubc.ca
GPS and NMEA info: http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter
Vancouver Power Squadron: http://vancouver.powersquadron.ca
Even if there was a GFCI outlet there, it may trip the outlet but the wires leading to it and inside the GFCI are still alive..
To help alleviate the problem in the future, maybe you should have a CFCI breaker installed. Sub panels are normally much higher than an outlet.. If it gets that high, you have a real problem!
Conceivably the circuit breaker is bad... for example, "FPE circuit breakers can fail to trip in response to overcurrent... The breakers may also fail to shut off internally even if the toggle is switched to off" according to
Wikipedia doesn't have an FPE article... just a brief statement on a disambiguation page: "FPE ... can refer to: Federal Pacific Electric, an electrical supply company noted for their circuit breakers ..." :)
Tim Wescott wrote in news:EeKdnaxkveXy6B_RnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@web-ster.com:
That was my intial assumption just wanted some other opionions in case I'm over looking something obvious.
My brother in law is a nice guy but when it comes to home repair well....;-) Thats whose house it is.
I just plan on replaceing the outlet after testing the breaker by shorting the oultlet first. I havent seen it yet, but I do remember he had an outlet on the bare concrete floor. I vaugley remember telling him it wasnt a good idea.
In most areas, the current electrical code requires the use of a ground-fault interruptor, anywhere that an outlet can be exposed to water.
In this case - since the outlet itself can become wet - you might want to seriously consider installing a circuit breaker which has a built-in ground fault interruptor. That would protect the whole circuit (from the breaker, to the outlet, to the devices plugged into it) from any water-induced (or other) leakage to ground.
There's no guarantee, but I think that there's a fairly good chance that a GFCI would have tripped quite quickly in the situation you described. It wouldn't have required a high-current short (which you didn't have, apparently). Even a few milliamperes of leakage from the hot side of the outlet, to the surrounding wet building structure, would have tripped a GFCI-equipped breaker.
--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!
Or, rather less expensively, put in a GFCI outlet as the first item on the circuit. Since it's all exposed wiring, cut in a new box close to the breaker box (and higher than the water level got to) if you feel the need - otherwise just replace the first outlet, and pay attention to which is line and which is load.
here all houses must have a gfi, all old installations also had it added when it became law
here the spec is no less then 15mA and no more than 30mA it must trip
think the min 15mA came from old ones used to be sensitive to lightning close by, not so nice coming home from vacation finding out the freezer has been off for a week
The US frowns on ex post facto laws (not that it's never done).
I believe the trip limit in the US is 5mA. Appliances aren't supposed to have a leakage above .5mA.
That used to be an issue, so freezers were exempt as long as they were on a "single outlet", or some such. GFCIs aren't supposed to be sensitive to surges anymore so I believe that exemption has been rescinded in the latest code.
Ecnerwal wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:
The water is comming in due to the previous owner doing modifications to the sump pump system and weeping tile. There are two pipes maybe an inch above the concrete floor that overflow with water. He had a sump expert come in and he has no idea what the purpose of the two pipes is. Has anybody ever heard of something like that; the two pipes coming out of the floor? He recomended a new sump system and weeping tile about $3 or $4k I think he said.
The water hasnt been high enough to submerge the outlets when they are installed to code (maybe an inch or so just in areas around the pipes) but he has the basement ripped apart to remove any mold from the water. He left an outlet on the floor which is the one in question.
It was melted I just tested the breaker and changed the outlet and tacked it up out of the way until he decides what he's going to do. The wire is definetly weakend from the moisture in the basement I had to strip off quite a bit because it kept breaking from normal bending. I told him to get new wire and I would replace it all when he is ready.
Because it is a circuit breaker, not a smoke detector?
'see?' But I am sure you will find the outlet itself damaged.
Say a 20 amp circuit. Say 15 amps into a semi-short. Breaker will never trip. But 15 amps at 120 volts is about 1,800 watts, all in a small area. That's a lot of heat.
Just how are you going to test the breaker? You don't seem to understand what they are or how they work, so testing it would be rather beyond you abilities probably.
?
Hire a qualified electrican, and get the job done right.
Any undocumented drainage is rather hard to sort, whether it's on usenet or in front of your face, though the latter is sometimes more clear. Likewise, you/your BIL don't know what the previous owner did or did not do, or what mess the last person to work on it (whoever that was) started with. Welcome to houses, and why any you didn't personally build can be maddening. I don't know why they'd be coming out above the floor rather than into a sump pit, but they probably lead to either underfloor or outside of wall drainage. Or an old septic system, or....
In decreasing order of rightness of fix (and amount of work or money):
Cut floor all the way to nearest sump, remove floor in cut, cut pipes and couple to underfloor pipe that runs to sump, repour floor in cut. More work, but tidy. Dry diamond blades and cheap saws or grinders (the dust ruins the bearings, even on good saws and grinders) are your friends here, along with a great dust mask.
Cutting a slot in the floor and leaving it as a path for the water to run to the sump. It will need to be kept clean. Painting the floor after cutting the slot will help to keep the water running.
Coupling a pipe (since there is a stub above floor level) to run above/along the floor to the sump. Annoying to step over.
Caulking an upside-down section of gutter to the floor as a path for the water to run to the sump. I thought this very strange the first time I saw it, but it seems to be standard in some places. Annoying to step over. Floor has to be cleaned well for the caulk to stick.
Plugging or capping the unknown pipes, letting whatever water is coming in by them redirect itself to the known drain pipes that lead to the sump. Depending on the other drainage and what is feeding the pipes, this could be anything from a perfect solution to making everything much worse. Simply don't know, can't know in advance. Not really recommended.
I don't see any point to a new sump system (well, except to the guy selling sump systems) if the problem is these two pipes, rather than the rest of the sump system. Fix the water coming from the pipes, be done.
PeterD wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Wow did you come up with that all by yourself. What wit! Half-Wit that is.
I keep forgetting you need to be very clear and specific for the mental midgets.I said what my conclusion were but I thought I would ask for other opions. I'm not arrogant like some and accept the fact that I might overlook something. In this case that wasnt the case.
I guess you have comprehension difficulty. Whats a semi short twit. Its either shorted or it isnt. It would be more like intermittent short; then the water cooking off before the breaker trips. Did you miss that the first time around dumb ass?
Shorting it out would be my way of testing it pea brain. I guess you might consider that a complex procedure.
What are you an electrician asshole? Thats probably the highest level of education you could attain. What are the qualifications for an electricition GR10 and an apprentiship. Whop-di-doo.
I have an EET , and Bsc so go f*ck yourself. I just dont do residential wireing everyday,nor do I want to. Boreing yawn..!
You mentioned a concrete floor. That's enough to indicate that GFI protection is needed for readily accessible receptacles in the basement, whether or not there is a water problem. A GFCI receptacle installed *** in the first location on the branch circuit is as effective as a GFI breaker to protect against ground faults, is a lot cheaper, and saves a position on the neutral bus in the panel that a GFI breaker would need.
*** = at panel height, for any who want to worry about floods reaching panel height.
I have seen a pipe coming out of a basement wall right above the sump pump hole in order to provide a drainage path to the ground under a paved parking lot behind and above the basement. When that pipe got clogged, water started seeping in all along the basement wall on that side. Cleaning out the clog led to a sudden flood (since the pipe delivered water faster than the sump pump could get rid of it) followed by a no more wall seepages.
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.