Blew my breaker, plug grounded?

M

Mak'er Grow

Well-Known Member
Moabfighter said:
Didn’t fix it. Only thing I can do is clean room out. But guy can’t come back for two days..... fuck. Bought some lamps last night :/

everything had been perfectly fine man. I didn’t add any extra to it. If nothung else? I’m using half the watts I was this time last month. Back in veg
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If you turn your main off then you should be able to open the outlet up safely and see if any wires or the plug have melted or you may even see black scorch marks where its 'grounded' itself out.
You could hide the plants and equipment in a rental van for the few hours the electrician is there...then move back when its fixed. :P
 
Moabfighter

Moabfighter

Well-Known Member
Mak'er Grow said:
If you turn your main off then you should be able to open the outlet up safely and see if any wires or the plug have melted or you may even see black scorch marks where its 'grounded' itself out.
You could hide the plants and equipment in a rental van for the few hours the electrician is there...then move back when its fixed. :P
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Okay I will turn the main off and open the suspect plug off. But I still don’t understand the remedy. I make some wires that are touching not be touching or whatever and my breaker will come back on properly? Or will something have to be uninstalled/reinstalled. Didn’t take electrical class in school man..... just wiring up my lights was a big pain.
Also is this a common slow building occurrence? As I said a lot now, setup hasn’t changed etc. it’s been exactly this way for over a year. Just slowly been wearing it down or...? Dust got in it? Just can’t figure out what caused this
 
M

Mak'er Grow

Well-Known Member
Moabfighter said:
Okay I will turn the main off and open the suspect plug off. But I still don’t understand the remedy. I make some wires that are touching not be touching or whatever and my breaker will come back on properly? Or will something have to be uninstalled/reinstalled. Didn’t take electrical class in school man..... just wiring up my lights was a big pain.
Also is this a common slow building occurrence? As I said a lot now, setup hasn’t changed etc. it’s been exactly this way for over a year. Just slowly been wearing it down or...? Dust got in it? Just can’t figure out what caused this
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First question...yup, after you turn off the main breaker if you disconnect the wires from the plug/outlet and cover the end of the wires with electrical tape you can leave them sitting...you just don't want them to touch bare metal or your skin.
Then turn all the breakers back on normally..if nothing trips then the outlet has a short and needs replacing.
Remember to turn power back off before you install new outlet plug. ;)
Second question...yes again...this happens a lot...I've seen it mainly with portable heaters or fireplaces that pull a lot of amperage...the wires and metal parts in the plug heat up and start to slowly melt the plastics holding them until eventually the lines get too close to one another or a ground and short out and then it pops the breaker/fuse.
For reference here is a link that shows front of plug looks ok, but when they opened it they found a big mess. :P

Electrical outlet melted - DoItYourself.com Community Forums

Electrical outlet melted - Electrical - AC & DC
www.doityourself.com
 
The Gram Reaper

The Gram Reaper

Well-Known Member
I just had a similar situation when I upgraded my a/c. When it would kick on/over the draw would pop stuff out that wasn't on circuit with it so I used an outside line. Its like it was pulling so much energy from the entire box that it would kick out stuff on other breakers.

Are you running something in your house that you weren't running before the power outing?
 
natureboygrower

natureboygrower

Well-Known Member
Moabfighter said:
Okay I will turn the main off and open the suspect plug off. But I still don’t understand the remedy. I make some wires that are touching not be touching or whatever and my breaker will come back on properly? Or will something have to be uninstalled/reinstalled. Didn’t take electrical class in school man..... just wiring up my lights was a big pain.
Also is this a common slow building occurrence? As I said a lot now, setup ha mosn’t changed etc. it’s been exactly this way for over a year. Just slowly been wearing it down or...? Dust got in it? Just can’t figure out what caused this
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Pull it apart, look for damage and you might as well replace it. Take pics before you disconnect it. Disregard the red wires in my pic and pretend they're black like yours are probably going to be. Your black wire(s) are more than likely going to be your hot but you never know what the guy before you did. I recommend a wand, they are really cheap( like this one from the depot).
Breaker on
20200930_112911.jpgBreaker off
20200930_112916.jpg

You can also check your wires with them pulled right off your outlet
 
DrKiz

DrKiz

Well-Known Member
Mak'er Grow said:

Electrical outlet melted - DoItYourself.com Community Forums

Electrical outlet melted - Electrical - AC & DC
www.doityourself.com
Click to expand...
This is what mine looked like inside. We smelled a strange smell one day, investigated the house and grow room and couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. I chalked it up to the smoke outside from all the fires recently.

The next day is when I was awoken by the smoke detector, jumped out of bed and ripped straight to the growroom expecting the tent to be burning or something. Nothing wrong with the tent, but the outlet was on fire and the cord in it burning as well. Flipped the breaker and had a look inside.

I took the pictures from @Mak'er Grow link and saved them so I could post them here78a93ad3-f22e-4812-bff5-0d21609103e3.jpg1990a489-4e1b-484c-8ecf-7cdecb875272.jpg9187f2f2-5c1c-4235-916a-caeb465fd424.jpg in case in the future someone else looks up this thread. They will be able to see exactly what can happen before a fire actually breaks out... it starts on the inside, you won't see anything from the outside.

Don't overload your lines. If you are using extension cords and they are hot, you have too much going through it.
 
Moabfighter

Moabfighter

Well-Known Member
DrKiz said:
This is what mine looked like inside. We smelled a strange smell one day, investigated the house and grow room and couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. I chalked it up to the smoke outside from all the fires recently.

The next day is when I was awoken by the smoke detector, jumped out of bed and ripped straight to the growroom expecting the tent to be burning or something. Nothing wrong with the tent, but the outlet was on fire and the cord in it burning as well. Flipped the breaker and had a look inside.

I took the pictures from @Mak'er Grow link and saved them so I could post them hereView attachment 4699685View attachment 4699686View attachment 4699687 in case in the future someone else looks up this thread. They will be able to see exactly what can happen before a fire actually breaks out... it starts on the inside, you won't see anything from the outside.

Don't overload your lines. If you are using extension cords and they are hot, you have too much going through it.
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Dude thank you and @natureboygrower for the help I will use this info properly. But honestly if I’ve done this to one of my plugs..... burnt it like that.... I’m done growing. If I’m too stupid to not burn the house down, I don’t need to be doing the grow anymore.
 
natureboygrower

natureboygrower

Well-Known Member
Moabfighter said:
Dude thank you and @natureboygrower for the help I will use this info properly. But honestly if I’ve done this to one of my plugs..... burnt it like that.... I’m done growing. If I’m too stupid to not burn the house down, I don’t need to be doing the grow anymore.
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The fact that this alarms you makes you a responsible home owner. Find the problem and KEEP GROWING. Outlets fail, dude. Everything does in a home lol.
 
DrKiz

DrKiz

Well-Known Member
Moabfighter said:
Dude thank you and @natureboygrower for the help I will use this info properly. But honestly if I’ve done this to one of my plugs..... burnt it like that.... I’m done growing. If I’m too stupid to not burn the house down, I don’t need to be doing the grow anymore.
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Hey, I know how you feel. Scared the shit out of me. When it comes to family I could give a shit about the plants if this was going to be an ongoing issue.

The electrician I contacted was really helpful. With cannabis legal here I had no problem showing him my grows and all the little things that a guy needs plugged in to make it work. Bluelab Gaurdian, fans, exhaust, lights... you know.. a tonne of cords and wattage drawn.

As an electrician he found this pretty exciting, a new above ground industry for him. I got him to put in two 15AMP breakers into the room. I wanted to make sure I'd never have this issue again.

He let me know you don't want to use the full 15 Amps.. best off to keep it way under.. I try not to draw any more than 1000 watts out of each of these outlets. No problems since then and no hot cords.

You have to be careful, as sometimes it's not so obvious what is drawing. Right now with that breaker down, you can see how many things are drawing off of that breaker. Those are the appliances and outlets you need to be concerned with and count your wattage from.

I'd suggest getting an independent line in. One 15 amp fuse will power your lights with ease, and you can just plug your accessories into the existing outlets. This should give you plenty of lee-way.

Also, it should go without saying that you should have at a bare minimum one fire extinguisher next to your growroom and a functional and tested smoke detector.

If you take the proper precautions, you should be fine!
 
Renfro

Renfro

Well-Known Member
DrKiz said:
This is what mine looked like inside. We smelled a strange smell one day, investigated the house and grow room and couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. I chalked it up to the smoke outside from all the fires recently.

The next day is when I was awoken by the smoke detector, jumped out of bed and ripped straight to the growroom expecting the tent to be burning or something. Nothing wrong with the tent, but the outlet was on fire and the cord in it burning as well. Flipped the breaker and had a look inside.

I took the pictures from @Mak'er Grow link and saved them so I could post them hereView attachment 4699685View attachment 4699686View attachment 4699687 in case in the future someone else looks up this thread. They will be able to see exactly what can happen before a fire actually breaks out... it starts on the inside, you won't see anything from the outside.

Don't overload your lines. If you are using extension cords and they are hot, you have too much going through it.
Click to expand...
Thats common when you have aluminum wire on a receptacle thats not rates for aluminum wire.
 
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