Ask the Electrician

ummm yep

 

Hey guys, I need some advice. I was running a portable air conditioner in my bedroom when I started smelling something burnt. I immediately turned off the air conditioner. I couldn't trace the burn smell to anything so later I turned the air conditioner back on. Well during the night, all my electrical stuff in my bedroom started flickering. I can see some flashes in the ceiling light fixture. I went and turned off my breaker. When I opened up the light fixture, I can see some wires were burned. I cleaned up the burned wires a bit, but didn't reconnect the light fixture. I went and turned the breaker back on. Everything in my bedroom seemed ok. The question is, what should I do next? Cut off the burned wires and make a clean connection? Go up in the attic and make sure nothing else is burned? How can I use my portable air conditioner without having to worry about this happening again?

 

I’m not a electrician. My portable AC unit runs on a dedicated line. Sound like you are overloading the wiring. Once agin just a laymen’s opinion.

 

What size is the window unit?

 

There may have been a slightly loose connection on the light fixture all along. If the wiring for the plug your a/c was on happens to run through there also, the extra load from your a/c unit may have been enough to expose the problem. Also not an electrician. And to answer your question, yes I'd probably snip a little off the end of the wires to be safe and reconnect. And a trip to the attic is always a good idea if not just to browse over anything else you can check out that you don't normally see until it's too late.

 

I would get a certified electrician to take a look at this point before I burned my house down, but that's just me.

 

It's not a window unit, it's a portable one that is 8000 btu.

 

Sounds like the branch circuit runs through the fixture downstream to the receptacle. If the unit is drawing to many amps in theory your over current protection should have triggered (Breaker tripped). This unless of course you have an old Fed Pac Panel at which I would get that replaced ASAP! I would have an electrician come in for a service call and have a look at the crispy wiring it shouldn't cost you all that much for peace of mind and that's what I would recommend to my customers for sure if they had this issue.

 

Agreed. Sounds like loose connections but have an Electrician come and check it out. As for running your portable a/c, A dining room is a great spot to use them. As in most most cases (not all) the dining room is a 20 amp circuit without much load. But when the Electrician shows up ask him about fishing up a dedicated circuit to where you want the unit to sit.

 

Thanks for the advice all. I'll call an electrician and have him check it out.

 

Any advise on for a Apprenticeship interview? Looking to switch career fields and have an interview coming up soon with the electrical program in my area.

 

Refresh your math and comprehension skillz is all I got for now
Good luck

 

Hopefully it’s a union apprenticeship! But yeah just brush up on your basic algebra and some geometry and mechanical skills. When you interview talk about living an active lifestyle and not just hanging out with friends at houses. That’s what I was told when I got in and helped me get in the top 5.

 

Really appreciate the info! It’s the small things like that, that you mentioned that could give me the edge. Fortunately enough, I grew up doing very manorial intensive labor in my household so I’m not stranger to hard work. Thank you for advice, I greatly appreciate it.

 

Ongoing problem for several years, fluorescent lights not all lighting up. 6, 4 gang 4 footers. Sometimes some light up and some don't. Might be 2 of the four in some of them. Might be none, or all. Now get this:

When the humidity is over 55% is when this happens. Temp doesn't matter, 40f or 90f. Just high humidity. IF they don't all light I found that a torch shooting heat up at them will make them light up. Not a lot of heat, just a propane torch moving around under each light.

I have put in new bulbs, and replaced ballasts in one fixture, no change in results. I have tried running a ground wire from the fixture to the outside ground rod, didn't help. Also tried an aluminum foil ball between the bulb an fixture, no go.

Again, it seems the humidity, not the temp.
The sparkies I know just say... put in new fixtures.

 

Fluorescents are cheep now-a-days. It isn't really worth working on them. Some 4 lamp fixtures have two ballast. Some only have 1 ballast. Fixtures with 2 ballast fire the lamps in pairs (2 outside / 2 inside) Fixtures with only 1 ballast usually fire in pairs. But they can act strange too.

The "Guns" inside each end of the tubes are heating the gas to it's excitation point. And this produces LIGHT. That is why heating the tubes help FIRE the lamps. Sometimes you can just warm them with your hand.

The problem your experiencing is probably related to connections at the Tumbstones (the lamp holder / sockets). You can buy replacements at your local electrical supply house. And they are relatively cheep. But, the effort to replace all of the sockets will be more than replacing the fixture.

Just my $0.02

PS: Buy new 4ft LED's. You only need 1 fixture to replace 2 fluorescents.

 

You can change the ballasts in the fixtures but cost wise would be the same to buy new LED 4’ lights at Lowes. New fixtures are 44$ a piece and ballasts last time I checked were 38$.

 

Thanks for the replies. I will be putting in LEDs.
I would still like to know how the hell humidity can affect them. ??

 

Just a guess. - Contact points in the tombstones are week. Flow of electrical current from the bulb pins to the contacts on the tombstones combined with humidity will speed up the corrosion process.