More electric help
December 21, 2022 9:44 AM Subscribe
My power is still cycling on and off and it is super stressful and also 20 degrees out.
Since my last question, the apartment management has taken the following steps:
i am sending management a video of the power going on and off because the electrician won't come back until i can prove it's happening.
the power company won't come out full stop according to management office, and power company won't talk to me since i am just a renter.
i mapped out all the breakers and which lights/outlets they went to. breaker 4 is the only one not affected, so all my work stuff (i WFH) is currently plugged in there with copious extension cords.
i don't know what else to tell the mgmt company to look for. please give me some ideas of what could be causing this and how it might possibly be fixed. this is stressing me out so much because i can't use most of my apartment, it's very cold out and the furnace goes out when the power goes out, and i'm still worried about an electrical fire or something.
i have talked to a couple of the other units in the building (8 units) and none of them are having issues.
map of all the outlets
pic of breaker box
pic of wiring diagram
video (power goes out at about :33 and 2:15. the beeping and the clicking and whatnot when the power comes back on is all my shit powering back on)
(please note that my locality does not have a tenants' rights organization, or an office of enforcement for renters, or anything like that. i contacted a couple departments in the city government and they said to google for renting laws in the state and that the city didn't have anyone to help. the neighboring city does, but that doesn't help me. please do not suggest calling a lawyer. please do not suggest withholding rent. this is an electricity question.)
- replaced the problematic outlets (didn't help)
- replaced my very expensive LEDs with incandescents (didn't help)
- replaced all the breakers in my breaker box (didn't help)
- made me unplug literally everything except the fridge and one light because i "had too much plugged in" (didn't help, fridge and light still cycled off and on)
- replaced one of the outside breakers apparently the one on my unit's meter or something (helped for about a month)
i am sending management a video of the power going on and off because the electrician won't come back until i can prove it's happening.
the power company won't come out full stop according to management office, and power company won't talk to me since i am just a renter.
i mapped out all the breakers and which lights/outlets they went to. breaker 4 is the only one not affected, so all my work stuff (i WFH) is currently plugged in there with copious extension cords.
i don't know what else to tell the mgmt company to look for. please give me some ideas of what could be causing this and how it might possibly be fixed. this is stressing me out so much because i can't use most of my apartment, it's very cold out and the furnace goes out when the power goes out, and i'm still worried about an electrical fire or something.
i have talked to a couple of the other units in the building (8 units) and none of them are having issues.
map of all the outlets
pic of breaker box
pic of wiring diagram
video (power goes out at about :33 and 2:15. the beeping and the clicking and whatnot when the power comes back on is all my shit powering back on)
(please note that my locality does not have a tenants' rights organization, or an office of enforcement for renters, or anything like that. i contacted a couple departments in the city government and they said to google for renting laws in the state and that the city didn't have anyone to help. the neighboring city does, but that doesn't help me. please do not suggest calling a lawyer. please do not suggest withholding rent. this is an electricity question.)
Response by poster: hmm, i don't know what a main breaker disconnect is, but here's a zoomed out pic of the box (with the new breakers that they put it).
posted by misanthropicsarah at 10:23 AM on December 21, 2022
posted by misanthropicsarah at 10:23 AM on December 21, 2022
When this happened to me (and the first sign of it was actually a GFCI tripping when you used something not on that circuit in a different part of the house), the problem was actually the clamp on the overhead power line coming loose. When that happened, I was getting fluctuating voltage; my ceiling (LED) lights were dimming and brightening on occasion and it felt like I had a poltergeist. When it came to a head the fridge cycled and I had very similar power problems to you.
Basically, it was a bad connection upstream of me, and it feels like this is similar to your problem. That's more likely if the devices that are being affected are on all your breakers rather than just one. If it isn't affecting other tenants it's probably on your circuit, and therefore inside the building.
"Politely" point out that bad wiring causes property damage and that there is no way in earth this is your problem ('too much plugged in' is not going to cause this, and it's why circuits have breakers, for instance).
Also, your apartment company is being bullshit here and you should talk to a local tenants rights organisation about what you should do to strongarm them. This is not the quality of apartment you're paying for.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 10:28 AM on December 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
Basically, it was a bad connection upstream of me, and it feels like this is similar to your problem. That's more likely if the devices that are being affected are on all your breakers rather than just one. If it isn't affecting other tenants it's probably on your circuit, and therefore inside the building.
"Politely" point out that bad wiring causes property damage and that there is no way in earth this is your problem ('too much plugged in' is not going to cause this, and it's why circuits have breakers, for instance).
Also, your apartment company is being bullshit here and you should talk to a local tenants rights organisation about what you should do to strongarm them. This is not the quality of apartment you're paying for.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 10:28 AM on December 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
hmm, i don't know what a main breaker disconnect is
One Switch To Rule Them All. It powers everything off, all the circuits at once, by cutting the power coming into the panel.
That's a subpanel (that is, downstream of a main panel where the power comes into the building) and it doesn't seem to have one. The subpanels in my house of that vintage don't either; you turn them off at the main board if you need to do that.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 10:32 AM on December 21, 2022
One Switch To Rule Them All. It powers everything off, all the circuits at once, by cutting the power coming into the panel.
That's a subpanel (that is, downstream of a main panel where the power comes into the building) and it doesn't seem to have one. The subpanels in my house of that vintage don't either; you turn them off at the main board if you need to do that.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 10:32 AM on December 21, 2022
Do your lights flicker/go out everywhere, or just in one part of the apartment? Also, how long did you live there before this started happening- did you just recently move in?
If there's a potential fire risk, I wonder maybe you could request an inspection from your fire department, and they could possibly force your landlord to do more.
posted by pinochiette at 10:33 AM on December 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
If there's a potential fire risk, I wonder maybe you could request an inspection from your fire department, and they could possibly force your landlord to do more.
posted by pinochiette at 10:33 AM on December 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
Based on the zoomed out photo, that is technically a sub-panel and it does not have a main breaker (typically not required as long as the main breaker is elsewhere in the same building). It also looks like they only replaced the single pole breakers (the 15 and 20A ones) as they have the shiny new Square D logos on them. They go for about $6 a pop right now.
If nobody else is having the issue, then have them verify both the lugs inside of your panel and then the breaker on the main panel that feeds your sub-panel. It may be that a vibration near the main panel from something like a truck driving by is causing the intermittent connection.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 10:47 AM on December 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
If nobody else is having the issue, then have them verify both the lugs inside of your panel and then the breaker on the main panel that feeds your sub-panel. It may be that a vibration near the main panel from something like a truck driving by is causing the intermittent connection.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 10:47 AM on December 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
Also not an electrician, but have adjacent experience.
I think SegFaultCoreDump has nailed it. If you look at your wiring diagram photo, you can see that the leg marked "A" feeds breaker slots 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11, while the "B" leg feeds 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12. The problem is on the "A" leg feeding your apartment, but could be in your panel, or somewhere upstream.
If your apartment has 3-phase power, then your A & B legs are connected to 2 of those phases, but each apartment is connected to different phases. It could be possible that a bad phase from the power company could affect only some apartments, but it would definitely be noticed somewhere other than your apartment, so it seems likely the problem is in your building.
Given that replacing the breaker feeding your apartment made a difference, I'd have the electrician look at the wire terminations to that breaker, as well as the point where your breaker connects to the buss bar inside the panel. There's probably a bad connection in one of those two places. If it's at the buss bar, they may need to move the breaker feeding your apartment to a different space in the main panel. If they have a thermal camera, they may even be able to see that something is hotter than it should be.
As a stopgap, you could ask the electrician to move one or two breakers to slots 6 & 12 - those should be unaffected by this issue. But you're right to keep pursuing it. There's a non-zero risk that the bad connection is arcing, heating up and causing further damage. It could eventually progress to the point where it catches fire. If everything is to code, the fire should be contained by the breaker panel, but it's still going to be more expensive/inconvenient to replace the burnt up panel than to resolve this problem now.
posted by yuwtze at 11:06 AM on December 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
I think SegFaultCoreDump has nailed it. If you look at your wiring diagram photo, you can see that the leg marked "A" feeds breaker slots 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11, while the "B" leg feeds 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12. The problem is on the "A" leg feeding your apartment, but could be in your panel, or somewhere upstream.
If your apartment has 3-phase power, then your A & B legs are connected to 2 of those phases, but each apartment is connected to different phases. It could be possible that a bad phase from the power company could affect only some apartments, but it would definitely be noticed somewhere other than your apartment, so it seems likely the problem is in your building.
Given that replacing the breaker feeding your apartment made a difference, I'd have the electrician look at the wire terminations to that breaker, as well as the point where your breaker connects to the buss bar inside the panel. There's probably a bad connection in one of those two places. If it's at the buss bar, they may need to move the breaker feeding your apartment to a different space in the main panel. If they have a thermal camera, they may even be able to see that something is hotter than it should be.
As a stopgap, you could ask the electrician to move one or two breakers to slots 6 & 12 - those should be unaffected by this issue. But you're right to keep pursuing it. There's a non-zero risk that the bad connection is arcing, heating up and causing further damage. It could eventually progress to the point where it catches fire. If everything is to code, the fire should be contained by the breaker panel, but it's still going to be more expensive/inconvenient to replace the burnt up panel than to resolve this problem now.
posted by yuwtze at 11:06 AM on December 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'm not an electrician, but I've re-wired a shop, barn, and a third of my house -- all good enough to pass inspection -- so I at least partially know what I'm talking about.
I concur with the folks who've said this is probably a problem upstream of yours. One of the phases feeding your breaker being loose/bad would do it. As would a bad breaker/disconnect/meter upstream of your panel.
The other likely suspect here is your panel itself. I can't see a date on any of the photos you've posted, but the panel looks similar to the one I replaced in my shop, which was 40 years old. Panels do go bad; my electrician friend told me that 50 years is a reasonable lifespan for one. So you may need the whole panel replaced.
Either way, this is very much not a problem inside your apartment -- it's not the GFCI, not that you have too much plugged in, nothing like that. It's either your landlord's problem, or the power company's problem.
posted by dorothy hawk at 11:50 AM on December 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
I concur with the folks who've said this is probably a problem upstream of yours. One of the phases feeding your breaker being loose/bad would do it. As would a bad breaker/disconnect/meter upstream of your panel.
The other likely suspect here is your panel itself. I can't see a date on any of the photos you've posted, but the panel looks similar to the one I replaced in my shop, which was 40 years old. Panels do go bad; my electrician friend told me that 50 years is a reasonable lifespan for one. So you may need the whole panel replaced.
Either way, this is very much not a problem inside your apartment -- it's not the GFCI, not that you have too much plugged in, nothing like that. It's either your landlord's problem, or the power company's problem.
posted by dorothy hawk at 11:50 AM on December 21, 2022 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: Do your lights flicker/go out everywhere, or just in one part of the apartment? Also, how long did you live there before this started happening- did you just recently move in?
the bedroom and bathroom (on the same circuit/breaker) are not affected. everything else (kitchen, living room, dining area) are all affected.
i have lived here for almost 8 years, and this started happening in september.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 12:09 PM on December 21, 2022
the bedroom and bathroom (on the same circuit/breaker) are not affected. everything else (kitchen, living room, dining area) are all affected.
i have lived here for almost 8 years, and this started happening in september.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 12:09 PM on December 21, 2022
A while back I had one of the legs that feeds a subpanel disconnect, meaning that only one leg of the subpanel was fed, similar to what segfaultcoredump and others mention above.
Normally that manifested by everything on that leg being off - but when the 240V appliance was 'on' the lights and other things on the bad side flickered and sort of worked, but the 240V appliance (in your case the stove and AC) didn't. That's because the 240V appliance (the ones that take two breakers) are designed to have alternating phases, and when one is 120V alternating and the other is 0 it can energize the 0 leg, which would then energize the other leg of the circuit. (I haven't thought through the exact mechanism, but it was certainly related to that and went away when I fixed the core problem).
So in your case, I wonder if it's possible to have a disconnect - or an intermittent disconnect - on one of the legs feeding your box, coupled with a bridging effect when the furnace calls for heat that lets otherwise-disconnected outlets work. That would make it harder to diagnose, but the root cause would still be a disconnect of one leg into your box.
posted by true at 12:40 PM on December 21, 2022
Normally that manifested by everything on that leg being off - but when the 240V appliance was 'on' the lights and other things on the bad side flickered and sort of worked, but the 240V appliance (in your case the stove and AC) didn't. That's because the 240V appliance (the ones that take two breakers) are designed to have alternating phases, and when one is 120V alternating and the other is 0 it can energize the 0 leg, which would then energize the other leg of the circuit. (I haven't thought through the exact mechanism, but it was certainly related to that and went away when I fixed the core problem).
So in your case, I wonder if it's possible to have a disconnect - or an intermittent disconnect - on one of the legs feeding your box, coupled with a bridging effect when the furnace calls for heat that lets otherwise-disconnected outlets work. That would make it harder to diagnose, but the root cause would still be a disconnect of one leg into your box.
posted by true at 12:40 PM on December 21, 2022
Not to comment on the specific electrical issue, but if you continue to get nowhere with this with your rental company and the neighbouring city has a person to help, contact that person and say you live in their city. Don't get specific about where you live or anything, but just ask general questions that you need answers to about rental laws in the state. If you're uncomfortable with lying, get a friend to do it for you.
posted by urbanlenny at 12:46 PM on December 21, 2022
posted by urbanlenny at 12:46 PM on December 21, 2022
It's 20 degrees and your heat doesn't consistently work. Please call your representative in the US House.
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:37 PM on December 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:37 PM on December 21, 2022 [2 favorites]
Call 911 if it gets bad and get the fire department involved. But before then, call the electric company. I bet if you say "I think there's a bad connection before my meter" they will be out in a jiffy. Especially if you walk around and hear clicking or arcing or the smell of electrical burning anywhere, which you might, based on what you've described.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 5:56 PM on December 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by soylent00FF00 at 5:56 PM on December 21, 2022 [5 favorites]
Nthing everyone else suggesting that this seems most likely to be a problem with one "leg" of the power coming into your breaker panel, the one that supplies power to the odd-numbered circuits. This is 110% not your fault, it is a landlord/electrician problem, and I'm pissed off on your behalf because your landlord is being an irresponsible dick.
replaced my very expensive LEDs with incandescents
Bullshit. LEDs draw way less power than incandescents, and a bad LED bulb isn't going to kill the outlets in your walls.
made me unplug literally everything except the fridge and one light because i "had too much plugged in"
BULLshit. No way. Unpossible. IANA Electrician but I use & monkey with electricity every day of my life, professionally, in situations far more complex than an apartment. No fucking way you're drawing too much power unless you're running some kind of massive weed-growing operation.
replaced one of the outside breakers apparently the one on my unit's meter or something (helped for about a month)
A-ha! So, yeah, you had a problem with one of your legs (you should have 2 legs and 2 breakers coming off your meter), and replacing a breaker did something. Which leads me to:
the power company won't come out full stop according to management office, and power company won't talk to me since i am just a renter.
I'm gonna call at least semi-bullshit on this. If you have a separate meter, and are paying an electric bill, you are a customer of the power company, renter or not, and they do have some obligation to make sure their part of the system is working.
So, generally speaking, in the US, the power company owns the meters and is responsible for the wiring coming from the poles outside into the meter and proper function of the meter itself. Everything after the meter is the property owner's responsibility. I'm not 100% sure how it works if there's a main power in that then gets split into different meters, BUT it's still entirely possible that the problem in in the power company's lines or meter, and you have the right to ask them to check it. It may not be free, but you're not powerless just because you're a renter. Don't let your management company bullshit you on that. No, the power company won't poke around in the breaker box in your apartment, but they shouldn't refuse to take your calls, and not having half the power in your apartment working could be their problem that they will need to address. And if they come out and everything checks out OK, well, there's the evidence that it's your landlord's problem.
It's 20 degrees and your heat doesn't consistently work.
THIS THIS THIS THIS!!!! And on top of that, if you're where your profile says you are, there's a major winter storm headed your way, with record-breaking low temps possible.
There's not a state in the union that doesn't have laws on the books about maintaining basic habitability, and heat is definitely part of that. (on doing some research, maybe Arkansas doesn't have such laws? but whatever.)
You need to start pushing back - you tell your landlord they have 24 hours to do WHATEVER it takes to make your heat come on, or you're going to contact not only your US House representative, but also your state House representative, your local city/county councilperson, the mayor's office, the city and/or county building departments, and your local newspaper and TV stations. Local politicians and news orgs LIVE for this shit - a constituent and citizen without heat ON CHRISTMAS (!!!!!????) because their landlord is fucking around? Man, you can't buy that kind of goodwill and positive publicity where they look like the hero for leaning on the landlord.
And get back in touch with those government departments and phrase your problem as "MY LANDLORD WON'T FIX MY HEAT." My bet is that if you asked about "tenants rights organization" they assumed you were a cranky troublemaker inquiring on principle. An actual local citizen with a fixable problem is a different matter entirely.
And seconding contacting the fire department (although, probably not via 911, they do have local numbers) if you get no help from the landlord - a loose main power cable can definitely cause arcing, and it's definitely a fire risk. They'll want to know about it.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:48 PM on December 21, 2022 [13 favorites]
replaced my very expensive LEDs with incandescents
Bullshit. LEDs draw way less power than incandescents, and a bad LED bulb isn't going to kill the outlets in your walls.
made me unplug literally everything except the fridge and one light because i "had too much plugged in"
BULLshit. No way. Unpossible. IANA Electrician but I use & monkey with electricity every day of my life, professionally, in situations far more complex than an apartment. No fucking way you're drawing too much power unless you're running some kind of massive weed-growing operation.
replaced one of the outside breakers apparently the one on my unit's meter or something (helped for about a month)
A-ha! So, yeah, you had a problem with one of your legs (you should have 2 legs and 2 breakers coming off your meter), and replacing a breaker did something. Which leads me to:
the power company won't come out full stop according to management office, and power company won't talk to me since i am just a renter.
I'm gonna call at least semi-bullshit on this. If you have a separate meter, and are paying an electric bill, you are a customer of the power company, renter or not, and they do have some obligation to make sure their part of the system is working.
So, generally speaking, in the US, the power company owns the meters and is responsible for the wiring coming from the poles outside into the meter and proper function of the meter itself. Everything after the meter is the property owner's responsibility. I'm not 100% sure how it works if there's a main power in that then gets split into different meters, BUT it's still entirely possible that the problem in in the power company's lines or meter, and you have the right to ask them to check it. It may not be free, but you're not powerless just because you're a renter. Don't let your management company bullshit you on that. No, the power company won't poke around in the breaker box in your apartment, but they shouldn't refuse to take your calls, and not having half the power in your apartment working could be their problem that they will need to address. And if they come out and everything checks out OK, well, there's the evidence that it's your landlord's problem.
It's 20 degrees and your heat doesn't consistently work.
THIS THIS THIS THIS!!!! And on top of that, if you're where your profile says you are, there's a major winter storm headed your way, with record-breaking low temps possible.
There's not a state in the union that doesn't have laws on the books about maintaining basic habitability, and heat is definitely part of that. (on doing some research, maybe Arkansas doesn't have such laws? but whatever.)
You need to start pushing back - you tell your landlord they have 24 hours to do WHATEVER it takes to make your heat come on, or you're going to contact not only your US House representative, but also your state House representative, your local city/county councilperson, the mayor's office, the city and/or county building departments, and your local newspaper and TV stations. Local politicians and news orgs LIVE for this shit - a constituent and citizen without heat ON CHRISTMAS (!!!!!????) because their landlord is fucking around? Man, you can't buy that kind of goodwill and positive publicity where they look like the hero for leaning on the landlord.
And get back in touch with those government departments and phrase your problem as "MY LANDLORD WON'T FIX MY HEAT." My bet is that if you asked about "tenants rights organization" they assumed you were a cranky troublemaker inquiring on principle. An actual local citizen with a fixable problem is a different matter entirely.
And seconding contacting the fire department (although, probably not via 911, they do have local numbers) if you get no help from the landlord - a loose main power cable can definitely cause arcing, and it's definitely a fire risk. They'll want to know about it.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:48 PM on December 21, 2022 [13 favorites]
Nth-ing the loose power connection and using whatever means necessary to get the landlord to call the power company and get this fixed. We've been having similar issues and your post (and helpful answers) prompted me to call our local power company. They came out last night. The first electrician disconnected our house at the meter and put a 400 amp (!) load on the wires coming to the house off the pole. Sparks and pops were immediate at a bad neutral clamp. An hour later a line crew came out and fixed it. No more electrical ghosts.
And yes, call the media, mayor's office, city council, etc. Force your landlord's hand.
posted by jermz at 6:59 AM on December 22, 2022 [7 favorites]
And yes, call the media, mayor's office, city council, etc. Force your landlord's hand.
posted by jermz at 6:59 AM on December 22, 2022 [7 favorites]
Yes, this is an electrical issue upstream of you. If you are paying an electric bill to the electric company, you are a customer and they should be happy to deal with you directly, especially if there is potentially an issue with the electrical service entering the property. I know you said the power company won't talk to you since you're just a renter, but please try again; they are responsible for ensuring that everything up to the service line entering the property is working correctly.
I had a similar, though slightly less severe, issue with flickering power at a rowhouse I rented a few years ago. I called the power company as a renter, and told them I might have a floating neutral line, which occurs when one of the main service wires is fully or partially disconnected. I don't know if this was in fact the issue in the end, but they sent someone out to check the main service connection, and discovered that it was indeed damaged, and repaired it. My landlord never even got involved. This is I believe a liability issue for the power company, so they should be wanting to get it resolved. If they send someone out and determine that everything is definitely fine on their end, then you know that the problem is somewhere between (or within) your subpanel and the main building service.
To encourage the power company to take you seriously, I recommend saying something like "I am experiencing flickering power, consistent with what I've read is a floating neutral line." I have no idea if your problem is actually a floating neutral (SegFaultCoreDump's explanation is extremely plausible as well), but it's the kind of thing that will make it sound like you know what you're talking about and help them take you seriously.
And finally, regardless of where this is happening, it's almost definitely a loose connection or damaged wire of some sort, and therefore a safety issue not only for your loss of heat but for potential fire. I agree with others that if your landlord/management company refuses to act on this, you should call the fire department and/or local electrical code inspector.
Great job documenting this. Your video is extremely good documentation of what's going on, as is your tracing of what's happening with the different circuits. Anyone reasonably knowledgeable about electricity should be concerned. One question: is the bulb in the lamp shown in the video one of the incandescent bulbs your property manager swapped in, or is it an LED bulb? I ask because if it's an LED bulb, then it's hard to tell whether you're experiencing voltage dips or total power cuts, since both would result in the bulb going out like you're showing. An incandescent bulb might go very dim but not cut out completely if you're experiencing voltage dips rather than full cuts. Dips might mean it really is a floating neutral after all.
Good luck and stay warm.
posted by biogeo at 9:36 PM on December 22, 2022
I had a similar, though slightly less severe, issue with flickering power at a rowhouse I rented a few years ago. I called the power company as a renter, and told them I might have a floating neutral line, which occurs when one of the main service wires is fully or partially disconnected. I don't know if this was in fact the issue in the end, but they sent someone out to check the main service connection, and discovered that it was indeed damaged, and repaired it. My landlord never even got involved. This is I believe a liability issue for the power company, so they should be wanting to get it resolved. If they send someone out and determine that everything is definitely fine on their end, then you know that the problem is somewhere between (or within) your subpanel and the main building service.
To encourage the power company to take you seriously, I recommend saying something like "I am experiencing flickering power, consistent with what I've read is a floating neutral line." I have no idea if your problem is actually a floating neutral (SegFaultCoreDump's explanation is extremely plausible as well), but it's the kind of thing that will make it sound like you know what you're talking about and help them take you seriously.
And finally, regardless of where this is happening, it's almost definitely a loose connection or damaged wire of some sort, and therefore a safety issue not only for your loss of heat but for potential fire. I agree with others that if your landlord/management company refuses to act on this, you should call the fire department and/or local electrical code inspector.
Great job documenting this. Your video is extremely good documentation of what's going on, as is your tracing of what's happening with the different circuits. Anyone reasonably knowledgeable about electricity should be concerned. One question: is the bulb in the lamp shown in the video one of the incandescent bulbs your property manager swapped in, or is it an LED bulb? I ask because if it's an LED bulb, then it's hard to tell whether you're experiencing voltage dips or total power cuts, since both would result in the bulb going out like you're showing. An incandescent bulb might go very dim but not cut out completely if you're experiencing voltage dips rather than full cuts. Dips might mean it really is a floating neutral after all.
Good luck and stay warm.
posted by biogeo at 9:36 PM on December 22, 2022
Response by poster: And get back in touch with those government departments and phrase your problem as "MY LANDLORD WON'T FIX MY HEAT."
that's what i said to them originally. they said tough luck, google a lawyer for help.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:03 PM on December 23, 2022
that's what i said to them originally. they said tough luck, google a lawyer for help.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:03 PM on December 23, 2022
Response by poster: is the bulb in the lamp shown in the video one of the incandescent bulbs your property manager swapped in, or is it an LED bulb?
it's an LED bulb. i changed it back as soon as it was evident incandescents didn't fix the issue.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:05 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
it's an LED bulb. i changed it back as soon as it was evident incandescents didn't fix the issue.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 1:05 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
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So you are having issues with anything on an odd numbered breaker?
(This is greatly simplified): For a standard American residential power system, you have two feeds into a breaker box. Each feed is 120v but you can get 240V if you run two 'hot' wires, one from each feed, to an appliance (hence why the AC and Range breakers take up two slots). If you pull the cover off (don't try this at home kids) and then look under the breakers, you will see that odd numbered breakers go to one feed and even numbered ones go to the next feed. See https://www.electricaltechnology.org/2021/02/how-to-wire-120v-240v-main-panel-breaker-box.html for the gory details.
I strongly suspect that the feed that is used by the odd numbered breakers is badly seated on the busbar. So you can replace all of the breakers, but the problem either lies on the main wire run into the breaker panel itself, how it is terminated either in the panel, or how it is terminated at the meter on the remote side. If it is loose then stuff will be intermittent. And yes, this is a very bad situation.
Also, that breaker box photo did not show the main breaker disconnect. It would be 60A or so given the fact that the range is 40A and the AC 30A. Was that cropped out?
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 10:15 AM on December 21, 2022 [4 favorites]