Printable View
Came home last night and it was 98 degrees in my house. My trusted HVAC guy came out and bottom line is whole unit needs to be replaced. He wouldn't say that unless it was true. My neighbor is buying my house next spring and I was hoping there would be no major expense until then. Oh well....
We just had to do the same thing this spring. Had to replace the air and heat...whole system. Cost a pretty penny, but we have saved almost half in our electric bills. In August our bill was $240-some dollars this year, while last year it was over $400.... We got a sweet 10-year parts AND labor warranty (and if the compressor goes out in those 10 yrs they will replace the entire heat pump). I'm not complaining. And we won't be moving any time soon.
Bummer Okie, sorry for the bad luck. Maybe you can work a deal with the neighbor to allow for an increase in sale price due to the brand new unit being in place before they buy. Maye something to work on anyway.
In the last 90 days I've spent $550 to repair my fridge, $900 to remove a fallen tree and $415 today for electrical work. Ah, the joys of home ownership....
What electrical work did you have done? And do you just call an electrician?Quote:
Originally Posted by KSRBEvans
I have a fuse blown in my house and when I flip the switch, it flips right back. Strange thing. It has knocked out power to kids' bathroom (I rigged up a clamp light with a motion senser, a small extension cord across the hall around a light around the light in the hallway, and into the bathroom), and power to my back wall in my bedroom (has my TV on it, but rarely watch TV there anyway). But I need to get that fixed, and haven't even thought about who to call yet.
Darrell, I wish I lived closer to you.
You said you have a fuse blown and when you flip a switch it flips right back. Fuses do not have switches, but circuit breakers do. If it is a breaker that is acting that way, and not the light switch in the bathroom, then one of two things is happening. One, the breaker could be faulty and the big box hardware stores sell them every day, and they are relatively easy to replace. It may also be a dead short in the wiring which the breaker is designed to warn you of, by "flipping right back" and not allow you to burn your house to the ground.
I would call an electrician.
Attachment 283
Now I know where this pic came from!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darrell KSR
Lfbj!! Where did you get my pic????
Dan, you're right, it's a circuit breaker. No, I'll call an electrician. No need of spending the gas money for you, and the medical bills for me to replace something relatively simple. Maybe the electrician will take pity on me.
If that breaker controls a bathroom my first suspect is a faulty GFCI. wouldn't be the first one that failed on me and was throwing a box breaker. like Dan said, your basic list is:
-- bad breaker. I tend to discount this one just b/c I've generally found something else wrong and the breaker fine, but you never know. You can test one with a multimeter but you'll have to take the front off the panel. Not nearly as safe as the Palm memory upgrade. ;)
-- short. I suspect a gfci that's gone bad just b/c it's not the first one I've had go bad and either trip a breaker or another gfci down the line. Annoying little suckers. You can disconnect it and see if that solves the problem. Just leave the wires unattached. If you wire black to white you'll be sorry. If you have multiple tie off the blacks together and the whites together.
That's really a pretty simple procedure.
-- overload. Unlikely but if you've got a 15amp breaker and the circuit is pulling 16 amps there's your problem. Other than heaters and AC units plugged into regular wiring that's unusual. Doubt you're running a 15amp space heater in Alabama in August.
If you had a clamp you could test the load and have a pretty quick answer to the overload question, but I'm betting you don't have one. Multimeter can be used to test the breaker or just swap it out like Dan said. Cheap to try one.
Still, short is the most likely, either gfci or given it's a bathroom maybe humidity has caused a fault somewhere. Is it immediate or does it take 2-3 seconds? The longer it goes the more likely it's an overload, the shorter the more likely it's a short.
If it were me I'd yank the gfci, if there's more than one I'd yank them one at a time, then swap the breaker. If it's still kicking it's a more serious short (i.e. hard to find). Unless you have a heater connected, I'm really doubting overload.
It's immediate, sounds like that short thing, whatever that is.
I have a lot more faith in my ability to upgrade a PDA with memory than do anything with "real" electricity. :)
Ground fault receptacle is an excellent place to check as outlined above by CBBN. I had a similar situation to the one Darrell has and it was caused from a 16 penny nail having been driven thru the center of a flat romex cable. It had been driven in at the time of home construction, but earthy vibrations over 20 years or so had brought the nail and the hot wire inside the cable into contact causing a dead short. That was when I learned about sheet rock repair.:cool:
It was a collection of things that have piled up over the last year or so. Laundry room light wouldn't come on in spite of changing out all of the lights, 3 switches in 3 different rooms were mostly working but flaky, and our landscape lights never worked quite right and then stopped working completely about a month ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darrell KSR
It is intimidating just calling someone--probably how people feel when they call a lawyer. ;) None of my neighbors could give me a recommendation, so I typed my address into Google, then searched for nearby electricians. Then I read reviews of the company online and checked them out on BBB. The hourly rate they quoted me didn't seem outrageous, so I had them come over. It's a leap of faith, but they did a good job.
I would suspect the ground fault receptacle also. Those things can be a nightmare sometimes.