ELECTRICAL HELP!!! CALLING ALL ELECTRICIANS

[fireman]

I have an old school style fuse box. With fuses and mini breakers which are the fuses that have a little white dot in the middle to reset them, and they are silver instead of the regular metal with the glass in the middle.

I have 4 outlets that do not work and normally if they trip i just reset the little white dot. This time it seems fine but the outlets arent working.

I tested the outlet with a voltage meter and it is saying its not hot. The wire is also in the ceiling and i held the meter to the wire before it comes into the outlet and its not hot. I checked the meter and it lit up when i held it next to a hot wire in the same fashion.

Questions:
1) People are telling me it could be a bad outlet not causing the other ones to not have power. If the wire isnt registering as hot from the panel could it still be the outlet?

I was going to change the outlet but since im not sure what circuit its on, but then i checked the wire and it wasnt even hot so i wasnt sure it was the outlet.

Anyhelp would be amazing so i can run this safely

 

[madpenguin]

Sounds like your fuse panel.

Anyway you can get an electrician in there or are you in the midst of a grow?

Do you rent or own?

If you rent, what type of place is it? (duplex, house, apartment building)

 

[fireman]

Yea i rent so cant have anyone come in thats why im tryign to figure it out on my own.

Its a a house prob built like 50 years ago or so maybe updated once in the 60`s or so. The panel outside with fuses and silver minibreakers in it with little white dots in the middle( that reset the breaker). Every once in a while we will trip this breaker and i have to go outside and press the little button in adn it will reset and we turn some stuff off. This time i went to flip it and everything was still untripped but the plugins still wont work.

I stuck a meter up to the wire cuase i can see where it comes in the house from the panel i believe and where it enters the wall going into the plugin. The wire isnt registering as hot??


Oh yea everything is working fine all the 240 outlets are fine and such luckily we have another panel downstairs. Hilariously our the room with this panel somewhat of a utility room has the most sockets of anywhere in the house. And they are labeled unlike the panel outside. Again these are all old panels we have no new flip breakers all old style fuses. If im not using ht right terminioogy for you to understand something im talking about i can take a pic and post it. Thanks again
Soooo lost


Its a great feeling to be able to get advice and people understand why u cant have someone over. Thanks for taking the time

 

[cyberwax]

if you want to run that safely you should exchange the whole setup with a new one, there is no getting around 50 year old equipment, especially cables. If i were you, and im guessing your growing commerical i would look upon this as an investment and hire an electrician to do the job for you. The level of technical expertise your post show means your gonna get fried, so be safe and spend some cash on life.

 

[fireman]

if you want to run that safely you should exchange the whole setup with a new one, there is no getting around 50 year old equipment, especially cables. If i were you, and im guessing your growing commerical i would look upon this as an investment and hire an electrician to do the job for you. The level of technical expertise your post show means your gonna get fried, so be safe and spend some cash on life.

Do you know anything about electricity? cables? Do you mean wires? Are you suugesting i hire an electrician to rerun all the wires in my house? That might be the dumbest suggestion i have ever heard. First off i`m not commercial unless you consider 4000w commercial, which i don`t.

2nd im running all of my lights on their own dedicated 30amp subpanel at 240v. MY lights are running safely.

The only thing these other plugins are for are for small amp drawing equipment like 1 or 2 6in fans and maybe some wall fans,


if you read the post i cant hire an electrician or would have been done already, don`t worry i don`t have a problem spending money on safety. Im definitely not gonna take everything down since its not really effecting anything but my veg room, since i can ask the wonderful people of ic who actually know something about electricity. There are many people on here who are electricians. You don`t seem to be one of them so no need to post something that doesn`t help anyone just to post. thanks for trying though

 

[AOD2012]

dude was just making a suggestion bro no reason to get your panties in a bunch tha

 

[fireman]

Yea wake up to this problem and see if your panties arent in a bunch too

 

[AOD2012]

i totally feel you, and i am not electrician but i used to work in an apartment complex that had the same type of fuse thingys you are talking about. is it possible to see if you can like get another type of fuse like that and maybe just replace that? i know you cant have an electrician come by, but why so? is it the fact that they will see your grow, or are you just not allowed to change anything in the rental? i like upraded my service panel myself, and was lucky enough that the panel itself was not near the grow, and i was able to just have the electrician see that i ran all the wires myself, and he made all the final connections and gave me the under writer thingy. i know i am probably no making any sense but jack has a tendency to make me ramble. sry

 

[Tex233]

I don't encourage any one to work on electricity if they don't know what they are doing. But it sound like to me that your breaker/fuse thingy broke.

If i were you i would go to my panel and slightly wiggle that breaker that you normally reset which turns on the out lets. it could just be a loses connection.

if that doesn't work you could take off your panel cover and test the out side of your breaker/fuse thingy and see you get any power. if you don't try reseting and retest. if that doesn't work go buy a new breaker/fuse thingy and install it or have some one install it for you. IF YOU DO THIS BE VERY CAREFUL!

 

[Tex233]

p.s. try and antique shop for those.

 

[fireman]

Haha i total feel ya on the rambling bro, been there. Yea i tried buying the exact same fuse/mini breaker(silver things my fuses say instead of having the glass in the middle) and replacing what i thought was the one that always need to be reset every once in a while. I am going to wait until it is light and try and replace a few more and see what happens.

This normally isn`t a problem but when we have to get the veg room going its becomes a problem like now because we cant plug the 600w into the 30amp sub panel becuase it is set on 12/12 and can only run on 1 time schedule. Thus we just plug it into the 120v receptacle. When we plug in the 600 and have the flouro on for our huge mom and then the fans,etc it pops. Normally we catch it and swe work out the light schedule for the flouro and the 600w. This time nothing needs to be reset but also the receptacle wont work.

Someone suggested that the plugin/receptacle could be bad,which would cause the other receptacles not to work since it could not complelete the cicuit. I was going ot replace the receptacle but since the minibreakers arent listed to what part of the house they control i am not sure how to turn the power off to these receptacles. Then i tried to test the receptacle for voltage and it didnt register. I thought if the wire wasnt even hot then why would i need to turn the power off to the receptacle. So i decided not to replace it cause i figured if the wire wasnt registering any voltage then the receptacle was fine and it has to be somethign on the panel.

Unless a plugin/receptacle would cause this wire to not register as being hot? I have no idea if im using the correct terminiology but i do know a little about elecricity its just hard when its an old house.

I was thinking about updating the panel and it is outside but i wasnt sure if he would need to come inside at all. We have 2 boxes though 1 inside downstairs in the middle of the grow and then one outside on the side of the house.

How much would it cost to have a panel upgraded from the fuses? ANyone have a clue?


If someone knows something but needs pics lemme know

 

[Tex233]

If you update the panel the electrician doesn't need to come inside if its on the out side of the house, but we typically like to come and and hot check every thing to make sure every thing is working after we hook up a new panel aka service.

I'm not an estimator but if your in a normal town in the us I'm sure they'ed charge you $200 for a panel + about 100 to 200 for conduit and wire going up to the main feed + about 4 to 6 hours of labor at about $40hr to 70/hr and there might be some utility free for disconcerting and reconnecting the power

 

[AOD2012]

yea if there isnt any juice on the wire supplying the outlet its definitely not the receptacle. is the box inside the grow room an oldy also, or is it one you installed? im guessing its a new one. honestly, im not sure how much it will cost, but i would suggest getting that old piece changed out if you can, and start over brand spanking new and no more worries

 

[fireman]

Yea that wouldn`t even be a question if i owned the house and would probably upgraade to 200 since im not sure if i have 200 amps but doubt it. I rent so im not thinking about updating since the panel i use for 220 or whatever is downstairs in the place the electrician cant go. The outlets are on the main penal but my 220 receptacls are controlled by the panel downstairs the one he cant get too.

The guy at ace said back in the day they put the house on 2 panels to handle the electricity and tha`ts why i have 2 panels. He also said that the big black boxes at the top of his panel with the shotgun shell looking fuses in it are what might be wrong. I foudn out those only control 220/240 whatever it is and those receptacles are working fine.

If the receptacle was bad would the wire still be hot? For the life of my i cant figureout wha could be wrong, btu i guess im going to go through all my fuses/ mini breakers tomorrow.

Its just kinda skecthy in my eyes but then again thats not a suprise after growing weed for 4 years everything seems sketchy in my eyes

 

[Tex233]

yes, if your receptacle was bad your wire would still be hot. Unless it caused the breaker to trip which when you reset it the wire at your outlet would become hot.

 

[Tex233]

you can all ways tell how much your service is rated for by going to your main panel where the power comes in from the pole, and look at the top center breaker/fuse.

the guy from ace kind of seemed to be on the right track, more planes aren't used to handle the electricity, but to make it easier for distribution. So that you don't have to bring all of your wires back to one panel, you can bring them to the 2ed one that is closer. saving money on wire

 

[fireman]

Yea see i took a voltage meter that liights up and followed the wire out of the receptacle and back towards the panel and i put the meter to it and nothing happened. So its not the receptacle so its gotta be somewhere on the panel, but nothing was tripped. This is soo crazy i have no idea what it is. Atleast i found an extra hot wire to run my chiller off of this summer that isnt being used. Its just capped off stuck in the runnerboards. I stuck the voltage meter up that and it went crazy. So im gonna be using that in the summer for sure to run my chillking chiller that draws like 11amps!!!!!!

What i would do for a 50 am receptacle!!!! MY life would be a breeze

I can definitely see what your saying but thats wierd becuase all of the wires go outside maybe 2 feet away from the 2nd panel but i guess that could definitely add up when its multiple wires and that thick of a gauge. And the panel downstairs really only controls things like drier, ac, heat, and washer. And then an eletrician ran like 5 outlets in that room but of course they are only 2 slotted

 

[Tex233]

try slightly wiggling that breaker and resting it. some times breakers don't show a trip, when in fact they're tripped.

 

[fireman]

im gonna try in the morning first thing for sure. Thanks for taking the time tex if i can help with anything lemme know.Ill let you know how it goes tomorrow

 

[cyberwax]

Do you know anything about electricity? cables? Do you mean wires? Are you suugesting i hire an electrician to rerun all the wires in my house? That might be the dumbest suggestion i have ever heard. First off i`m not commercial unless you consider 4000w commercial, which i don`t.

2nd im running all of my lights on their own dedicated 30amp subpanel at 240v. MY lights are running safely.

The only thing these other plugins are for are for small amp drawing equipment like 1 or 2 6in fans and maybe some wall fans,


if you read the post i cant hire an electrician or would have been done already, don`t worry i don`t have a problem spending money on safety. Im definitely not gonna take everything down since its not really effecting anything but my veg room, since i can ask the wonderful people of ic who actually know something about electricity.

First of remind me not to come with any suggestions to you anymore, i actually know enough about electricity, apparantly more than you, not that it matter but thats why i replied and came with a suggestion. How would i know the state of your other wires/cables(you get the point right?) if you dont inform in the initial post.

There are many people on here who are electricians. You don`t seem to be one of them so no need to post something that doesn`t help anyone just to post. thanks for trying though

Yea, and im actually one of them.

And secondly 4000w is commercial in my book, unless your watt to gram ratio is as your diplomatic/communication skills.

Have a continued good day asshole.