What the?
So a couple of nights ago, the microwave dies. It was mysterious, since we weren’t microwaving anything at the time.
We were, however, using the timer on the microwave to time the homemade pizza baking in the oven, which is how we recognized the microwave was dead.
So, I went out to the garage to flip the breaker back on. But the breaker wasn’t off. That was strange. I flipped it on and off a few times anyway. Note that the microwave is the only item plugged into the only outlet which is on this particular breaker.
So, Annie goes and gets an alarm clock and we plug it into the outlet. No life. Somehow we’re not getting any power to the outlet. To double check the microwave’s life, I grabbed and extension cord and plugged into another outlet, and the microwave worked fine.
Okay, so I figure the breaker must have gone bad, even though it was still acting like it functioned normally. I went back to the garage, turned off that breaker AND the one below it (the garbage disposal/dishwasher) and switched the two wires. This meant that now the garbage disposal was on the “bad” breaker and the microwave was on the good one. I went back to the kitchen - the garbage disposal worked fine, no microwave.
Thus, it wasn’t the breaker.
The only thing left would be the outlet. So I went to Menards and bought a new $2.00 outlet and replaced. Still no dice.
The next day I brought home a voltmeter from work to probe a little further and see what was going on.
I measured 120 volts at the outlet of the breaker. This is exactly what I would expect.
I measured 93 volts at wires at the outlet, with nothing plugged into the outlet.
So somewhere between the garage and the kitchen I’m all of a sudden started losing 27 volts. Where did those 27 volts go? It particularly boggles me, since I am reportedly an “electrical engineer”.
The only thing I can think of is that some insulation in the wiring rubbed off and the wire is making some kind of contact with the structure of the house causing a partial short. Why this would all of a sudden just happen, I don’t know. I also thought that maybe some type of rodent got into the attic and chewed through the wire, but I don’t see any evidence of that up in the attic.
So, the recourse for now is to use an extension cord to keep the microwave functional until I can run another electrical line to it. I don’t think it will be a big deal, but it’s basically going to be tight (hot) attic work to get it done, something which I am not looking forward to.
And I’m still boggled where those 27 volts are going to.
July 29th, 2005 at 8:12 am
someone is stealing your volts, call the police
July 29th, 2005 at 8:51 am
In one of the classes I took in school, somebody told me that volts sometimes turn into watts when they find amps. I’m guessing some hot young amp came by and sistracted 27 volts, who unknowingly joined her and fused into watts. the watts are undoubtable in your attic or wall.
July 29th, 2005 at 8:55 am
It bothers me though that this just happened all of a sudden. The wires that carry all of this are housed in protective coating.
Do condoms mysterious break when sitting idle on the shelf?
July 29th, 2005 at 10:34 am
I’m guessing something chewed through teh wires.
Or, have you recently hung some pitchers or something where you could have poked a wire with a nail?
July 29th, 2005 at 11:14 am
Also, you undoubtedly already know this, but I would leave my breaker off until I fix or find the problem. When volts find monkey business they make sparks, or heat, which tends to make fire, resulting in mo bigger problems than missing volts, such as injury, death, or worse.
July 29th, 2005 at 2:30 pm
Or you could move any valuables ote of teh house and leave teh breaker on and hope for a fire. This is assuming that you would like a new house and have insurance that is paid up to date.
August 1st, 2005 at 3:08 pm
How do you have a partial short? A short is a short is a short, right?
August 2nd, 2005 at 8:50 am
In the world of black magic, nothing is certain, Irwin.