Sat 25 Jun 2005
Electrical Issues
Posted by Chip under Apartment
Old building wiring is such a pain. Near as I can tell, our floor has 5 circuits, one dedicated for the washer dryer, then 4 that are apparently used at random around the floor. Somehow, I think we managed to do something very bad to one or two of them. Earlier this evening, we had two air conditioners running (one in bedroom, one in living room), two computers running (same room, but one powered from the other bedroom), and Delia attempted to make nachos in the microwave, which apparently put something over the top, and blew at least one circuit. Here’s the weird part; resetting the breakers in the basement did nothing. They weren’t even tripped when I went down there. We have no power in the bedrooms or the dining room/kitchen. We do have power in the front half of the living room, one plug on the outside wall of the dining room/kitchen, the bathroom, and the pantry/kitchen. I was only able to determine that one of the breakers actually does anything.
I really have no idea what’s wrong with it at this point. I’m guessing either something in the panel fried (though it’s brand new, installed just after we moved in) or some of the wiring along the way cooked itself.
At least we still have one A/C working, so we’re not cooking in here, and I managed to use some heavy duty extension cords to get my computer, the cable modem, and the router back up. Not going to leave them up though, since I have no idea what’s going on with power at the moment.
Overall, today has sucked.
June 26th, 2005 at 1:36 pm
Sounds very strange to me - I would guess that there is another panel somewhere with either breakers or fuses that has blown. Typically, you cannot run an A/C unit and a microwave on the same circuit at the same time. Same with two A/C units - they take a lot of juice, and even two microwaves can be iffy.
I would call the landlord and have an electrician sort it out. If the new panel is supposed to be dedicated to your apt. then there is something very wrong somewhere. Each breaker should do something but remember that one is probably dedicated to the dryer (electric ones are 220 volt, not 110), same if you have an electric stove.
Talk to you soon - good luck!
June 26th, 2005 at 5:36 pm
As it turns out, there is a second panel located near the ceiling in the storage room. I didn’t know about it, and neither did the landlord. It has four fuses in it, one of which was blown. I’m just trying to figure out why out of 8 circuits (4 from the panel in the basement, 4 from the box up here) why over half the plugs in the apartment appear to be on the same circuit.
The electrician who came out this morning did seem to think that there’s one plug in the dining room which has 15A all to itself, I’m probably going to move the microwave to that. The computers, one A/C and the fridge seem happy on one circuit. The second A/C is on another circuit in the living room.