Hey all, I just want to tell a story about an averted disaster at my
home yesterday.
I have an older home (built in 67-68) that had used the Zinsco brand
breaker box. The design of this older box is VERY dangerous. If you live
in an older home, please see if you have this in your house!!
What happened at my house was, I had lights go out, but the breaker was
not always tripped. I rewired the ceiling fan I had installed a month
ago, I had found a loose neutral wire. When I went to turn the power
back on, nothing happened. As I was flipping breakers in frustration,
the box started to buzz and spark internally. I got very concerned and
called a friend who is the electrician where I work. He came over and
was as puzzled as I was. We were not getting a constant flow of power to
the lower breakers, if you pushed on them, the lights flickered, and the
breakers would spark badly. I had the air conditioner going on and off
as well. This can cause damage to your compressor, so it is a BAD thing.
He got ready to move the breaker for the AC to another spot in the box,
when I noticed the bar the breaker was clipped to, was bowing out!! It
had melted in two. This was a definite fire hazard. We shut down
everything below the melted break, and today he replaced it with a new
GE box and breakers. I looked at the box he removed, the melted bar that
the breaker mounted too, looks like it was aluminum!! I don't know if
many of you know this, but aluminum wiring was used in homes in the 50's
and 60's and caused many a fire. PLEASE, think about checking out your
breaker box. I am so glad I didn't have a major fire to realize the
danger, I only hope I can prevent the same for someone else out there as
well.
I know this is off topic for our lists, but I consider most of you as
friends, and I want to make sure that you all are safe.
Brad
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