John Kogel

I get fewer winterized homes than most - warm rainy climate. I often find the electric water heater turned off. If there is water pressure and water in the tank, I will turn the tank on, then make a note to remember to turn it off. If a breaker has tripped, the handle will usually be in the half-off position. New home recently, several breakers were off, like the outdoor outlets, because the seller had turned them off. The dishwasher breaker wouldn't reset, but hot and ground were capped with a wirenut. I tested all of the circuits and put it all back as it was when we were done.

You are selling your home as is. If someone gripes about the garage, offer to have it jacked up and removed from the property. []

I would blame the home owners or tenants for using some corrosive cleaners or rock salt on the deck and never cleaning the gutter. Just my thought from here.

Here's their handy calculator for figuring it out. I'm not in the mood myself. [] http://www.biosmartsolutions.com/upload ... 000f_0.pdf It's a simple wall heater with a higher than average price, I'd say. They are talking far infrared ceramic heater like it's some kind of miracle product. Copper ion generation panels? Yes, heat makes you feel better. It works!

The property owner is likely receiving two bills, while the utility company is getting paid twice. It must be OK with the utility or they would have squawked before now. For your clients, it would be cheapest go with one meter and one new panel of course. But, maybe someday they will want to split the house again. Two meters is not unheard of around here, such as where an outbuilding or pumphouse is a long way from the main house. Also, there was a program here where electricity for heating was billed at a lower rate, thus two meters were installed side by side.

Thanks, Marc. I thought of that, too. (What to do when it crashes on the high roof you couldn't reach with a ladder?) [] But tell us you had some fun playing with the new toy. Click to Enlarge 51.18 KB

I bought Home Insp Pro when it was on sale. Pro - The support is very good, not just for the software, but SEO and other.. I batch load pictures, like 130 pics at once. Then label the ones I want to use. It's quick and easy. I throw narrative in with the pics, works for me. Con -Now the new version is out and they want me to pay again to get the upgrade. Java 7 screws the old version up, so I have to make sure to uninstall Java 7 to run my old program. If not, I could lose a whole evening's work in one click.

Not that anyone cares, but the monicker Windy City was bestowed upon our fair hamlet due to the Chicago politicians' tendency to blow a lot of hot air, i.e. BS Ain't got nothing to do with windy weather. Well I care. Thanks for that. First I heard the expression - Lou Rawls "Dead End Street". He says they call it the windy city cuz of the hawk. the almighty hawk.

Sorry to hear that, Kurt. Bad enough to have no HW and a tank to replace, but the damage sounds like it will take a while to deal with. Anything over 11 years gets the 'replace it' message here. In condo buildings it is often 10 years mandatory. I should be working on an app that rings your phone when a water alarm goes off in your house. Anybody got investment capital? No, huh?

A home inspector could have told you about the problem before you bought the condo. It sounds like electric heat to me - call an electrician if that is the case. He can inspect your breaker panel as well.

Marc, it is Chicago, the windy city. It gets cold fairly often. Those are old stains, I think. Mike, I agree with Scott. The moisture is likely traveling along the conduit into the light fixture. The moisture may be from warm air leaking into the attic from below and condensing on the conduit and the cold wall.

I will bow out now. Little mini shocks won't kill anyone, but if your health is poor to begin with, something like that could stop your pacemaker. Here's a bit of history for y'all. "Original Yardbirds singer and harmonica player Keith Relf was killed by a shock from his electric guitar on May 14, 1976. According to Jeremy Simmonds ?Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars,? Relf was shocked by the poorly grounded instrument when he leaned over a hidden gas pipe in his basement studio. Relf had been a life-long asthma sufferer and his health was a problem through his music career. He struggled to draw breath while singing and playing harmonica early on with the Yardbirds and suffered a collapsed lung while touring with the band in the U.S. in 1964. After the Yardbirds disbanded, Relf went on to play in a number of other successful groups, including Together and Renaissance. His health continued to deteriorate, however, and he eventually developed emphysema in addition to asthma. The shock to Relf?s body was reportedly survivable had he been in stronger physical condition. In a 1975 interview printed in the liner notes of the Yardbirds outtake collection ?More Golden Eggs,? Relf uttered an ominous remembrance of his time with the band. ?If I could put into one word what the essence of the Yardbirds was - it would be ?electricity,?? he said." Shocking stuff, eh what??

The added chlorine in town water eats them up in about 11 years up here. Glass-lined tanks will go a bit longer. Out in the sticks on well water, I will sometimes estimate the age of the tank by the age of the shack. []

The neutral in that picture is carrying 6 amps back to the receptacle. I was saying for example, a severely unbalanced load where only one leg of the subpanel is used, the neutral carries a lot of current. It's not a malfunction, but there is a shock potential, no? OK, I'll have to measure the voltage. Jim, you are correct, of course. Thanks, Douglas, I will let you have the final say. I measured the neutral voltage on my zip cord with the space heater energized and it was a mere 0.2 volts at 6 amps. Then when I clipped a 330 ohm ceramic resistor in series into the neutral wire, I measured 109 volts across that resistor and considerable heat was generated! I cut power in less than a minute and that little resistor was smoking hot.

John, there is no 'grounding wire' on the electric utility lines, only a neutral and the hot wires. 'Grounding wire' begins in the consumer load centers. It's the neutral that the utility runs into the earth with ground rods. Marc Thanks, Marc. I know I'm arguing both ends here so I'll go back to what I know. Here is a picture I took last spring when we were discussing clamp meters. That wire being measured is a power cord plugged into a 120 volt outlet. The meter shows 6 amps on the neutral, marked with white tape. Is there a shock potential here? You bet. My argument is that if you attached another wire here running back to the panel, it too would carry enough voltage and current to do some serious shocking. Click to Enlarge 54.2 KB

It needs to have sensitivity my cheapo meter doesn't have, and BK says that if it can read leakage current, it will have that.

Thanks, Jim and Mike. I'll get back to you on this.

Example: The only load on the subpanel is a 120 volt space heater, drawing 7 amps. Neutral and ground are erroneously connected together, and are equal gauge copper wire in a 4 wire feeder cable. The voltage is equal on both conductors. Current will be split, 3.5 amps on each. Correct me if I got it backwards.Edit: I had it backwards. Current is equal for all parts of the circuit and voltage varies with the resistance. The high resistance portions drop the most voltage.

Since the neutral is bonded to the ground in a service panel the ground would not show a high resistance compared to the neutral. I mean the path back to the source, the transformer on the pole. The neutral presents a direct connection with minimal R while the grounding wire connects to the transformer by way of a ground rod, a bunch of dirt and another rod. But you are right, the potential is equal on both because they are connected together. I just know that it works for the main service panel, but when you go to a 4 wire feeder, you have to keep the neutral isolated or there will be a shock potential.

As long as the service neutral and the feeder neutral are in good condition, there's pretty much no chance of physical harm. However, if, for some reason, the resistance of the neutral were to increase or, most dramatically, if it were to break, then having the ground wires connected to the neutral terminal is a sub panel could kill someone. It's like a seat belt. As long as nothing else goes wrong, it doesn't do much. I respectfully disagree a little bit. [] It doesn't do much only if the load on the sub is balanced perfectly or if nobody comes in contact with the bare wire, with is usually covered with a thin outer sheath. At the main panel, the grounding conductor presents a high resistance compared to the neutral, so very little current will flow there. At the subpanel, the neutral and the ground in a 4 wire cable offer a similar resistance, being of similar or equal gauge and length. Juice will flow thru both wires when one side of the panel is loaded, if neutral is bonded to the subpanel. If a 120 volt space heater is plugged in to that subpanel, about 1/2 of the current would be carried by that grounding conductor. Edit: Or in Chicago, by the conduit. You've explained why current will flow in the grounding conductor, not why that would cause harm if everything else in the system were working properly. I'm pretty sure you could get a shock from any bare wire or conduit carrying 120 volts, even if the amperage is low. Especially in bare feet on a basement floor. What do you feel is the reasoning behind the code rule, if not for the sake of safety?

https://www.inspectorsjournal.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15393&SearchTerms=clamp,meter We kicked this around and Bob Kenney pointed out that the clamp meter needs to read leakage current to be useful. Good point, I thought. What leakage will you need to measure in the context of a home inspection? I would like to read current on a grounding conductor or a plumbing pipe. For that, the meter needs to go down to 0.09 amps or so.Not needed, but just something I would like to have when I decide to buy a better clamp meter. See this recent thread for example. https://www.inspectorsjournal.com/forum ... C_ID=16613 Douglas Hansen's post #9. Garet's pics post #11.

I found a reference to AO Smith now owning Mor-flo, and this quote: "AO Smith - Can be confusing; digits may be comprised of letters & numbers. May be one, two, or no letters. If two letters first, next two numbers are year. If one letter first, followed by two numbers and another letter, next two numbers are year. If one letter first, next two numbers are year, providing no letter follows. If two numbers first, this is year." Taking that literally, The 1 is an I and your heater is a '97. Maybe. [] Here's where I got that reference, the rigid forum. https://www.ridgidforum.com/forum/t35425/

You could say they screwed it up, alright. []

Oil furnace needs a new nozzle installed every 2 years at least, every year if it's old. Pay a heating contractor $100 and get it looked after for your family's safety.

In the case of wrong cable which should never be used again, it should be cut off below ground level, IMO. The unused breaker fills a hole in the deadfront and can be reused, so I would be OK with that. would ask for wirenuts in a junction box where the cable exits the house. Did you know ... 'deletes' are metal plates that were used to plug holes in a dashboard if you didn't order the radio? https://www.sites.google.com/site/ident ... es-page-1x