Oh FFS! I igve the F@&! up

[screwballl]

Originally Posted by polobunny

Yup just my thought, but the UPS is supposed to have a surge protector.
If it didn't work, it's supposed to be covered under the warranty.

this is my thought as well, the UPS should be covered and replace any parts that fried downstream from it, regardless of what was also in the same outlet. That is part of the surge protection and I would push the issue with them. Even if the UPS itself is not covered (which should be), everything downstream should have been protected since the UPS is supposed to take the hit and let everything else plugged into it go untouched. If you had a defective UPS then that is their fault, again regardless of what caused everything.

[MantaBase]

It sounds like - and I could very well be wrong - there are multiple problems resulting from a bad wiring job and someone saving some wire. Copper is up very high right now and wireburning is at an all time high (basically - stealing wire). Get a shifty electrician and you might have a serious issue. He/she saves some wire by putting too much load on a single circuit. Then puts in an oversized breaker so you won't notice it poppong off all the time. Crappy ground setup. Normally gets away with it. Charges the Contractor for the wire that never got used.

I'm not making an accusation - I don't know what happened.

I would get a certified electrician on the job. In you neck of the woods, a union guy (because they have a lot to lose by screwing around). Once he assesses the situation, if it was a bad job - look to the contraster for damages. The contraster should look to the sub for his own damages.

After a disaster, a whole herd of really crappy folks often move in to do work and make a fast buck. Nice people come too, but there is a certain element that is there for the quick cash and could really care less about doing things right and safe.

Out here, it happened during the building boom. There is a subdivision. One guy did the plumbing on certain areas of ~40 homes. ~20 had leaks in the wall in the Kitchen or bathroom. Most folks payed out about a grand to have the issue fixed. For a few investors who bought the homes but never moved in (hoping to turn them), the bill was much higher. The lady that over saw the work in the worst one told me the bill was 40K+ and that didn't include the finishing work. It had been leaking for 6 months.

And why? Well, apparently this plumber didn't know how to sweat copper. The PVC work was all ok, but the fixtures in the bath and kitchen required a small amount of copper work. She said it looked like he learned to do it at Home Depot in a one hour DIY class. And, well - no-one did a pressure test obviously - which is required by law here (I'm pretty sure - I know it's required for the outside utilities).

But hey - the guy got paid like he knew what he was doing.

[Boy'nBlack]

That falls under NEC rules and has recourse. Thing is, home owners doing home improvements don't really have to follow the NEC. Having moved a lot, I run into both situations. The apartments are usually cheap and NEC violating, and homes seem to be patch work.

Like the aluminum lug thing, union electricians that fix these say that hasn't been allowed for years. When I see aluminum, I'm on the phone quick. Two fires in a row and I'm done with that crap. In the last houses, it's the patch work that gets me.

The house in Poway really looked nice physically. Just a great build top to bottom. Then my equipment started falling off the map. I asked on line and really found nothing. Had good ammo suggested, but all the prodding and poking didn't really reveal anything. I guess thankfully I already dropped and broke the Plasma because the wiring would have gotten it. Then came the fires and had to get into the garage afterwards. The electrician eventually came in for repairs (and upgrades, but don't tell the insurance!) and found 2 grounds in the garage other than what he'd seen at the box and really sparked his interest. Found one more under the kitchen sink. Copper, to pvc, to copper, back to PVC...not a good ground, and not savvy to say the least. This was the circuit my living room was on. My computer room was on the garage wall. Really only the 220W and two walls were still on the original box ground. Fixed up, and now I just deal with the crummy grid sagging.

I've argued that you don't need a ground, but this doesn't fit. You surely don't want 4 grounds! That's a lot of circuits when you really only want one. I mention the NEC code because not all electricians follow it. Well, electricians do, but I only trust Union Electricians or overly qualified contractors. Home owners may generally divert to just someone to hook stuff up, or do it themselves and they don't fall under the NEC.
------------------
Quake, what are you still lacking in hardware? I'm running toward the bottom of my barrels here, but have something to keep you up I'm sure. E2160, 530J, 650, mATX 965 board, and pretty much old collectibles after that. I've had a clearing house for the last year and was finally happy to have less useful hardware laying around. Now I wish I had the good stuff left to send to ya! I guess if I look harder, there's some hard drives and a Silverstone 500W power supply. Loaners aren't an issue though either, but hate to loan if it's a burden to send it back. Kind of a gift horse thing, and loans seem weird. Got 'em though...I'd be willing to let go some decent stuff until you can figure out what's going on there. P5K-E is one, and I can loan an e7200 I just put on order yesterday. If you want to try a review, it'd be a good chance as it's new! If so, I'll toss in some memory on loaner too. Again, loaners are just odd though. I'm seriously nerdy...half of that is in the back of the Jeep for what ever reason.

*Cough* hitman, have a 945 if he needs it?

[Reloadron]

Somewhere in all this I am missing something. Initially my read was that the speaker system was plugged into the UPS:

The UPS device I had also had my Logitec Z5300 speakers plugged into it. The Sub/Amp for the Z5300 burned up taking out the UPS device with it.

Then that got resolved here:

The UPS and the Speakers were plugged into the same outlet. The speakers were not plugged into the UPS. When the amp in the sub went out, it killed the UPS due to incorrect wiring in the fuse box and the incorrect residential breaker being in the box.

So the speakers and the UPS shared common power but the speakers were not plugged into the UPS. I got that now.

The Washer also shared that same branch circuit within the residence. The washer apparently began a wash cycle at some point and the speakers failed. Not sure what happened first.

I see a problem in that the UPS should be looking at line voltage. When things began to reall go south the line voltage should have been dropping. You mentioned the burnt cord to the speakers as well as burnt wiring in the wall. Now the in wall says there was excessive current, generally in residential the wire gage should be AWG 12 for branch circuits protected by a 20 Amp circuit breaker.

OK, we know the wrong breaker was installed, possibly a higher rated breaker or possible the installer (I won't even say electricial) tied things in wrong. Like using half of a split 240 Volt source where the ganged breakers are physically ganged together.

All of that is here nor there at this point. The UPS was plugged in. When the short began (be it speakers or whatever) it would be typical for the line voltage to drop. This is like a simulated "Brown Out" where the line voltage does not just go away but sags. When line voltage drops or sags below 90 to 100 Volts (not sure ups by ups) at some point the UPS should have switched from delivering line to delivering UPS power, thus protecting things plugged into it. The UPS should have been monitoring line voltage and reacted to change.

The fact that something upstream from the UPS caused a problem with the line voltage is here nor there. Especially considering this was not a $39.95 UPS unit.

What model UPS? I know it was APC but what model? Most UPS units, especially higher end have an LED that indicates if there is a ground fault with incomming power.

Damnit, I wish I could see this mess first hand.

Anyway, if things are as I see them I see a possible fault with the UPS? Yes, line power went to shit but the purpose of the UPS is to serve and protect when that happens. What am I missing?

Ron

[Quakindude]

OK...we now have power back to the house. I'll be asking the electrician some pointed questions right here shortly. So far, I've seen 5 feet of burnt wiring pulled out of the walls between here and the pantry area where the wiring crosses over to breaker box. I'll ask him what type of breaker was in the box too. It was some industrial thing. I wish I knew more about electrical work.

[Reloadron]

Originally Posted by Quakindude

OK...we now have power back to the house. I'll be asking the electrician some pointed questions right here shortly. So far, I've seen 5 feet of burnt wiring pulled out of the walls between here and the pantry area where the wiring crosses over to breaker box. I'll ask him what type of breaker was in the box too. It was some industrial thing. I wish I knew more about electrical work.

Yeah, try like hell to get to the root cause of the problem.

Additionally, what I don't get about the breaker is a home panel (Circuit Breaker Panel) is not designed to accept any industrial type of breaker? I can't figure out what the hell this idiot shoved in there and how.

I would be real curious as to the wire gage used in the walls as well as the rating of this particular breaker.

Tom, document the living shit out of all this. Just as you mentioned the ultimate claim will be against the prime contractor. He may be a nice guy but it becomes obvious corners were cut. Push come to shove, and it likely will, you want solid evidence like burned wires. POS Outlets if those were installed, and any/all documentation from a licensed, qualified electrician.

Ron

[Quakindude]

Spent most of the day yesterday working with this guy. Our high dollar washing machine is now working, an internal fuse saved that thing. Anyway, here's the skinny on what happened.

Now I'm no electrician, so don't blast me if I get something wrong. There was a problem with the size wire used to run to the computer room. It was "too thin aluminum wire and should have been 10/3 copper for the distance and load put on it." I had no idea what 10/3 wire was, but now I do. Also, it was running off "one leg" of the 220 service for our water heater, which is why we also discovered the water heater sub-box having a tripped breaker. When everything went to shit, the speaker amp/sub burned up causing the wire to the outlet to melt and droop onto the wire for the UPS device. This in turn caused the outlet to burn up and the UPS system to fail.

My mistake on the industrial fuse. Jim, the electrician, clarified that for me. What he had said is "Even industrial fuses can't take shit like that." So I didn't latch onto what he meant.

So the end result is, we spent about four hours in the attic yesterday fixing that issue and a couple others. Mainly, running wire from the breaker box out to the computer room and the entertainment area. My LCD TV had started acting up, but now seems fine, because of the way this wiring was run. The entertainment center was supposed to be on the living room circuit and was run off the computer room stuff. It cost us a tad over $1000 in materials alone. Most of that was copper wiring, which people are real proud of now a days at those damned prices. He ended up also putting the correct breakers in the box, new ones this time. Evidently, there were some in there he thought to have "used" breakers. From the looks of some of them, I'd say he was right.

So where does this leave us? We are going to go after the original electrician, the contractor and filing a complaint with the city inspectors office. I'm just hoping the inspector that comes out to look at the repairs is the same guy! I'd like to give him a piece of my mind. Not that I can afford to lose any more pieces.

We had another issue with this computer room not long ago. I'll be getting in touch with that electrician as well to find out just what the hell he saw up there when he was working on this stuff back six months or so ago.

BTW, we will check into the homeowners insurance, but I'm pretty sure they will tell us they can't do anything when it's faulty wiring like this. We will more than likely end up having to go after the original electrician for any money. And that dude is MIA so far.

[Reloadron]

Damnit!

Like using half of a split 240 Volt source where the ganged breakers are physically ganged together.

I knew it. That was one of my guesses. That and sub standard wire in the wall. Alluminum wire in a wall. Damnit, that shit was allowed for a real short period during construction in the friggin 60s and quickly was disallowed.

The guy who did this shit should be taken out and shot. Beyond shoddy workmanship and substandard product did the asshole for a moment think he could kill people? His focus was not your or the Black Family's well being but his greed to satisfy his pockets.

Good luck collecting from this bastard. However, Tom the fault also lies with the Prime Contractor. Your prime had a responsibility of providing reliable, insured and bonded subs for the work.

The whole mess goes deeper. How many jobs did the Prime get as a result of the natural disaster? How many of those jobs did he farm out to this asswipe? How many little bombs are now in your neighborhood going tick, tick, tick?

Ron