Strange home wiring problem (mud curse?)

[toy4xfun]

I don't remember where my building is. I have such a limited mind.

oh look atticus has reappeared in the building come on every body give him a hand!

 

[Urrrk]

I don't remember where my building is. I have such a limited mind.

I don't remember where your building is either, so my mind must be really limited.

 

[gmarshall7]

I used to work at a car wash while going to college. I remember one of the vacuums lost power so we called an electrician. I can get the number for you if you'd like.

is he insured?

 

[LAMBCRUSHER]

yeah but he's hard to find what being homeless and all....

 

[fledglingme]

just rattle a six pac

 

[scottm]

I found a second doorbell with it's own transformer by the furnace, hidden behind a furnace manual hanging on the wall. It was on breaker 24, and hooked to the front doorbell button. So it was putting 16VAC into the main doorbell circuit, and the main doorbell transformer was transforming it up to 90VAC or so into breaker 13 circuit. Either transformer would put power to the other circuit. Disconnected power and doorbell wires from the transformer, now the doorbell system works and everything is back to normal.

 

[Bogo]

Yep, short in the doorbell system. I was worried there was a nail or screw making a high resistance connection. Whomever installed the second one is lucky they were in phase. If they were hooked up out of phase, that could have been bad, real bad, but it would have blown up right then when it was initially powered up.

 

[NaterGator]

Technically no, not a short, as there was presumably galvanic isolation. Just a stupid daisychain of AC-AC transformers, wasting energy.

 

[scottm]

The two transformers were powered from opposite legs/phases of the house wires, so they could've produced higher than normal voltage. But they could also have been hot-to-neutral connections, I didn't dig into where they connect. Odd thing is that when I took power off the added transformer, the doorbell ringer started buzzing, and it quit when I took the unpowered transformer off the doorbell wire.

 

[toy4xfun]

yes they were Scott, i looked at that, but never even thought about two different transformers!

the reason why the one was buzzing is because they were back feeding each other, that is wild, good for you finding it.