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Discussion Forum

Can Power Surges Damage House Wiring?

BilljustBill | Posted in General Discussion on January 6, 2010 11:37am

Recently the local Co-op replaced their 50yr old power poles and upgraded to larger power lines. When they put the new power lines into use, a utility worker came to tell us to “Turn Off” our TV and Computer. We did. When the power came back, the TV made a hissing sound and then went dead. It has a standard two-prong plug and was not on a surge protector. In fact, all the things that had remote controls and were not on wall surge protectors were damaged. I’ve address the losses in writing with the power company, almost $1,000 with the power supply and labor for the TV being over $500… Now, I’m hearing that the surge may have caused damage to 1958 wiring of the house as well. Is the utility responsible for the damaged items? Since this surge caused two wall surge protectors’ warning lights to turn RED, can this surge have damaged insulation on the house’s wiring that might cause a fire? What do I look for? The workshop has its own meter, but several remote control devices are damaged as was the Cooper Lighting’s emergency lighting module. It’s wiring and grounding is only 15 years old, but had the same type of surge damage. Thanks for your insight, Bill

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Replies

  1. DaveRicheson | Jan 07, 2010 04:00am | #1

    Short answer.

    Utility is responsible for surge damage to appliances in the home.

    If it wasn't high enough or of long enough duration to blow out light bilb, it most likely didn't hurt the wiring .

  2. junkhound | Jan 07, 2010 02:41pm | #2

    anytime power goes off, it is wise to turn off ALL breakers till after power is restored.

    Live and learn. Doubt you will get anything out of the poco.

    1958 is probably braided sheath romex, no problemo.

  3. DanH | Jan 07, 2010 08:08pm | #3

    The wiring is unlikely to have been damaged. It would take in excess of 500V to cause arcing between terminals in properly-designed equipment, and probably something like 5000V to cause insulation breakdown. More likely would be overheating of the wire, but you'd generally be able to tell from the scorched look of the ends of the insulation (and the smell).

    1. BilljustBill | Jan 10, 2010 12:39am | #4

      Thanks to all of you. The electrial engineer said it might take months until I will know... The TV is working well, but the 220v Long Ranger III dust collector remotes still have to be replaced.. I'll keep this thread marked and will do a follow up when I hear more.

      Bill

      1. BilljustBill | Jan 12, 2010 12:23pm | #5

        Update: I spoke with the electric company's rep. about progress of this damage. First, he said they have not heard from the superintendent of the subcontractor crew, nor recieved his report. The second thing he said worried me... He, and the electrical engineer that came to take pictures of powerlines to the house and to workshop where damage ocurred, repeated the same concept: "I don't know how a power surge can happen when power is cut off and then comes back on. It's like a light bulb in your house. When you turn off the light it goes out, and when you switch it back on, the light comes on."

        This is coming from a power company? What would you say to show them it's not like turning a light bulb off and on...??

        Bill

        1. User avater
          Mongo | Jan 12, 2010 04:52pm | #6

          If the meter is in place, if the main breaker is closed, if the individual breakers are closed, if appliances are plugged in to the wall...electricity can get to the appliances.

          While the individual appliance may be turned off, a surge can still damage components.

          My old building inspector used to have a breaker box and a meter in his office for "show and tell". Some kind of nasty surge went through it. The meter legs were welded to the meter box's sockets, the main breaker in the panel was trashed. The breakers were welded to the buss bars, some wires were welded to the breaker terminal screws.

          So yeah, bad things can happen.

        2. DanH | Jan 12, 2010 08:26pm | #7

          What he's saying is that
          What he's saying is that electricity doesn't "surge" like, say, water in a previously empty water pipe. Just turning on the power would not cause a surge -- what would be needed would be some sort of error on the part of the linemen, such as installing the wrong transformer, getting hot and neutral crossed, etc.

          The question is, if they made such an error would they admit it?

          1. BilljustBill | Jan 12, 2010 11:12pm | #8

            When the new lines were installed, the electric company went up to a larger size distribution lines. One of the crewman said they were 1-5/8" in diameter, each, and carrying 3-phase, one phase on each line and then a lower line that was said to be the Netural.

            The same hookup from the transformer to the house was identical before they went to the new hot lines, except for the one high tension lead to the top of the transformer. It had been moved from the one old line to one of the three new lines.

            The new lines were dead until they were energized, and that's when the TV made a hissing sound then it was dead. In the workshop, I have a dual motor dust collector; each motor is 220v. The remote controls of the "Long Ranger III" are 220v. They, and the 110v emergency lighting module, are dead...

            How is it that a power company doesn't understand that when new distribution lines are energized, that a power spike is caused?

            As a side note: When I asked how they got 220v from just one of the 3 phase lines, the crewman said the step-down transformer makes 220v....

          2. DanH | Jan 13, 2010 06:39am | #9

            Like I said, you don't get a
            Like I said, you don't get a "surge" from just connecting the wires. You get a surge because of a FU somewhere, or a lightning strike.

            The guy was right about 240V -- you get it from a center-tap transformer.

          3. DanH | Jan 13, 2010 05:44pm | #10

            To phrase that somewhat differently, you probably have a legit claim against the POCO, but not because of a "turn on surge". Rather, the linemen screwed up somehow. But so long as you talk of it just being a "turn on surge" the POCO guys will laugh at you and ignore you, figuring you don't know what you're talking about.

          4. BilljustBill | Jan 13, 2010 08:27pm | #11

            Good to know what NOT to say... I'm trying to get a handle on this.... So, it is a voltage spike through the house meter and through the separate shop meter that killed the 220v controllers for the dust collector I built.

            I'm now unplugging the TV each night until I can get a surge protector run from a three prong grounded circuit. Some time after midnight to 6:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, and Monday morning, I've found the TV's blinking green light. I have to use a paperclip to press the "reset" to get the TV to come on. The TV manual says it starts blinking and providing protection when a power surge hits.

            So, it appears that their spikes haven't stopped...

            Bill

          5. DanH | Jan 25, 2010 11:26pm | #14

            My guess it wasn't a "spike"
            My guess it wasn't a "spike" (ie, a voltage transient lasting at most a few milliseconds). A "spike" generally doesn't cause smoke. Rather it was a long-term (for as long as they had the power on originally) overvoltage situation, due, eg, to getting the wires crossed on the pole transformer.

            I'd guess your TV's doing what it's doing because it partly fried.

    2. asopao | Nov 25, 2010 03:53pm | #19

      another power surge and wiring question

      Dear DanH:

      Another question on older wiring and a power surge. Our house is of cement and was built in 1954 in San Juan, PR. a few weeks ago, the high voltage line fell on the transformer for our house, and 2000 volts entered on one of the two 120 lines entering the house. Dead refrigerator, dead microwave, dead 240v air conditioner, fried phone line,  exploded light bulb, etc. We even had a couple of leaks in copper water pipes (grounded to pipes?) The plumbers dug the leaking pipe sections out of the cement walls and we could see small holes in the pipes sections where they had crossed perpendicularly through the cement walls. These houses have a lot of iron rebar as reinforcement.  It seemed that the leaks may have occured where rebar was close to a pipe.

      Do we need to have the wiring replaced on all the impacted circuits?  We could see a couple of scorched outlets, where something had been plugged into the wall. But how do we know that the wiring of the other circuits without evident damage at an outlet are actually ok?

      Thanks,

      Sheila

      1. DanH | Nov 25, 2010 04:18pm | #20

        A surge of that magnitude definitely can cause damage to the wiring in the walls.  With 2000 volts you likely had arcing inside outlets and fixtures, and the amount of current that was flowing for even a few seconds could definitely have melted some insulation.

        A skilled/knowledgable electrician may be able to figure out which circuits are probably OK and which are more suspect, but your average sparky isn't going to be able to do that very well.

        At the very least all outlets, switches, and fixtures (and breaker panels and fuse boxes) should be replaced, and while doing so the wiring should be inspected for damage.

        Interesting about the pipes.  It's not unlikely that the pipes were already partly eroded through from contact with the rebar, but the surge would have put a tremendous load on the pipes (as ground) and the current could have been sufficient, concentrated at those small spots, to burn through the copper, even if the pipes weren't already weakened.  (The new pipes should be "sleeved" with plastic where they go through the concrete.)

  4. barmil | Jan 13, 2010 08:42pm | #12

    For what it's worth, my
    For what it's worth, my parents were also on a rural coop electrical system, and they had a surge that fried every low voltage digital system in the house, to include microwave, range, dishwasher, thermostat, etc. I think surge protectors are a necessity in such areas where stable voltage isn't a given, or stick to manual controls on electrical appliances.

    1. BilljustBill | Jan 24, 2010 11:01pm | #13

      As a continuing observation of the power problem, I have 3 more quirks happen....

      Getting some time passed, I started leaving the TV plugged in over nights. THEN, last week, sometime between midnight and 7:00 a.m. on a Sunday and the next Monday mornings, the TV had the overvoltage blinking light. It took unplugging it to reset it, but no more problems have surfaced. Then, after seeing two power company trucks pass the house during the afternoon, on the following Wednesday night, the washing machine, which is on the other leg of the 220v service, suddenly stopped with an error code on its display.

      The power company had said they were shipping the old pole transformer to get it checked out. What I don't understand is if they are saying the pole transformer is supposed to keep voltages from spiking, then why is this new one doing almost the same thing? It's like there was again a problem in their lines on that Sunday and Monday, then, since they had tapped one power line of the 3-phase power lines, they switched one of the three phase legs with another. On 3-phase, if you switch any two lines, it reverses a 3-phase motor..so if they switched two of the power lines back where this new powerline rebuild started, would it reverse the field in the pole transformer and allow a spike to come in on the other 220v leg and cause the third voltage spike in the circuit of the clothes washer??

      What do you think about these problems and what would you say to this power company in view of the $850+ of damage they have caused?

      Bill

  5. danski0224 | Jan 26, 2010 10:42am | #15

    You need to get some type of logging meter installed that will measure and track the power in your house. You may be able to rent something, or hire a local electrician/shop withthe capability to measure and document readings.

    Having something that shows poor power quality will make it easier to prove claims against the power company.

    You will have to decide if persuing claims is worth the aggravation you will get compared to the dollar amount involved.

    Getting a line conditioner for your sensitive and more expensive items (computer, fancy TV, etc) may be worthwhile.

  6. BilljustBill | Feb 06, 2010 10:08pm | #16

    Well, I received my "Dear John" letter from the electric company saying the electrical damage wasn't their fault....

    When I asked what caused the workshop's different meter running from the same pole transformer had the same damage, but wasn't even talked about in their letter, a company rep that came to the house said, "I don't know."

    I have a ground wire tied to their netural in both places and verified. In fact, the ground on the oversized 200 amp disconnect switch to the workshop is bonded using a #2 copper, instead of the normal #6 copper ground wire, and bonded to an 8' long copper grounding rod fully driven under the footing and into always damp soil.

    I feel like David against Goliath, but Goliath is holding all the stones...."Their reports...The testing done by the transformer company before the old pole transformer was to be rebuilt... The line crew forman's report..." It's like the fox watching the hen house.

    The damage to the power supply board costs over $500 to replace. It's been plugged in that outlet for 4-1/2 years and no damage until the day the old highlines were transfered over to the new ones. The TV has a two-prong plug and the outlet is only a two pole outlet wired back in the late 1950's. The problem is that the "THE PROBLEM" is not resolved and could happen again.

    Other than running a ground to that outlet box for a 3-prong outlet, or using & labeling the two-wire outlet box "ungrounded" and putting a GFIC in the outlet, I have no way to fix this problem.

    What other choices do I have?

    Bill

    1. DanH | Feb 06, 2010 10:13pm | #17

      As I explained before, having a grounded outlet or whatever wouldn't have protected from this problem. The linemen are never gonna admit that they screwed up, and you have no other evidence (I assume no one else nearby had similar damage?), so you'll probably have to eat it.

    2. [email protected] | Dec 06, 2010 03:01pm | #22

      Under voltage would be my first guess

      My first guess is an under voltage fault.  Where the power was delivered at 90 to 100-volts. 

      Try calling the state public utilites commision, and filing a complaint with them.  If they have jurisdiction, their engineer should be impartial, and they typically have at least some power to intervene on your behalf. 

  7. BilljustBill | Feb 12, 2010 08:43pm | #18

    Bump..

  8. mans835 | Dec 06, 2010 10:53am | #21

    TV made a hissing sound

    The reason for TV  getting dead may be the amplifier integrated into antennas.

    http://www.house-building-in-russia.com

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