Carl Lowenstein wrote:
On 6/5/06, kelsey hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Rick Carlson wrote:
> Oddly enough, no, I am not sure my neighbor isn't running up the bill.
Start digging. :)
> I bought the house used in 1980 and did not live in it for the
first two
> months.
> The electric bills were $150. They have never been lower than $150 for
> the past 26 years.
<snip>
Please consider the physics (or electrical engineering) of the
situation. If the wiring is drawing a lot of current with "nothing
connected" the energy has to be going somewhere, as heat. I would
expect it to start a fire rather quickly.
Quite right Carl. Which is why I completely disconnected my swimming
pool light today. Swimming pools full of water are great heat sinks.
And, the conduit carrying the wires from the breaker panel to the pool
pump is EMT which was buried in the concrete. I suspect that the pipe is
not water proof. If the wires are shorting inside the conduit and
dumping that energy into the ground around it we have a short to ground
but perhaps not enough of one to burn out the wires or to trip the
circuit breakers. I have turned off those circuit breakers. If the power
usage goes down to the point where I believe I have isolated the problem
I will thoroughly disconnect the wires running to the pump station.
It is very prosaic to speculate that an occult run from behind my meter
to the house next door is the cause of my problem but in the real world
that probably is not the cause. I do not hold much faith in that being
the case. I do however have little faith in contractors who hire
unlicensed help or who do not themselves have the qualifications to do
wiring to code. I have even worked along side of people who have passed
the California Electrical Contractors license exam that I would not
trust to wire a table lamp. I did not put in this pool and it was over
26 years ago. I have no reason to believe that it was done correctly.
Something I have not mentioned is that I live in Southwest Mira Mesa
where the homes were built for low income people back in the 70's. I
bought it in 1980 for $102,500 Four years ago I refinanced it and it was
appraised at $800,000.
And, they used aluminum wiring which has since been dropped as
acceptable for house wiring. I have spent the years slowly replacing the
fixtures, outlets and switches with copper devices and Co/Al connectors.
I don't think that X10 dimmers were being discussed here, just on-off
switches.
Yes, that is right. And infra-red sensors so that when I enter a
darkened room a light comes on and turns off after a preset time.
Rick
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