bamakodaker
New Member
- 2
Hello,
I've lived in my house almost 25 years. It was built in the mid 60s. It does have aluminum wiring. I've not had any wiring problems. Very little has been changed of recent. All things have been plugged in at their locations and nothing new has been added. These items appear to be on the same circuit/breaker switch. The refrigerator on 1 outlet, TV on 1 outlet, radio, lamp and microwave on a dual plug outlet, computer, monitor, printer on a dual plug wall outlet. Again, it's been like this a long time with no problems.
The reason for this inquiry. I noticed the lamp by the computers start to flicker. I thought lamp was going bad. Then I heard some noise in the kitchen. I kept trying to locate the problem. I thought it was scratching from mice in a space above my drop-down cabinets. I was moving things around and looking in the cabinets when I heard the noise again and the frig quit. I got off the chair and looked behind the frig - I'm thinking, 'Great, the compressor died on a late Saturday night and I need a new frig!' Then the lamp, that I had not noticed as being off, suddenly came back on. Now I'm really confused because I'm thinking if a breaker had tripped, causing the frig and lamp to go off, there was no way the lamp would come back on! For some reason I put my hand on the plug for the frig. It was hot. NOTE - I have NOT smelled anything up to this point. I went outside to check the breaker to see if it had gotten half tripped or something. It appeared okay. With the new meters the power company can remotely check and they said they saw no surge or trip or anything. I went back in and decided to pull the wall plug behind the frig. What a shock! The scratching I'd heard was arcing inside the plug. The plug had partially melted. The plastic covering one wire was gone or blackened back about 4 inches. I can only imagine what would have happened if this had happened while I was gone from home!
Why didn't the breaker trip? Why didn't I smell something? Is this the common problem with aluminum wiring? Most important - is this enough for the insurance to pay for rewiring the house?
Thank you for your assistance and thoughts.
bamakodaker
I've lived in my house almost 25 years. It was built in the mid 60s. It does have aluminum wiring. I've not had any wiring problems. Very little has been changed of recent. All things have been plugged in at their locations and nothing new has been added. These items appear to be on the same circuit/breaker switch. The refrigerator on 1 outlet, TV on 1 outlet, radio, lamp and microwave on a dual plug outlet, computer, monitor, printer on a dual plug wall outlet. Again, it's been like this a long time with no problems.
The reason for this inquiry. I noticed the lamp by the computers start to flicker. I thought lamp was going bad. Then I heard some noise in the kitchen. I kept trying to locate the problem. I thought it was scratching from mice in a space above my drop-down cabinets. I was moving things around and looking in the cabinets when I heard the noise again and the frig quit. I got off the chair and looked behind the frig - I'm thinking, 'Great, the compressor died on a late Saturday night and I need a new frig!' Then the lamp, that I had not noticed as being off, suddenly came back on. Now I'm really confused because I'm thinking if a breaker had tripped, causing the frig and lamp to go off, there was no way the lamp would come back on! For some reason I put my hand on the plug for the frig. It was hot. NOTE - I have NOT smelled anything up to this point. I went outside to check the breaker to see if it had gotten half tripped or something. It appeared okay. With the new meters the power company can remotely check and they said they saw no surge or trip or anything. I went back in and decided to pull the wall plug behind the frig. What a shock! The scratching I'd heard was arcing inside the plug. The plug had partially melted. The plastic covering one wire was gone or blackened back about 4 inches. I can only imagine what would have happened if this had happened while I was gone from home!
Why didn't the breaker trip? Why didn't I smell something? Is this the common problem with aluminum wiring? Most important - is this enough for the insurance to pay for rewiring the house?
Thank you for your assistance and thoughts.
bamakodaker
