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Message 1548743 - Posted: 28 Jul 2014, 3:01:10 UTC

And everything has been fine since my mini meltdown.
I did go down and do a touchy feely thing in the main box.
Nothing is even warm.
My subfeed box in the living room DOES get a bit warm, not hot, but it is drawing close to it's design limit.
I don't play with outlet strips the way I used to.
They are used now for only very low power devices, like wall worts and such.
I think the highest user on those links is my monitor now.
"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

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Message 1548771 - Posted: 28 Jul 2014, 4:41:16 UTC - in response to Message 1548707.  

It was the 50 amp breaker in the basement that took me out. That is the circuit to the crunching den. And when that went, it took the main breaker with it.

Guess it was the sum total of all of the crunchers that finally went thermal on the breaker and took the whole house down. The 200 amp main went out too.
Everything went dark.
Went downstairs and started to kick all the breakers off and back on.
It was the main 200 amp that went crazy on me.
I would never have pegged the mains to go out.
Everything is OK, and protected. Not like a few years ago when the daisy chain of lolly pops started to go off in a puff of smoke.
As you may recall, I then ran a 50 amp 240v subfeed box to service the crunchers.
All protected with their own nice little 15 amp feeds.

I am gonna have to check out just how close I am to maxxing out the 200 amp main though. I think it was just a fluke thingy.

Mark did'nt you have some thunder storms roll through. You might have had a spike that kicked out the breakers. And when was the last time you checked the ground to your house. Which reminds me, Id better check mine.
[/quote]

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Message 1548848 - Posted: 28 Jul 2014, 7:59:25 UTC - in response to Message 1548771.  

It was the 50 amp breaker in the basement that took me out. That is the circuit to the crunching den. And when that went, it took the main breaker with it.

Guess it was the sum total of all of the crunchers that finally went thermal on the breaker and took the whole house down. The 200 amp main went out too.
Everything went dark.
Went downstairs and started to kick all the breakers off and back on.
It was the main 200 amp that went crazy on me.
I would never have pegged the mains to go out.
Everything is OK, and protected. Not like a few years ago when the daisy chain of lolly pops started to go off in a puff of smoke.
As you may recall, I then ran a 50 amp 240v subfeed box to service the crunchers.
All protected with their own nice little 15 amp feeds.

I am gonna have to check out just how close I am to maxxing out the 200 amp main though. I think it was just a fluke thingy.

Mark did'nt you have some thunder storms roll through. You might have had a spike that kicked out the breakers. And when was the last time you checked the ground to your house. Which reminds me, Id better check mine.
Might have been a spike.
And my service is VERY well grounded. Bonded to the water main, and when I had the service updated, we drove 4 eight foot ground rods. More than code required, but I wanted a very good ground network.
"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

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Message 1549057 - Posted: 28 Jul 2014, 17:14:08 UTC - in response to Message 1548853.  

And my service is VERY well grounded. Bonded to the water main,

A lot of UK cast iron & steel stuff has been replaced with plastic piping. I think the USA National Electric Code requires ground rods of a minimum of 8 feet length and under 25-ohms resistance-to-ground (Earth). Dunno about sacrificial anodes though.

If I recall, anodes are only required under certain soil conditions that are not particularly good ground sources. In some cases, a liquid electrolyte is also added to the soil to improve conductivity. Not needed in my locality.
The water main to the house is copper, although they recently replaced the service mains down the street with plastic piping. But I still have about 100 feet of copper from the house to the street, so it is still grounded pretty well.
The main grounding source however, are the 4 8 foot ground rods driven in back of the house where the service entrance comes in underground.
"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

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Message 1549134 - Posted: 28 Jul 2014, 19:18:18 UTC - in response to Message 1549057.  

And my service is VERY well grounded. Bonded to the water main,

A lot of UK cast iron & steel stuff has been replaced with plastic piping. I think the USA National Electric Code requires ground rods of a minimum of 8 feet length and under 25-ohms resistance-to-ground (Earth). Dunno about sacrificial anodes though.

If I recall, anodes are only required under certain soil conditions that are not particularly good ground sources. In some cases, a liquid electrolyte is also added to the soil to improve conductivity. Not needed in my locality.
The water main to the house is copper, although they recently replaced the service mains down the street with plastic piping. But I still have about 100 feet of copper from the house to the street, so it is still grounded pretty well.
The main grounding source however, are the 4 8 foot ground rods driven in back of the house where the service entrance comes in underground.

I am going to have to look into that. I have very dry ground, the new house has nothing but plastic pipe and even the water supply line is plastic. I don't recall a ground rod but there must be something around there somewhere as the house was constructed in 2007. As for power issues, explain why a 2000 square foot house with a 4 ton heat pump, all electric in side only has a 200 amp service. So far no power issues but it is interesting to find 20 amp power outlets in a few key locations.
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Message 1549186 - Posted: 28 Jul 2014, 20:58:12 UTC - in response to Message 1549176.  

As for power issues, explain why a 2000 square foot house with a 4 ton heat pump, all electric in side only has a 200 amp service. So far no power issues but it is interesting to find 20 amp power outlets in a few key locations.

UK Houses have 60Amp consumer units, with fuses at 30amp for power, 15amp for heating, and 5 amp for lighting. All 3 pin sockets are 13Amp. But we use 230V at 50Hz not 120V at 60Hz. Which means that you guys use double the amperage that we do.

3Kw kettle in UK uses 13A
3Kw kettle in USA uses 25A

But 200Amp service?

The reason the that the UK went from 6V to 12V for automobile electrics was to cut the amperage and the cable sizes down.

Uh not quite, We have 240 feeds from the power transformer with a center tap that is connected to ground. My heat pump compressor, Air handler, oven/stove, clothes dryer and water heater all run off 240 volts. Everything else runs on one or the other of the 120 volt legs. I am not sure why you are pointing out 200 amp service but the service is the connection to the power transformer. With an all electric house, I have no other form of heat that electric. Should the power go down, the only thing the house is good for is a roof over my head. 200 amps sounds like plenty but when you start adding up all the circuits ( I have a big breaker box), you start wondering what happens when you get that new electric car they keep talking about. Seems to handle the load now but will it in the future?
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Message 1549204 - Posted: 28 Jul 2014, 21:40:01 UTC

Your 200A service breaker is, in terms of power, no different to the 100A service fuse used in my house.
Most UK houses only have one leg of the three phase area distribution ("415V"), but we do tend to have smaller area houses, and less "all electric" ones, so have lower overall demands on the electricity supply.
As for charging up one's electric car - quite a challenge in some areas. Not too bad in a row of "suburban semi's", but an interesting challenge in a multi-story apartment block...
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Message 1549209 - Posted: 28 Jul 2014, 22:10:05 UTC - in response to Message 1549201.  

Well Dena, we don't have home power transformers in the UK. We have Power stations that produce electricity at 25,000V. Electricity is then sent through the National Grid cables at 400,000V, 275,000V and 132,000V. Various substations reduce this down to 11,000V, which is transformed into 230V to the houses.

We are told that the standard voltage in the USA is 120V, so how come you are all running 240V appliances???

The standard connection to a building is 240 volts with a center tap on the transformer. Between the center tap and either 240 side is 120 volts. As the center tap is connected to ground, at the outlet, you have a safety ground, a power ground from the center tap and one hot wire. Both grounds go to the same place on separate wires. Ground fault will detect a difference between the two power wires and cut the power the moment a difference is detected. This gives you the best of both worlds, If you have a high power application, you wire the hot leads and you have 240 volts. If you don't need that much power, you wire a much safer 120 volts. Yes, more people are killed by 120 volts than any other voltage but over all, it is safer than 240 would be.

In industrial applications, we have the options of three phase and higher voltages but they cost to install and aren't available at many locations.

I think we have a difference in American and English terms. We call a soft iron core with copper wire wrapped around and used to convert alternating voltage a transformer regardless of size. You at least sometimes call it a power station. I am having a conversation about these differences in the English language with somebody else and sometimes it's very funny. Not judging right and wrong but some of the examples we have come up with show that Americans are a bit over sensitive most often when the term implies sex.
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Message 1549212 - Posted: 28 Jul 2014, 22:20:32 UTC - in response to Message 1549204.  

Your 200A service breaker is, in terms of power, no different to the 100A service fuse used in my house.
Most UK houses only have one leg of the three phase area distribution ("415V"), but we do tend to have smaller area houses, and less "all electric" ones, so have lower overall demands on the electricity supply.
As for charging up one's electric car - quite a challenge in some areas. Not too bad in a row of "suburban semi's", but an interesting challenge in a multi-story apartment block...

I am not exactly sure what you are saying, but the power available would be 240 volts at 200 amps for a total of 48,000 watts. Yes, that is a bunch of power but when you are all electric and 2000 square feet, that is also a lot of house. It might even qualify as a small McMansion to some people. What can I say, I hit the real estate market at the bottom and it was cheap.
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Message 1549221 - Posted: 28 Jul 2014, 23:21:44 UTC

Some of the differences are delta vs. wye for transformers and services. Grounded wye vs. un-grounded delta vs. 4 wire grounded delta to name just a few. Most all utilities in the US rely on the power company's ground and will bond to it where ever possible. To get a good ground under substations we have buried copper grids with salt wells and rods every few feet.

120v down to 110v/240v down to 208v AC - 200Amp grounded wye service is very common for most all electric home of 1,200 sq ft and up. 2,000 sq ft - 300Amp service, 3,500 sq ft - 600Amp is typical.
...
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Message 1549633 - Posted: 30 Jul 2014, 0:39:19 UTC

Sorry Monday, but there's a new bat in town :)

Meet Batman Jr! (aka Batmanakos in nativespeak)

Born May 5th he's got huge ears (I know, not in this photo but trust me...) and we tried calling him Fox at first but it never stuck



Out of a litter of 4 healthy, beautiful, and adorable kitties he's the one no-one could bring themselves to part with!
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Message 1549678 - Posted: 30 Jul 2014, 3:01:53 UTC

Thank you for sharing Alex. He is beautiful.
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Message 1549745 - Posted: 30 Jul 2014, 8:12:25 UTC

Pretty kitty.
And judging from the size of them paws, he might get to be a big 'un.
"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

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Message 1549784 - Posted: 30 Jul 2014, 11:18:01 UTC - in response to Message 1549678.  

Thank you for sharing Alex. He is beautiful.


+1!
rOZZ
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Message 1549793 - Posted: 30 Jul 2014, 11:52:37 UTC - in response to Message 1549784.  

Thank you for sharing Alex. He is beautiful.


+1!

Looks more like a case of extra small head to me. :-)
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Message 1549943 - Posted: 30 Jul 2014, 16:32:11 UTC - in response to Message 1549793.  

Thank you for sharing Alex. He is beautiful.


+1!

Looks more like a case of extra small head to me. :-)

Either way, it would be nice to see more pics as he grows up.
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Message 1550239 - Posted: 31 Jul 2014, 0:20:54 UTC - in response to Message 1549943.  


Either way, it would be nice to see more pics as he grows up.


Careful what you wish for ;) Just got a fire-sale semi-pro digital camera and may end up spamming your thread with pics!
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Message 1550276 - Posted: 31 Jul 2014, 1:27:33 UTC

No such thing Alex. Post your heart out.
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Message 1550533 - Posted: 31 Jul 2014, 16:10:12 UTC - in response to Message 1550239.  


Either way, it would be nice to see more pics as he grows up.


Careful what you wish for ;) Just got a fire-sale semi-pro digital camera and may end up spamming your thread with pics!

Spammed with kitty pics....now there's a threat. LOL.
I luv kitty pics. You are welcome to share some more.
As is everybody else!

Meow the merrier.
"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

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Message 1553247 - Posted: 7 Aug 2014, 14:13:19 UTC

Now here is a kitty rescue you just HAVE to see.
What nobody can figure out is just how kitty got themselves into this predicament.
Cat rescued from Land Cruiser spring....
"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

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