Hello all,
I wanted to explain a very strange situation that is occurring in one of the rooms in my house, and see if anyone could provide a reasonable explanation.
Safety Disclaimer: I am having a qualified electrician come out, and don't plan on touching any of said electrified items any more. I am more interested in understanding the cause of these effects to improve my knowledge of electrical theory. The guys coming out probably don't have the patience to explain it to me, so would be real interested to see what the forum has to say.
Ok, so here's what's going on. I have an electrical circuit in my house. The wiring probably dates to the early '50s, and is old cloth covered wire (I believe it is copper on this circuit, although I have noticed some aluminum wire still in use elsewhere in the house). This cable does not have a ground wire. The circuit supplies a receptacle in the living room, as well as several outlets in a bedroom. In this bedroom, it delivers power to some receptacles, a ceiling fixture (currently a fan), and a closet light with pull chain. The ceiling fixture has one hot wire that goes to a light switch in the wall (wired to light kit), as well as an always on hot for the fan motor...note that these are both on the same circuit. Now, here's the problem:
Curious for insight on this question:
Thomas
I wanted to explain a very strange situation that is occurring in one of the rooms in my house, and see if anyone could provide a reasonable explanation.
Safety Disclaimer: I am having a qualified electrician come out, and don't plan on touching any of said electrified items any more. I am more interested in understanding the cause of these effects to improve my knowledge of electrical theory. The guys coming out probably don't have the patience to explain it to me, so would be real interested to see what the forum has to say.
Ok, so here's what's going on. I have an electrical circuit in my house. The wiring probably dates to the early '50s, and is old cloth covered wire (I believe it is copper on this circuit, although I have noticed some aluminum wire still in use elsewhere in the house). This cable does not have a ground wire. The circuit supplies a receptacle in the living room, as well as several outlets in a bedroom. In this bedroom, it delivers power to some receptacles, a ceiling fixture (currently a fan), and a closet light with pull chain. The ceiling fixture has one hot wire that goes to a light switch in the wall (wired to light kit), as well as an always on hot for the fan motor...note that these are both on the same circuit. Now, here's the problem:
- the fan has a pull for both the light and motor...the light pull chain is electrified. Oddly, the motor chain is not.
- The pull chain for the closet light is electrified sometimes (not now from what I can tell).
- Ready for this? There is a curtain rod by a window. Obviously, this is not an intended outlet for power, but the curtain rod is electrified. However, there are blocks of wood screwed into the ceiling, and the metal curtain rod is attached to these wooden blocks, so I'm guessing maybe the rod, touches a screw, and the screw goes into the attic and touches something else that is live?
Curious for insight on this question:
- The fan is almost completely made of metal. It has a metal plate housing the light kit cover, and from this dangle two metal pulls, one for lights, and one for motor. Why might it be that the light pull is electrified, and the fan pull is not?
- If I hold a simple voltage detector (one of those pen style ones) near any of said items, it goes off immediately. I would venture to say there is a lot of voltage going through these items. For example, the detector goes off when held about 18" below the fan, and maybe 12" below the curtain rod. If I take the leads of a multi-tester (set to detect Volts), and put them on the curtain rod, I get nothing. I assume this is because there is no path to ground?
- I tried a suggestion from this thread, where I plugged a long extension cord into a known good outlet on another circuit (still no ground wire of course), and hauled it into the electrified bedroom. I put one lead from the multi-tester into the neutral slot on the extension cord, and the other lead onto the electrified curtain rod. Here are the results:
- Plug one lead of tester into extension cord neutral, the other lead sitting in air: averages 2.0V.
- Plug one lead of tester into extension cord hot, the other lead sitting in air: 13V
- Plug one lead of tester into extension cord neutral, the other lead touching fan's light cord: 2.2V
- Plug one lead of tester into extension cord hot, the other lead touching fan's light cord: 119V
- Plug one lead of tester into extension cord neutral, the other lead touching curtain rod: 1.1V
- Plug one lead of tester into extension cord hot, the other lead touching curtain rod: 13V
- Finally, one more strange observation, that may help explain this whole thing. If I plug the extension cord into a switched outlet on another circuit, and turn the switch off (assuming this means no power delivered to cord, but still provides a path back to earth through neutral buss bar), I noticed the following:
- One lead plugged into extension cord neutral, other lead touching fan's light cord: 118V
- One lead plugged into extension cord hot, other lead touching fan cord: 118V
- If I try this same experiment, but while touching the curtain rod, I don't get any noticeable voltage from either configuration. So seemingly the fan has a different behavior.
Thomas