I Need Help!

R

ryanhayes96

New member
i have my tank on a circuit in my house that is used by toher things also. We heard a electric like humming noise and looked and the plug in the kitchen with the reset button was smoking!

do i need to hire an electrician to come out and put a specific circuit for the tank? has anyone ever had it sone? HELP!
 
I'm not a certified electrician by anymenas but I would suggest you isolate the circuit to determine if the short is on the same circuit breaker , if so then I would run an HD extension cord to another circuit to prevent any posssiblity of fire. Then I would turn off the other circuit breaker until someone looks at it for you.
Best of luck and be careful.
Regards
George
 
The circuit with a reset button on it is a GFCI outlet, Ground Fault Circuit Interupter. It, along with all of the electrical in your house should NEVER smoke. PLEASE make sure that there is no residual heat behind it in the wall, I'm sure it was isolated but it is NOT good that it smoked. I don't want to alarm but please determine what else was on that circuit, eliminate all of the load and make sure the outlet and surrounding wall is cold to the touch and has no smoke smell. Electrical fires are one of the number one cause of household fires and I have heard many times someone saying they had a similar incident earlier in the day and then awoke to a fire. This is also the time to make a plug for working smoke detectors!! I don't mean to lecture, but I don't want to hear anyone has been hurt. Rant over, call an electrician to look at this outlet. The fact that you plugged in your tank should not have caused it to smoke unless something else is wrong electrically. Your circuits are limited to what they can provide and are rated above that for safety. Even so, add up all of the watts you are drawing with the tank, divide by 110 and you will have a rough idea of the amps your drawing. Most home circuits can provide 15 amps per outlet or up to 20 amps per circuit. I do have a dedicated outlet for my 150 though. Sorry to lecture, old job speaking.... Tony
 
Thats some really great advice Tony! I would certainly listen to him as it makes a lot of sense.

GFCIs usually trip if somethings wrong but should never smoke thats .. REALLY scary <-- has had a house fire from lightning before .. You DONT want a fire in any way shape or form in your house.. i'd use flashlights if you need to see where you're goinng keep everything off and make sure its cool and address this thing either now or first thing int he morning if possible
 
Can you give us a lsit of everything plugged into that circuit?
Turn the breaker off if you have to, to check this. As recommended above, you should turn this circuit off until you can get it checked out. Better safe than sorry.
Where is your tank located? How close to the kitchen?
 
i HAD a seio 1100
216 watt t5 light
1 800 gph powerhead plugged in when it started smking,

Have run extention corda from other circuits to the tank. Only lughts are on the smoking circuit. the tanks probably 10 feet away from kitchen
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9813504#post9813504 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ryanhayes96
dad doesint want to turn off circuit because of the answering machine....
Click to expand...

OK, but when the house burns down, the answering machine melts.
Sorry to be a jerk about it, but come on.
Move the answering machine. Inconvenience yourselves until you get someone out there.
Be smart about this, please. For your safety.
Smoke is always a bad sign when electricity is involved. CALL SOMEONE.
 
216 watts of light in and of itself will not overload the circuit. Again the only way the circuit is smoking is if something else is VERY wrong. Overloading a circuit should NEVER cause it to smoke, the breaker is there to cut it off on an overload. The fact that it is/did smoke and is still on is not a good sign. Please get this checked as soon as possible and be VERY aware of it until then. This just is not good.

The load your tank is drawing is far less than what one average circuit can provide. I have 3 pumps, 2 powerheads, 300 watts of lights, a heater, fans and a controller on my circuit with overhead. Tony

P.S. Has it stopped smoking?!? I'll go so far as to say that if I ever have a smoking outlet at my house (and I didn't do it with pyro or such) ;) , I will call my friends in the big red trucks and let them look at it. I guarantee you they would rather come out on a small inconvenience than take a body out of a fire scene. I hope I'm not being overly dramatic but smoke is not good unless its planned!!!
 
Last edited:
Again, I am sorry for coming off like a jerk, but this is more serious than I think your Dad realizes.
Turn the breaker off until you get someone out to look at it.
This is only for your safety.
I come off like I did, only because most people underestimate what electricity can, and will do, and I tend to be a jerk once in a while. :D sorry
 
On the bright side once you get an electrician out maybe it will end up tobe something stupid like a spider got cooked walking behind the wall or something but better safe than sorry!
 
I was adding an outlet at a relatives house a few weeks back and opened the exterior entrance panel, it had at least 12 fried frogs and lizards across the main terminals, just skeletized remains. Totally gross, now I know why they were having small power bumps every so often. I'm sure there would have been some good smoke there but being outside I doubt anyone would have noticed. I do remember hearing a call a while back where a squirel had chewed thru some wires, ignited the area and himself and then ran around spreading the fire further. Animals and electricity, fun. Tony
 
i told him about turning off thecircuit but he dont care. i know what ur saying. were going to call around today. anyone have arough guess on how much n looking at for another circuit?
 
it could have gotten some salt creep in there and started to slowly arch out the outlet. The outlet could still be working just fine too. how do i know - see the black outlet under our old tank! it was a GFCI, totally black after something happened, tank ran fine. I put a water proof outdoor cover on it - i really should have replaced it, but would have had to remove the tank to get to to rewire. NOW ALL outlet around the stand have outdoor rain covers on them!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9815446#post9815446 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ryanhayes96
i told him about turning off thecircuit but he dont care. i know what ur saying. were going to call around today. anyone have arough guess on how much n looking at for another circuit?
Click to expand...

My wife is an electricians assistant and their company will charge anywhere from $60 - $75/hour for residential work plus parts. An easy install would be 2 to 3 hours and maybe $45 in parts but everyone is different and some will give you a package price. Tony
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9815446#post9815446 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ryanhayes96
i told him about turning off thecircuit but he dont care. i know what ur saying. were going to call around today. anyone have arough guess on how much n looking at for another circuit?
Click to expand...

not careing is absurd, maybe he just doesnt relaize how fats a fire can spread inside a wall leading to the attic and thus takjing the whole house down. Fire doubles in size every 18 seconds. By the time most people smell an eletrical fire the wall is fully involved inside and very posiibly extended to the attic.

Take the advice of the others on this list, call a pro RIGHT NOW. Unplug everything on that circuit and throw the breaker. That answering machine will do little good if your whole family is crispy. I hate to preach but once youve seen 2 yeard old killed due to THE EXACT SAME SITUATION you tend to take it to heart. Parents saw a puff of smoke from the GFCI in the bathroom, hit the reset button and where later dragged from the house with 60% of their bodies burned and a daughter that was buried the next day. ok off my soapbox, get someone out there no matter waht the cost it is worth investing in your safety
 
well update

we called an electician and he said that the gfci is fried becuase of the smoke. He will hook up a dedicated circuit to the tank or split one from antoher circuit. it will be like 1.5 weeks
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9817980#post9817980 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ryanhayes96
well update

we called an electician and he said that the gfci is fried becuase of the smoke. He will hook up a dedicated circuit to the tank or split one from antoher circuit. it will be like 1.5 weeks
Click to expand...

I would not wait that long. Call someone else. Serious.
 
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