Recently I've been working on an upgrade to the Pageant's back stage work lights. I just finished phase two of the project. I'll tackle phase three next season. For this project I used a combination of new and existing conduit runs, ran all new wire, all the way back to the breaker panel and I replaced all the work light breakers. This, of course meant that I had to open up the panel and get inside. I had hoped that the only issue I would run into with this was having to wear my arc flash PPE.
No such luck.
When I opened up the 60 year old panel, I found a wholly unorganized spaghetti mess of wires. In this mess were several green hots and one white wire used as a jumper to connect a green wire and a black wire to a breaker. Two breakers were cracked and I found the one and only legitimate branch circuit ground wire connected to a neutral buss.
I ended up taking a couple of hours to neaten up the wiring and fix what issues I could. Obviously there's not a whole lot I can do about the green hots without starting another major rewiring project, as I'm not sure where they end up once they leave the panel. I'll save that one for another season, maybe make it a part of my off season maintenance this fall.
The single most dangerous issue, I discovered completely by accident. I had a portable work light plugged into a wall receptacle near the panel. As I was redressing a bundle of wires my light went out. I figured I had simply blown a lamp, but as I was pulling my hand out of the panel, my light came back on. So I took a second look at that portion of the breaker panel. Thats when I discovered that the hot wire for that circuit was not actually connected to a breaker. It was merely touching the screw of a random circuit. This also enlightened me as to the cause of an equipment problem we've been having recently. We had been blowing a lot of lamps on our slide projectors. I'm not at liberty to say what we use them for, but they just happen to get plugged into the receptacle powered by this free roaming hot. Cause and effect maybe?
Fortunately, with the reworking and cleaning up I had already done in the panel, I had an unused breaker that I was able to connect this wire to. The free roaming hot was a newer wire than most of the wiring in that panel, so it was obviously added by someone, and not recently, as I have held the ME position at the Pageant for close to a decade. The only reason I found it was that I was working on the panel and happened to stumble across it. That it went undiscovered for at least 10 years is troubling to me, though I had no way of knowing that there was a problem. I had only been informed of our projectors going through lamps a few days before I did my work on the electrical panel and had no reason to even suspect I had a problem. This was a problem that was costing the company money in blown lamps, but could very easily have cost much more, potentially resulting in a fire or even possibly killing someone, all because someone was too lazy to double check their work when making an addition to the building's electrical system.
Now I would be curious to hear what kinds of issues other CB members have found in their venues, especially older venues, and what, if anything was done to address those issues.
No such luck.
When I opened up the 60 year old panel, I found a wholly unorganized spaghetti mess of wires. In this mess were several green hots and one white wire used as a jumper to connect a green wire and a black wire to a breaker. Two breakers were cracked and I found the one and only legitimate branch circuit ground wire connected to a neutral buss.
I ended up taking a couple of hours to neaten up the wiring and fix what issues I could. Obviously there's not a whole lot I can do about the green hots without starting another major rewiring project, as I'm not sure where they end up once they leave the panel. I'll save that one for another season, maybe make it a part of my off season maintenance this fall.
The single most dangerous issue, I discovered completely by accident. I had a portable work light plugged into a wall receptacle near the panel. As I was redressing a bundle of wires my light went out. I figured I had simply blown a lamp, but as I was pulling my hand out of the panel, my light came back on. So I took a second look at that portion of the breaker panel. Thats when I discovered that the hot wire for that circuit was not actually connected to a breaker. It was merely touching the screw of a random circuit. This also enlightened me as to the cause of an equipment problem we've been having recently. We had been blowing a lot of lamps on our slide projectors. I'm not at liberty to say what we use them for, but they just happen to get plugged into the receptacle powered by this free roaming hot. Cause and effect maybe?
Fortunately, with the reworking and cleaning up I had already done in the panel, I had an unused breaker that I was able to connect this wire to. The free roaming hot was a newer wire than most of the wiring in that panel, so it was obviously added by someone, and not recently, as I have held the ME position at the Pageant for close to a decade. The only reason I found it was that I was working on the panel and happened to stumble across it. That it went undiscovered for at least 10 years is troubling to me, though I had no way of knowing that there was a problem. I had only been informed of our projectors going through lamps a few days before I did my work on the electrical panel and had no reason to even suspect I had a problem. This was a problem that was costing the company money in blown lamps, but could very easily have cost much more, potentially resulting in a fire or even possibly killing someone, all because someone was too lazy to double check their work when making an addition to the building's electrical system.
Now I would be curious to hear what kinds of issues other CB members have found in their venues, especially older venues, and what, if anything was done to address those issues.
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