Need electrician - Plano area

[altiain]

I need a recomendation for an electrician in the Plano area ASAP.

The storm fubar'ed my house - power is on, lights, fans, dryer, oven work, but FIOS. alarm, and both thermostats aren't seeing power. One breaker tripped, I've reset it, no change. I''ve cycled all the breakers including the main, no help. FEC said meter and power to the house are fine.

I've troubleshot to the limit of my woefully inadequate ability. Time to bite the bullet and call in a pro.

[POS Racing]

Is there a breaker at the A/C units? My unit is in the attic and has a breaker mounted near it, as well as the outside condenser unit also has a breaker.

[sammm]

Could it be a tripped GFCI? Some breakers have them built-in, as do some circuits/plugs.

[Radio-Active]

The A/C units have a disconnect on the outside unit, as you probably already know, but the air handlers may also have a breaker on them which will keep the t-stats from coming on.

[channelmaniac]

+1 on the GFCI.

Spend a little money on a test stick at Home Debit/Lowes. It's the tool that glows red when you touch a live wire.

Pull the cover off the breaker panel and see if you have power coming out of the breaker. If you don't, replace the breaker.

If you do, go track down the plugs that aren't working and see if any are GFCI outlets. The outlets can be wired in such a way that if the GFCI one trips then all the other outlets connected downstream from it would be dead.

It's not hard to troubleshoot these things if you break it down into steps.

Also, taking the cover off the breaker box will let you see if any of the insulation on the wires going into the breakers are heat damaged. Heat damaged wires could mean a bad breaker.

Our dryer kept tripping the breaker and it turned out to be a bad breaker. The insulation was heat damaged right where the wire went into the breaker and the metal contacts on the breaker were discolorized. One new breaker and a 2" trim of the wire then the dryer was working great again.

RJ

[Titus]

I HIGHLY recommend: John Pierce, Pierce Electric, 214.212.3196. Best home repair experience ever. I was having him replace a un-switched fan with a light, and had him tie it in to the existing switched lights in the room. It took him about 20 minutes, and then he says "The minimum charge is for one hour... is there any other electrical work I can do for you in the next 40 minutes?".

[altiain]

Yeah... checked the outside breaker on both a/c units, not tripped. Flipped them anyway, no change. Couldn't find anything on air handlers in attic.

One GFCI was tripped in the master closet (same location as tripped circuit breaker). Reset it, and I can plug the iron into all four plugs in the closet and it works. ADT alarm control box, which is in same closet and plugged into one of said plugs, is dead. Plug it into all four plugs and nothing changes.

Verizon box on outside of house is dead. Verizon battery backup in the garage is not seeing a/c power, even though sprinkler system is plugged into same surge protector and is working fine. Everything else in the garage is working fine. No internet or TV - yay for phone web browser.

I'm starting to think I have three separate issues - external Verizon box, internal ADT box, and wherever t-stats are getting power from. Everything else in the house works fine, including all outlets. Called an electrician - hope to know something later today.

At least it isn't 100 degrees outside...

[channelmaniac]

If you're getting power to the units then the power supplies are toast.

Open up the FIOS box and replace the fuse if it's blown. The power supply is inside the unit that mounts in the house and has the battery in it.

As for the ADT box? You can do the same thing.

BUT, both of those may be covered by their respective companies. Call them.

On the AC unit? There's a low voltage supply for the thermostats. It's probably toast. Older units simply had transformers in them. Not sure about newer ones.

[HudsonHawk]

Our FIOS box died earlier this year during a storm. the charging circuit for the battery backup went out and the box will not work unless the battery is charging. They came out and replaced it at no cost to us. Said it was a common problem with the earlier units. The one they put in is completely different from the origional.

[altiain]

Electrician's best guess is house got hit by lightning. Transformer is blown and circuit board scorched in ADT box. No fuse/circuit breaker apparent in outside Verizon box. Air handlers have internal 5A fuses - toast. He is looking in truck for spares, hopefully that will fix t-stats..

[channelmaniac]

It's NOT in the outside Verizon box.

It's in the INSIDE Verizon box.

The power is carried up the cable that connects the inside & outside boxes.

While you're at it, check all your phones and any computer hooked to the phone line for damage.

[altiain]

It's NOT in the outside Verizon box.

It's in the INSIDE Verizon box.

The power is carried up the cable that connects the inside & outside boxes.

While you're at it, check all your phones and any computer hooked to the phone line for damage.

OK, I'll check the inside box. All computers are on wifi, and the only thing plugged into phone line is ADT for monitoring. Maybe that explains why ADT box blew?

[channelmaniac]

Hard to say... but I will go on record to say that when I worked at a computer store in Paris, TX, back in the mid-90s that over 95% of computers with lightning damage had the modem as the point of entry.

Everyone plugs their power cords into the surge protector but never plugs the modems into one. Not even for their satellite receivers.

DOH!

[Greg]

Did he find a new 5A for the air handler?

If no, you can go to the local auto parts store and buy a 5A blade type fuse and stick in the unit. That will get your low voltage back to the T-stat and outdoor unit.

Wish I would've seen this post earlier today. I could have walked you through checking it pretty easily and saved you a few bucks.

channelmaniac:
yes to the newer units using transformers.

[altiain]

Yeah, when he plugged in a new fuse it popped as well. Traced the short back and found that the circuit boards in both air handlers were scorched. Couldn't find anyone open with the boards in stock yesterday, so maybe the a/c will be fixed tomorrow.

I took the Verizon battery backup apart, couldn't find any fuses or circuit breakers. Ditto for what I could get to in the outside box. Based on the fried circuit boards in the air handlers and the ADT box, I'm going to assume one or both of the Verizon boxes are toast as well. Sigh...

The electrician and Verizon will be back out tomorrow morning. Think I might put in a lightning rod this winter - my house is the third one that's been hit in this area in the last three years. The other two caught fire...

[channelmaniac]

It doesn't have to be a direct hit to do that kind of damage. If you have ANY wiring in metal conduit that isn't grounded then you can get a charged induced in it from nearby lightning. That charge can pass through wiring running through it.

Back in the mid 90s I worked for a computer store doing their customers' networks. One of the area schools paid big bucks and got screwed by some fly-by-night outfit out of Dallas on their wiring. There was a section of conduit that went from the main building out to a set of outbuildings that carried the RG-58 coax for the network. It wasn't underground, wasn't grounded, and did not have waterproof couplings.

They had a lightning strike in the middle of the football field behind the school and the whole network went down. Turns out there was water in the conduit and a cut in the outer jacket of the cable. The lightning induced a charge in the conduit which went through the water and the cut in the cable then traveled down the coax. It blew out every hub in the school that was on the coax.

Just a long way of saying it doesn't take a direct hit to sustain that kind of damage. Maybe you have something that is acting like a big open air transformer to get the charge into the house.

The school? Our on-call electrician replaced the conduit couplings and grounded it after pulling new cable. About a dozen new hubs later and the school was back in business.

[Radio-Active]

Sounds like it may be time to call your insurance agent and get a couple of new A/C units in my oppinion. My parrents house got struck by lightening when it was fairly new back in the late 70's and the A/C unit never did work right from that point on. Upgrade time.

[altiain]

Well... close to a grand later, my a/c, phone, internet, and cable work again. Stupid lightning...

[Sharpie]

You got off way cheaper than that policeman in Murphy. Glad it's all fixed.

[altiain]

You got off way cheaper than that policeman in Murphy. Glad it's all fixed.

Without a doubt. All grousing aside, we are both extrmemly thankful that there was no fire. Neither of us were home at the time, but both of the dogs were.

Apparently there was another, smaller fire in Murphy on the same night, so at least three lightning strikes in Murphy Friday night from the storm.