"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...
"Jon Danniken" wrote in message
...
"Doug Kanter" wrote:
"Jon Danniken" wrote:
"Doug Kanter" wrote:

Here in upstate NY, an entire lake was contaminated with PCBs by some
guy
"salvaging" transformers at the shoreline. The fish are no longer
safe
to
eat. You may want to investigate further what may be inside that
transformer
of yours before disassembling it. Perhaps your state's environmental
conservation department, or local department of solid waste could
assist
in
finding out more. Or, the manufacturer.

How many transformers do you have in your house, Doug?
How many of those contain PCBs?
What types of transformers used PCBs, and what was the purpose for the
PCBs?

Jon


Question 1: Doesn't matter. I have no intention of disassembling them.

Question 2: Probably none, but none of the transformers in my home are
older
than 3-4 years, except the tiny one that handles the doorbell. I doubt
PCB's
are permitted in small household transformers at this stage, considering
what we know about them.

Question 3: The oil in older, larger transformers was there for either
cooling or insulation - I don't recall, and it doesn't matter, since
it's
just a point of interest. But, the PCBs were there as a byproduct, not
because they had a purpose.

What's YOUR point? That, knowing what we do about these chemicals, we
should
be stupid, pretend the knowledge doesn't exist, and be careless?

My point is that I suspected you of being a reactionary man who is unable
to
consider a topic rationally, based upon the facts in evidence, without
launching into a pre-programmed tirade based upon emotional supposition
and
lack of knowledge.

That you are unwilling to answer the very basic questions that I asked
you
WRT transformers further demonstrates this, and I thank you for further
revealing yourself with your response.

I can't "fix" the problems that you seem determined to expose to the
world,
Doug,, but perhaps you would be a bit better off it you would at least
educate yourself a bit before exposing your ignorance in any particular
area
of knowledge.

Of course, you might very well enjoy espousing your ignorance to the
world;
it seems to be a popular pastime with your type.

Jon


Reactionary? Nonsense. The OP stated that he has a transformer weighing
around 200 lbs. While this does not necessarily mean it's different from
the one in my furnace, dishwasher or doorbell, it also does not mean it's
the same. Neither you nor I know exactly what he has. You know that.

As far as "rational", I'm sure you're aware that there's an entire
generation that has no idea what sort of chemistry experiments went on in
this country before people finally woke up. Perhaps the Love Canal
situation was the wakeup call. It's entirely possible that the OP had NO
idea about what he might have in his possession.

Why do you have a problem with suggesting that he proceed with caution? Do
you believe that all the research into the dangers of PCBs are junk
science?

For those who are interested in a little of the history of PCBs I work for a
utility that has some experience with it.

Firstly, size doesn't matter, it was everywhere at one time, and ignoramus's
original post did not mention if the transformer was dry or not. So I think
Doug's response to be wary of PCBs was the right thing to suggest, given the
possible dangers involved.

PCBs were the answer to a maidens prayer for transformer and capacitor
manufacturers, since it had much better heat transfer characteristics
combined with excellent dielectric strength. Plus it allowed more compact
designs, and a cheaper overall product cost. All was well in transformer and
capacitor land until a couple of incidents that drew attention to some of
PCB environmental effects.

One incident, came about because PCBs look and smell remarkably like cooking
oil, somewhere ( Japan I think ) a barrel of it found its way into a
restaurant and it was used to cook food. A number people were hospitalised
from its effects, burning of the mouth, throat etc.

Another incident involved a fire in a basement substation in a high rise
building in the US. Although it is hard to burn, a fault in the transformer
set it alight, and the buildings airconditioning system pumped the smoke
from the fire through the building. PCB's produce dioxin when they burn, and
the building was contaminated with dioxin. I'm not sure the mess has ever
been cleaned up.

Once they started looking at the chemical, they found that it had the
property of being very stable, and of accumulating in the food chain. If
someone did dump it in a lake, it would still be in the lake 500 years
later, most likely in the fish at the top of the food chain.

Experience in our own area was with a customer who bought us a sample
capacitor to have tested. They had been asleep in bed, hot night with the
fan on, when a capacitor in their ceiling fan leaked PCB's on to them. They
had fairly serious skin reactions on their faces, necks, and legs, like a
reaction to strong bleach, although the reaction was not immediate. The
fellow who bought us the capacitor had the burns, so I've actually seen the
effects of pure PCB.

We removed all our PCB capacitors from our network, and replaced them with
non PCB types. We stockpiled these for disposal on an incinerator ship which
cruised the world destroying the PCBs by burning them at exteremly high
temperatures, to destroy the dioxin, out at sea, since it was too dangerous
to attempt it on land. Funny thing was the ships kept sinking, the cynic in
me thinks it must have been cheaper to load up an old ship to the gunnels
with the suff, and sink it rather than actually burn it.

While we had no PCB transformers on our network, we acquired a network which
did have some. The problem was that maintenance processes had cross
contaminated a lot of other transformers with the stuff, and at one stage
the EPA here had set a limit of 5 parts per million contamination of PCB
before the oil was clasified as hazardous. I believe it is now at 20 ppm. I
believe this to be a major over reaction to risks involved, it's the pure
stuff that needs to be treated with respect.

While there is a fair bit of hysteria surrounding PCBs, there are some real
risks with the pure stuff that people playing with old transformers and
capacitors need to be wary of.

regards,

John