A while back I mentioned something about an issue where I could smell
something electrical in the air. It was discussed as maybe being ozone
in the air or something wrong with the wiring. We could never find the
source, and the smell was only off and on, so, we couldn't find the source.

A few weeks ago we had a new roof put on, and when they were done we had
an electrical issue that appeared to be caused by a wire having a nail
hit it, and it caused a portion of a circuit to quit working: 3 plugs
and an outside flood light on our porch. On the rest of that circuit
everything still worked. Turns out it was a nail from the roof causing
that problem.

We finally found out the cause of the original issue that we couldn't
track down. Turns out a plug was taking it's time shorting out and the
neutral wire in the wall connected to the plug finally burned all the
way through and separated causing those plugs and flood light to quit
working. The electrician said we still had power going to those plugs
and light, but the burned wire was the cause of not only the plugs and
light not working, but also was probably the source of that off and on
electrical smell. He said it had burned up inside the wall a few
inches, but he could still fix it, and then explained how he'd do that.

So, now it's all fixed. He also put in a dedicated plug on its own
circuit so we could plug in a small oil heater we use in that room. He
thought that heater could have pulled too much power from the shorted
out plug, and since it was on a circuit being used by various other
household items, at times (not all the time), put a strain on that
particular plug. So, now we have a dedicated circuit for the heater.

Thought I'd post this info, since we finally found a solution as to what
was causing that electrical smell in the air off and on.

--
Maggie

On 7/15/2017 12:22 PM, Muggles wrote:

A while back I mentioned something about an issue where I could smell
something electrical in the air. It was discussed as maybe being ozone
in the air or something wrong with the wiring. We could never find the
source, and the smell was only off and on, so, we couldn't find the source.

A few weeks ago we had a new roof put on, and when they were done we had
an electrical issue that appeared to be caused by a wire having a nail
hit it, and it caused a portion of a circuit to quit working: 3 plugs
and an outside flood light on our porch. On the rest of that circuit
everything still worked. Turns out it was *NOT a nail from the roof causing
that problem.

We finally found out the cause of the original issue that we couldn't
track down. Turns out a plug was taking it's time shorting out and the
neutral wire in the wall connected to the plug finally burned all the
way through and separated causing those plugs and flood light to quit
working. The electrician said we still had power going to those plugs
and light, but the burned wire was the cause of not only the plugs and
light not working, but also was probably the source of that off and on
electrical smell. He said it had burned up inside the wall a few
inches, but he could still fix it, and then explained how he'd do that.

So, now it's all fixed. He also put in a dedicated plug on its own
circuit so we could plug in a small oil heater we use in that room. He
thought that heater could have pulled too much power from the shorted
out plug, and since it was on a circuit being used by various other
household items, at times (not all the time), put a strain on that
particular plug. So, now we have a dedicated circuit for the heater.

Thought I'd post this info, since we finally found a solution as to what
was causing that electrical smell in the air off and on.


Edit:
*Turns out it was NOT a nail from the roof!

--
Maggie