New place, voltage in HT room is too low!!

j_garcia · Dec 7, 2006

NOOOOO. So I plugged in my Panamax at the new place and right off the bat I get 115v...with nothing plugged into it. I checked all 3 outlets on that end of the room and the same thing. I turned on the TV and it dropped to 110v (16:9 CRT), which is similar to my last place (fairly big draw due to TV), but I was able to run all my gear there without issue. That means if I use my monos, sub amp, receiver and dvd player, it definitely looked like it would be an issue.

I have a friend who is an electrician and he recommended a few trouble shooting items, all of which made the picture look even more grim...he said hook up a space heater to the power conditioner and see what happens. As soon as I kicked that guy on, voltage dropped to 90V and the conditioner disconnected, as it should. Bad news. He says it could be something as simple as a loose wire somewhere best case; worst case, the wiring is bad.

Anyone else run into something like this? Need some experience with this one, cuz I will not be able to run my system in this room until this is resolved

I havent' checked other rooms yet....but no other rooms will really have this kind of current draw besides the kitchen/laundry area.

agarwalro · Dec 7, 2006

If the symptom is consistent across the house, one possiblity is that it might be an incoming supply issue. Your friend may know of some standard test for the quality of the incoming supply to the house.

mtrycrafts · Dec 7, 2006

j_garcia said:
NOOOOO. So I plugged in my Panamax at the new place and right off the bat I get 115v...with nothing plugged into it. I checked all 3 outlets on that end of the room and the same thing. I turned on the TV and it dropped to 110v (16:9 CRT), which is similar to my last place (fairly big draw due to TV), but I was able to run all my gear there without issue. That means if I use my monos, sub amp, receiver and dvd player, it definitely looked like it would be an issue.
I have a friend who is an electrician and he recommended a few trouble shooting items, all of which made the picture look even more grim...he said hook up a space heater to the power conditioner and see what happens. As soon as I kicked that guy on, voltage dropped to 90V and the conditioner disconnected, as it should. Bad news. He says it could be something as simple as a loose wire somewhere best case; worst case, the wiring is bad.
Anyone else run into something like this? Need some experience with this one, cuz I will not be able to run my system in this room until this is resolved I havent' checked other rooms yet....but no other rooms will really have this kind of current draw besides the kitchen/laundry area.

WOW, not good at all

A TV should not drop it 5V. That 90V is below brownouts.
If you have a meter and willing and competent to pull the panel off the circuit breaker box, check the voltage drop coming into that panel with that heater, or with that TV only on.
Or, actually, it sounds like your Panamax has a Voltage meter on it? Or how are you measuring the voltage?
Were these components plugged into the Panamax or just the outlet? See if your reading is confirmed with these components bypassing directly to the wall. Check other rooms.

Could be just that branch circuit? Or, the whole house, or, just that Panamax is faulty somehow.

j_garcia · Dec 8, 2006

Panamax seems to be working fine. Everything was plugged into the Panamax when I did the first test. It has a LED meter reading voltage, I'll have to pick up a volt meter, but looks like I am going to get my friend out to check out the panel. I'm competent, but not foolish - he's a licensed home electrician. What he said to do was stick another plug strip on there and plug the Panamax and the heater to it, then see what happens, and I got the same thing - if the Panamax was at fault, the drop should not be present and it was. Hopefully it is just that room and it is something that can easily be fixed. I took a look at the panel last night and everything looks normal, but I did not pull the cover off and actually look at the breakers/wiring themselves.

jcPanny · Dec 8, 2006

Line Regulation

A power center with line regulation like the APC H10 might help compensate for your electrical issues. If the problem is something simple like a bad breaker or a bad connection at one of the outlets, then repairing the wiring might be a better option.

Methodical · Dec 8, 2006

When you say New home is it a newly built home or just a nused home to you. If newly built, the builder would be my first contact. I would not do anything without the builder being involved. Show them exactly your problem.
Even get the building inspector involved if necessary.

majorloser · Dec 8, 2006

How old is the house? Hopefully you don't have an "older" house with alluminum wiring. REAL BAD STUFF!

Even new load centers have alluminum connections. They will corrode in certain conditions, like salt air.

Since the outlets in one circuit are usually "daisy chained" together, then if a connection at one outlet in a chain is faulty, every outlet following that connection will be faulty. You could check the connections of every outlet/fixture in that circuit. Heck, replace the outlets. They're cheap.

j_garcia · Dec 8, 2006

Yes, that was the first thing my friend mentioned was the aluminum wire as a potential problem based on the age of the house. I thought I mentioned it before, but I guess not; the house is around 30yrs old. No salt water here, but the panel is outside in the garage.

I had to replace a couple of switches so far, and the wiring appears to be copper, so that may be good news. I'll have to check all the outlets in that room tonight and see what the story is, then will have to figure out what all is on that circuit if that doesn't yeild anything. I am certain all of the outlets on that side of the room are daisy chained because they all ready the same voltage. I haven't checked others in near by rooms.

100r1 · Dec 8, 2006

More than likely, you need to up the service amperage.

Higher capacity fuse/breaker panel, perhaps larger guage coming from the weatherhead. adding the higher amp service will give you more circuts of which you can dedicate a few just to the outlets for the entertainment components. Pull larger guage wires to the outlets for 20 amp service.

do you have EMT or romex ? if EMT pulling new wires is easy and a lot less costly than fishing new romex.

mtrycrafts · Dec 8, 2006

j_garcia said:
. I haven't checked others in near by rooms.

Maybe that should have been the early troubleshooting to see if the issue is room related, or whole house related.

j_garcia · Dec 8, 2006

I think it is 15A right now, but not sure what all is on the circuit. EMT? Conduit? I don't know yet.

mtrycrafts said:
Maybe that should have been the early troubleshooting to see if the issue is room related, or whole house related.

That will be next. Didn't check other rooms because this is the only one that will have that much high current gear in it

Will be checking near by rooms tonight.

audiohead01 · Dec 11, 2006

All good advice, being of an electrical engineering family by blood I would have your friend the electrician take care of it. Electricity can be a silent killer. It is nothing to fool with unless you have a complete understanding.
At least you know how to pick your friends

j_garcia · Dec 11, 2006

So an update. My friend came over and took a look at things and no simple answer. The panel looks OK and the house was wired with copper, no aluminum. The bad news was, he couldn't easily asses what is going on. We pulled the outlets in that room and he mentioned that the way the wires were done (crimp vs wire nuts, direct wire, or other more positive mechanical connection) is probably related to some of the loss, but not all of it. We also found that it is systemic, so it isn't limited to the one circuit. So my new project is to find everything on the two circuits that are present in this room, map them out within the house and check all outlets and switches to make sure they are all making proper contact and wired correctly. The second outlet we pulled was actually damaged on the back somehow and fortunatley I had some replacements, so I replaced all of the ones in the HT area. I will be mapping and checking wiring on the first circuit, which the HT will be on, this evening.... Worst case, I asked him what it would take to give me a dedicated 20A circuit to that room

mtrycrafts · Dec 11, 2006

audiohead01 said:
being of an electrical engineering family by blood

So, you have pure electron flow in there? What color? LOL

What brand of wiring?

mtrycrafts · Dec 11, 2006

j_garcia said:
The panel looks OK

Does this mean, no such voltage drop on the mains coming to the panel with such heavy loads as that dryer or whatnots? Only from the circuit panel and the outlets? How long is the run from the panel to the outlets?

j_garcia · Dec 11, 2006

He said there is a little drop on the incoming line from the meter to the panel, but nothing out of spec and he couldn't detect a drop at the box anywhere near like what is happening at the outlets themselves, which is why he wants us to try rewiring the outlets. He said the box appears to be to code, but probably just barely. One poorly wired outlet: no problem, but if all of them, possibly 10 or so of them all making poor contact could account for a decent amount of sag according to him. We checked the two main circuits that power the rooms and both exhibit the same problem, as well as the same poor wiring. I am going to do the one circuit and check again, if that doesn't at least help, that means wiring within the house is likely damaged somewhere. The box is in the garage and the outlets are only about 20ft-25ft away.

majorloser · Dec 11, 2006

I would say you're a lucky man. If it wasn't for the Panamax you would have never know about the problem. This can potentially be a major fire hazard within your walls.

Hopefully you can get rid of the poor connection or faulty wiring by just fixing the outlets and switches on the circuit. Those crimp type connections are only as good as the installation. I personally like wire nuts.

j_garcia · Dec 11, 2006

Yep, he said I should switch to wire nuts for this one.

mtrycrafts · Dec 11, 2006

j_garcia said:
The box is in the garage and the outlets are only about 20ft-25ft away.

Well, that run is not enough to cause such voltage drops.
When you rewire, use 12ga to the first outlet at least.

audiohead01 · Dec 12, 2006

I would check with you electrician buddy on wire size, it is directly related to breaker size if not it can get hotter than normal and you would never know. 12 gauge is typical of 20 amp breakers and outlets are rated as well 15-20 amp, 20 amp often has a horizontal spade in the fron of the connector to take a 20 amp male plug match everything to spec. Like I said your friend will steer you in the right direction.

New place, voltage in HT room is too low!!

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