Circuit Breaker Disaster: How Water And Electricity Nearly Destroyed a Home as Told by a Red Deer Electrician

Circuit Breaker Disaster: How Water And Electricity Nearly Destroyed a Home as Told by a Red Deer Electrician

Hey there. Welcome back to LumenTek Electrical’s YouTube channel. My name is Trevor, and I’m here with Ryan. He is the owner of LumenTek Electrical that operates in Central Alberta, Red Deer, Blackfalds, that area of Alberta.

Today, we’ve got an interesting story for you. Almost shocking, you might say. Let’s get started with it.

So you had a customer call in with a service call. What was the call about?

We got a call. The customer was saying they had had a fire in their bathroom fan, and the whole fan burnt up and fell out of the ceiling. So I kind of was like, okay, maybe it shorted out and some sparks came out and it turned off. But I definitely wasn’t expecting there to actually be a fire in the ceiling fan.

So did you get any pictures?

I got a photo of it after, but I didn’t get a picture when it fell out of the ceiling after it burned, because all the connections and everything had completely melted and it just fell out of the ceiling. It was so hot when it hit the toilet bowl it cracked the toilet in half. All the water went everywhere.

So I unfortunately didn’t get a picture of that. That was all taken out before I got there. But I took a picture of the fan box in the ceiling, and it was just all black. There was nothing that wasn’t just bare metal in there, smoke.

Well, he’s lucky his house didn’t catch on fire.

Very lucky, right?

Electrical Panel Failure Caused by Water Damage in Red Deer

So we kind of looked at it a bit. We were wondering why nothing tripped, why nothing shut off. And I think what happened, we went down to the panel, is that the way the service mast came in, it could have let water kind of track through that mast into the panel. And the breakers, from getting wet over and over, got corroded internally.

Because when you turn them on and off, it wasn’t a smooth on and off. It sounded like there was a lot of friction in there, and the breaker wasn’t operating as it should, because it definitely should have tripped.

Yeah. So if your breakers are not functioning properly, what is the point of a circuit breaker to prevent that?

Why Circuit Breakers Fail and How Homes Catch Fire

It should. If there’s too much current on the circuit, it will shut it off before it damages the wire or any components connected to the end of the circuit or catch fire.

Yeah, right. So the big deal is it’s a safety concern, right? It’s not just electricians looking to make money on changing panels out and changing breakers and so forth. It’s about safety so that your house doesn’t catch fire and nobody loses property or life.

Now in this situation, what did you end up doing? You obviously recommended a panel change, a panel upgrade for them.

Yeah. We quoted a few different things. We did a panel upgrade quote, and then another quote, it’s a new panel, where we can replace all your breakers in there, make sure the bus bars are all clean, no corrosion on those, and that’s the cheaper alternative.

But I did recommend just replacing the panel. If it’s been through that much, it’s probably better just to start over again.

Yeah. So we’ll hear about that one. We did disconnect the circuit so it wouldn’t power up again until they got the bathroom dealt with.

Right. So are you going to be in there to replace the fan, or what happened during that service call?

That was just like two days ago, so I haven’t heard anything back yet.

Okay. Too soon. Too soon.

Now what about solving the problem of water getting in? That’s a different issue.

When to Replace an Electrical Panel in Central Alberta

Yeah. I don’t think we’d have to figure out where it’s coming from. It shouldn’t be coming into the meter base, so we have to take a look at that, open that up, and see where it’s coming from.

Right. So guys, when you’re having these types of problems, and you know the reason for these circuit interrupters, circuit breakers, is for your safety. We’ve always been, in the last—I don’t know—we’ve been changing out Federal Pioneer panels for years, decades.

When I was still in the trade, we were doing those, and there’s still lots of them out there. Millions of homes have these Federal breakers or these older panels that really should be changed out and upgraded.

The reason they do that is for safety, because they aren’t made to the same standards as today’s, and maybe they don’t trip when they ought to. So your wire basically becomes a heat element in your walls and can catch your house on fire, which is terrible, right? Nobody wants that.

Smart Electrical Panels and Service Upgrades Explained

If you’re in the Central Alberta region, if you’re in Red Deer looking for an electrician, or you’re in Blackfalds looking for an electrician, or what other areas are close by there—Sylvan Lake, Penhold—anywhere around there, give us a call.

Okay, give them a call, and they’ll give you a quote on a service upgrade. These guys do an excellent job of renewing the service upgrade, giving a new panel, new breakers.

And one thing that is new that you guys have been exposed to is the Leviton smart panels, right? So basically you have a new Leviton panel with the option of having some smart breakers installed in there, which can be monitored and controlled via an app. That’s kind of cool. So ask them about that stuff, right?

Any other cool stuff that’s happened this week?

Doing a car charger a couple days ago.

Okay. I’ve done those for a while. We’ll shoot one of those in the next video about EV chargers, what to expect when you’re wanting an EV charger.

All right, so guys, thanks for showing up today. Thanks for watching the video. Share, like, and again, if you’re looking for an electrician, call LumenTek Electrical contractors in Blackfalds.

All right. Thanks.