I need electrical help!!! Grow room possibly fucked my Dryer up lol... Pics inside

William Shatter

William Shatter

Well-Known Member
2ANONYMOUS said:
Most all-electric clothes dryers use 240 volts to power their heating element and usually 120 volts for turning the drum and blowing the air through. So sometimes when it seems as though the heating element must be burned out, it is actually one of the dryer's two fuses or half of its double breaker that is blown, tripped, or having connection trouble. Don't automatically get a new dryer.

Another question I get about the dryer is the type of receptacle and cord that is appropriate. In general, an existing 3-hole dryer receptacle should not be replaced with 4-hole dryer receptacle because there will not usually be a fourth (ground) wire in that box. A 3-prong dryer cord should be installed from the dryer for an existing 3-hole receptacle and a 4-prong dryer cord for an existing 4-hole receptacle. In the dryer a metal strap at the neutral (center) terminal should be connected to the frame of the dryer when the cord is 3-prong and should be disconnected from the frame or from neutral for a 4-prong cord (whose green 4th wire connects to the frame).

Recently household dryers have become available which run 26 amps along the circuit, rather than the usual 21 or 22. This may cause the 30-amp breaker which did fine with a previous dryer to trip for one of these new ones (after a few minutes of operation). True, a 30-amp breaker should be able to handle the load, but any imperfection in the contacts or wire connection of the breaker, or even its closeness to other warm breakers, will produce more breaker-tripping heat, due to the higher current being run through it.
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This was my first thought when it stopped heating, because Dr google lead me to a repair site which told me the same thing pretty much, that the fuse was blown because the heating element can trick it to think theres a problem when too much voltage, or a clogged vent or a number of possibilities can happen. I took apart the old dryer and it was a mess, the drum was fallin off and the insides were covered in about an inch and half of dust, so i figured a new (free) one wouldnt be to bad of an idea.
I didnt replace the receptacle, its been a 4 prong since i moved in, and the new (free/used) dryer I got to replace had the same receptacle. Got it back here today and plugged it in and same thing, its got power, it turns, but no heat... so either the lady on craigslist lied and said the dryer worked, or maybe somethin got fucked up on the way home, or maybe the voltage thing tripped the fuse in this one again, or maybe im losing my mind over a goddamn dryer lol
 
William Shatter

William Shatter

Well-Known Member
koda7225 said:
No with electrical if it is messed up anywhere in the circut the whole circut is messed up.
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okay good to know.. well Ive got faith in you guys! were gonna figure this out!! lol im gonna go check both boxes now and see if anything is out of place..
 
koda7225

koda7225

Well-Known Member
William Shatter said:
can you tell me how you would have gone about reconnecting the blue romex Koda? If you were to do something so stupid, i know lol.. I mean it clearly was connected there before, so If I did something wrong while re-connecting it, I would love to know the proper way.. Im not really wanting to call an electrician as I have a room full of pot plants haha, so if at all possible i'd like to figure it out myself, although it was that same thinking that got me into this mess haha
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You need to start at the outlets and make sure they are actually wired for 120.....basically that blue wire is 2 120 circuts feeding off a single 240, which means that blue wire SHOULD have been a 5 wire and not a 4 wire so you could maintain a ground in the setup....i would need to see how everything is wired in the junction box by the outlets to really tell whats going on here.
 
William Shatter

William Shatter

Well-Known Member
Resinhound said:
110 is one hot (black) and one neutral (white) which is referenced to ground.220 uses 2 110 hot wires( typically black and red)and no neutral.Both systems will utilize a ground for safety.Dryer elements require 220v at 110 the amperage draw of the element would be too excessive.Honestly if you dont know your way around a volt meter,you may want to do some research before messing with it.
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I really appreciate your help but could you pretty please repeat this in a "for dummies" version..
and this is me doing my research to be honest.. as well as reading anything useful I can find online, but to make a horrible comparison to "who wants to be a millionare" sometimes you just gotta ask the audience.
 
koda7225

koda7225

Well-Known Member
William Shatter said:
okay good to know.. well Ive got faith in you guys! were gonna figure this out!! lol im gonna go check both boxes now and see if anything is out of place..
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Pull the wires in the box by the outlet out so we can see how they are hooked up there....and maybe if you can (with the power off since they are metal boxes) show us a pic of how they hooked up the outlets.
 
William Shatter

William Shatter

Well-Known Member
koda7225 said:
You need to start at the outlets and make sure they are actually wired for 120.....basically that blue wire is 2 120 circuts feeding off a single 240, which means that blue wire SHOULD have been a 5 wire and not a 4 wire so you could maintain a ground in the setup....i would need to see how everything is wired in the junction box by the outlets to really tell whats going on here.
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Done deal ill get you a pic right away, thank you for taking the time to help me!
 
koda7225

koda7225

Well-Known Member
William Shatter said:
I really appreciate your help but could you pretty please repeat this in a "for dummies" version..
and this is me doing my research to be honest.. as well as reading anything useful I can find online, but to make a horrible comparison to "who wants to be a millionare" sometimes you just gotta ask the audience.
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Hold on, ill try and make a drawing of how it should have been.
 
William Shatter

William Shatter

Well-Known Member
These are the best pics I have of how it was originally wired... I have since moved 2 of the boxes to the other side of the room ( I had to split the closet in half, to compromise with the wife so she could have storage and I could grow, so i built a wall half way in, and moved 2 of those boxes to the other side of the lil wall I built.. ill show pics of everything.. This is how it originally was.. 12366596_1029908167050819_1237006436_n.jpg 12386599_1029577080417261_1292325940_n (1).jpg 12386599_1029577080417261_1292325940_n.jpg
I bought new cable, and re wired them into that box, exactly the same way I took them out.
IMG_1844.JPG
this is them on the other side of the room.
IMG_1773.JPG

Im gonna go take a close up of the box now so you can see whats goin where.
& again - HUGE thanks to everyone so far for taking the time to help my stubborn dumb ass
 
William Shatter

William Shatter

Well-Known Member
And this is the outlets wired with new cord and moved to the next half of the closet. My lights are still on for another hr and a half so I could turn the breaker off yet. Pulled them away as much as possible to try and get a good pic.
image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg
 
koda7225

koda7225

Well-Known Member
My program isnt working to draw it up, but ill try and explain how it should be.....

The red wire is a hot for a single 120 (brass screw on outlet)

The black is hot for a single 120 (brass screw on outlet)

The white is the common for both circurts (silver screws on the outlets)

The bare wire is your ground (green screw on the outlets)

When they are connected to the standard 3 wire romex there should only be 1 red or black hooked to the black wire of the 3 wire romex, the whites should all be put together with white and the bare should all be put together with the bare.

If you have a red and black both hooked to the 3 wire romex going to the outlet it is WRONG, if the res or black is hooked to white or bare it is WRONG.
 
koda7225

koda7225

Well-Known Member
If its just floating there and not running out of the junction box dont touch the box untill the power is off.
 
koda7225

koda7225

Well-Known Member
And this is all assuming the didnt use the ground wire in the blue as a common.

It does not look like they did that, but to be sure, you would need to pull some of the outlets out of the box and see what is where.
 
C

clayawesome

Well-Known Member
Whoever wired the outlets from your 220v dryer circuit originally didn't do it in a very safe way. Looks like he separated the 220v hots into 2 110v circuits in the closet but the 2 circuits share the same neutral conductor, as there was only one in the original 220v circuit. or maybe they're using a bare conductor as a neutral. bad ideas especially for things u run 12-18 hrs a day. but ur current dryer problem is probably that one of the hots going to the dryer from the junction box u reconnected the blue romex to has come loose in the wire nut. either way u should get this run in a safer way.
 
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