Serious Electrical Problem

I checked my girls before I went to bed and a socket was smoking. I pulled out the fan cords and the cover and the metal was actually burning. Im lucky it did not actually start a wall fire. I didnt even have anything heavy duty on the outlet. Well taking the wires off the outlet I must of hit a wrong wire because it arched and popped the breaker. Now my breaker wont even turn back on even after switching it back. What do I do I need serious help. Not so worried about the plants as I am getting power back to my house

sounds like you created a direct short.. while your breaker is off pull apart your burnt outlet and see if the wires are all fried.. what all is on that circuit?

razoredge said:

sounds like you created a direct short.. while your breaker is off pull apart your burnt outlet and see if the wires are all fried.. what all is on that circuit?

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thx for the reply! Yes some of the wires are burnt as well as the housing. Most of the room is not on that breaker. Only about 2 sockets and then my bedroom and the living room

So all together one ballast/ 4inch inline fan/my bedroom/living room

hmm what size is the breaker.. and is all the lighting and outlets on that breaker for all those rooms? what size ballast? that sounds like alot of loud for a normal circuit

I believe its a 20amp, one 600watt ballast at 5amps then the fan and two bedrooms. Nothing was on in the rooms at the time i.e TV, lights, they all were off

Ive felt that particular outlet before and it always ran way hotter than the others. Like way hotter! I now have all the wires away from each other so they dont touch. If I can get my power back on. Being that the outlet is now removed and wires all spread away from each other will this cause anymore problems? Or should I wait til the morning and call a trustworthy electrician

if you remove that outlet from the circuit will the breaker turn on? if not there is a short somewhere else in the circuit. if you have wire nuts put them on the wires that use to go to the burnt up outlet so there will be no chance of getting shocked from the bare wire..

Ok I will try that, my roomate just went to walmart to get a fire extinguisher for safety sake. So before I try and turn back on the breaker for the second time I wana make sure that is here so I dont burn down my house

what happened there is what happens when you use a cheap, 15amp NON SPEC RATED receptacle for a continuous duty load.
the wires made a poor connection to the receptacle, they probably vibrated loose over time from inrush current and continuous duty loads.
this made them either get hot and melt, when you pulled the plug it caused the hot wire to short out to ground, either in the outlet box or against the frame of the receptacle or the neutral or gnd.

take that receptacle out of the wall and inspect the wiring to make sure it is still usable. if it is not you will have to cut off whats bad and use wirenuts to make a jumper to the new receptacle you need to go buy.
go to hd, a hardware store, whatever, and get a 20AMP SPEC GRADE (that SPEC GRADE means something, and is important!!!).
connect the wires to the new receptacle. DO NOT NOT NOT NOT 'backstab' or use the small holes in the back of the receptacle to connect the wire. strip each wire back about one inch and WRAP IT AROUND the screw on the side of the pluh, WRAP TO THE RIGHT< OR CLOCKWISE, not to the left... then tighten the screw down. if you wrap it backwards the wire will slip off as you tighten the screw...

your lucky you were home and awake when that happened man.

very lucky!

seriously, count your blessings... i lost a house to fire once in the middle of the night... no fun

Yes I am very lucky. I almost wasnt even gunna check em. I was tired but said screw it and did it anyway. I smelt something funny and checked the outlet and thats when I noticed it. I cant fuckin believe how lucky I am. The breaker will still not turn on. I have wire nuts on all the wires and tried to reset the breaker again. I have a buddy thats an electrician but he didnt answer my call so Ill try em in the morning. For now to be safe Im leaving the breaker off and gunna try and catch some sleep. Man Im trippin out how lucky I am. That would be a disaster and dont know what the hell I would of done. Thanks for your input and I will update you guys tomorrow. Im signing off just hoped I could fix it myself but its an old house and whatever the problem is its over my head

Iam5toned- those wires that are wrapped around the 2 screws that go into the side of the outlet were burning. I mean like bright red and all the coating had melted off. The wall was hot too, but now has cooled off. Thank GOD. And thanks for your input! Razoredge too

thanks alot both of you guys for helping a fellow RIU member. good karma and rep+ coming
& im stoked this thread wasnt entitled my house burnt down. count your blessings Dave
jah bless

screws were prolly loose... or receptacle itself gone bad. sometimes the prongs inside cheap receptacles get worn out over time, which makes for a loose contact between the plug itself and the cord you have plugged into it, loose connections are what typically causes overheating issues like that.
it could be you were pulling a little too much power BUT a 20 amp will get you 1800w
the way i see it you were pulling 700-750watts from that single outlet... thats half of what a 15amp outlet will take before it overheats.
and if it was amperage issues i think the breaker would have tripped a long time ago.
to me, that is a classic case of a loose/bad connection, its the only thing that will cause that type of overheating at the device.

That's why you should use power bars with their own circuit breakers, then only the power bar breaker will be tripped. Maybe you blew a main fuse. There are usually fuses in addition to breakers in a house.

Im not sure what the hell happened just glad to still have a house. I already +rep those of you who helped last night as well. Shit I was scared to go to sleep. I lost to good friends to a house fire last year and I dont want that for myself. Thanks again. I have my buddy thats an electrician comming out tonight and I will let you know what he says

you should replace the breaker too

I bet it is an older house

Ya its a nice house but probably built in the 70's. Breaker doesnt look 40 years old though thats for sure.

Heres the pics of breaker and the outlet that burnt up, any advice???? The breaker will still not turn back on. All power is lost to half the house