So a few weeks ago in the ice storm the wire between my house and my shop was knocked down by a tree branch. After all that was over, I climbed up on the ladder and hooked it back up, no big deal. Just the two wires to connect back up, the power in the shop came back on and I didn't worry about it.

Yesterday I noticed that my heated dog bowl was frozen up though. (it's hooked to an exterior outlet on the shop) And tonight I went to start my air compressor and the lights dimmed almost out in the shop. Long story short, I turned off the compressor and the lights came back bright again. Went and unplugged the dog bowl and the lights went out. I also got lots of sparks along the fence where the coil wrapped cord was touching while I was unplugging. Plugged back in and the lights come on.

So my question is, does anyone know why the dog bowl (being shorted out) would complete the circuit and give me power in the shop? My only thoughts were that perhaps I hooked the wires up backwards when I hooked them back up. I have one black and one white on both ends and hooked them up accordingly, but stranger things have happened. The wire does run into the shop and into a main breaker in there, I think before it runs to the outlet in question. I know just enough to be dangerous with the wiring, so I don't want to do anything to give myself that pan-fried look but I need the power back on. Right now, I have shut everything off just to be safe.

I appreciate any insight or advice on what to check. Thanks!

 

Pull the cover off your electric panel and meter both hot legs should be 120 ish. I think You might have a loose connection on your Neutral where your wires pulled down. If you have higher voltage on one side then the other that is your problum.
If your lights are bright at the time you check the voltage more then likely will be the same on both sides. You need to get a reading when they dim!!

I think I would leave the Shorted out dog bowl unpluged

 

That's just it. When I unplugged the dog bowl, the lights went out. I don't have anything at the panel, tried that too. the only way to get it to come back on is to plug the dog bowl in and lay the cord along the fence again. I don't want to do that. Can't get anything at all on the meter without completing the circuit that way.

What would hooking the wires up backwards do?

 

check all your wires to make sure the insulation is in good condition and not damaged.

Also, make sure there isn't something pulled loose in the breaker box in the shop.

 

I would shut off all the brakers. Then check the source of your power for your shop.
? What size of wire are we talking or what is the size of the panel?

 

thinking the same; ground or neutral isn't secured. definite short.
inspect feed coming in to panel box.

leave the dog bowl thing out of it. new hook ups are fine from the book (do it yourself ers) troubleshooting should be the union electrician...

no new hairdos that way, man.....

the electrician husband would rather check it out than give advice now, sorry.

 

So by you saying you only had to hook up two wires, one black and one white, mean that you only have 120V to your shop?

I take it that this is not something that the power company put up. Its something that you've fed from your house to the shop?

Are there any 240V loads in the shop at all?

What besides the black and white wires is in the "bundle"? Is there a guy wire that could be acting as a ground or neutral?

Help us better understand your system and someone here will come up with a solution.


Right now I can think of a couple different things depending on whether you only have 120 or 240V at your shop.

 

The shop only has 120 going to it. There aren't any other wires in the line but a unsheathed copper ground. So I have one white wire, one black wire, and the copper.

This was hooked up when I moved in several years ago and has worked fine until now. My main concern is this . . . without the dog bowl plugged in there is no power at the breaker box. With it plugged in, there is around 99 volts. That explains why the air compressor doesn't want to work, but I still don't understand why the dog bowl has to be part of the equation.

Again, the bowl is plugged into an extension cord plugged into an outlet on the outside of the building. Without it plugged in, I'm getting nothing. With it plugged in I'm pretty sure I'm getting an electric fence (due to the shorting) and power to the shop. It seems to me like it's backfeeding the panel. Also, with anything else plugged into the extension cord I get nothing.

The panel itself is a 30amp with two screw in style fuses at the shop. I believe that the wire is 12/2 maybe? Not real sure on that.

I appreciate all the input.

 

I would say you have a neutral problem like the others are saying. Check your incoming voltage at the panel. When lights are getting dimmer then brightening back up that usually points to a loose connection or a burnt off neutral wire.

 

Okay, so here's my next steps since it's too dark out to do anything else tonight. First, I'll check voltage where it hooks to the house, just to make sure. Then, I check the connection at the building where it hooks into the supply there. If both of those check out to 120 I'm still lost because I am getting 0 at the panel right now.

Nothing has changed except for the supply wire being pulled down and then put back up. Not saying that a wire isn't damaged in there, I just don't understand the part that the dog bowl and fence is playing.

I'll report back after checking those connections and we'll work from there. Thanks again!

 

Sorry but from what you just described, Your garage needs a new panel with different wire feeding it a 12-2 from the house overhead is not a good idea. This would fail any electrical inspection. You should have a groundrod with a #6 copper going up into the garage panel, I bet you don't and your dog dish is now your ground.
Spend a little $$ and call someone in to look at it first hand before something starts on fire.

 

Ok that helps. So I guess on this fusebox you have both fuses fed at 120V from the same leg, or perhaps the neutral goes to one fuse (not good) and the hot to the other fuse? Do you know which of the fuses feed the dog bowl heater and which feeds the lights?

I've tried drawing this out and right now I'm stumped on how the dog bowl heater is needed. There has to be something more with just how the two fuses are fed and how you reconnected them.

You're not going to get any lights that brighten with this loose neutral though because this is only a 120V circuit. You've got to have a 240V multiwire circuit to see this.

I do have a wild theory though.

I am suspecting that the dog bowl heater and the lights are on different fuses. When you reconnected the line you have somehow got these two circuits in series with each other. These two loads MUST be in series for you to be able to unplug one and interrupt power to the other.

I'm thinking the bare ground isn't very well connected to the line (it really doesn't matter how well its connected to the actual earth, that may actually be all you have right now).

I'm also thinking that you've got the hot feeding one fuse and the neutral feeding another fuse on your reconnect. Thats the only way I can see them being connected in series from the amount of work you did.

So lets say the bare ground wire is loose or not connected or even connected to the earth.

The hot will come in to one fuse which feeds the dog bowl heater. When you plug the heater in it feeds power back up to the box and to the lights which go to the other fuse which is connected to the neutral.

The reason I say the ground is loose/not connected or maybe just connected to the earth is because with both loads in series, if you had a reliable connection back to your main panel, only one of the loads would work.

Just a connection to the earth will not power much of anything and will not trip a breaker. There is a big misconception that electricity tries to go back to the earth. This isn't true, it simply tries to make it back to its source. In this case the source is the transformer. Since the transformers center tap is connected to the ground you will get current flow when a hot is connected to the earth. However the impedance of the actual earth is way too high to trip a breaker or power a load.

I am also betting that the dog bowl heater is fully functional and not shorted. A heater is going to be a fairly low resistance compared to the lights (especially if they're fluorescent). When you plug the heater in and you get 99 volts across the lights, the rest of it should be across the heater since the two loads must be in series. I'd say test this theory out and plug the heater into a receptacle that works at your house.

At any rate I'm sure whats going on isn't that complicated. Its just hard to see whats going on over the internet.

One thing is for sure, you need to get this fixed properly. You don't have to go all out and put totally new stuff in but at least you should get rid of the 12-2 feeding the shop. You should also get rid of the 30A fuses feeding #12 wire as 12's only good for 20A.

If you wanted to keep the fuse box and just change out the feeder from the house your best bet would be to run some UF cable underground from your home out to the shop. The hot would connect to the two fuses while the neutral should land on an insulated bus. The ground should land on a bus thats bonded to the metal fusebox along with a ground rod that is bonded to the ground bus.

Your loads hots should of course go to the fuses and their neutrals to the insulated neutral bar and the grounds to the ground bar.

You really should get an electrician to come look at it. All the experience in the world doesn't matter if you can't see it or touch it. All of us here are having a hard time figuring it all out just because of this.

Hope this helps somewhat!

 

Other posts were way to long for me to read. But make sure you don't have polarization in the wires. And make sure they are all tight. Polarization will also heat up the wires and cause less power circulation because heat is just wasted electrons in electricity. Polarization is the direction of electricity. Just make sure you hooked the wires back up on the right sides.

Just switch the white and black and or black and red(depending on gauge of wire, its one or the other color) wires around on the main power wires. see if that works for you. and see if the wires are heating up a lot

 

try this.

measure the voltage line to ground and neutral to ground at the plug in question.
Also, measure line to ground and neutral to ground at the house.

the only place you should see voltage is on the line, the neutral should be zero or close to it everywhere.

the larger pin is neutral on your recepticles.

 

If the dog bowl is on a GFI and you hooked up the live and neutral backwards that may explain your problem.