The power outage I mentioned yesterday had an unexpected result. The rooms of our place filled with smoke, and, after some hesitation, I called the fire department. After they came and checked it out, the captain told me that there was a buildup of lint, and wiring was burned. He warned us not to use the heater again until the wiring has been repaired. (The mobile home was built around 1961.)
So what I want to know is: How much wiring is there, and what does it connect to what?
That depends no the heater and how much damage was done. I don’t think anyone will be able to make a swag with out seeing it.
Snippe is right; without more info it would be difficult to even make a guess. Fortunately, it’s easy to get into the walls of an old mobile home. Just pull down all the paneling and have a look-see. There should be just one wire going from the fuse box to the heater. One problem you may encounter is that aluminum wiring was permitted in older mobile homes in some states. If you replace it with copper wire, you’ll have to use special wiring nuts which have an antioxidant compound call Noalox inside the nut. Other than that, this should be easy to fix, although it will be a pain in the ass. Give yourself the entire weekend free in case something unexpected pops up.
Hmmm…sounds simpler than I thought. Of course, it is connected to the thermostat (battery-powered).
And our place has circuit-breakers.
Copper wire does not require the Noalox. Only aluminum requires that.
Make sure you have homeowner’s insurance. Especially if it is wired with aluminum.
Yup…we are insured. I never heard of aluminum wire, except for long distance use to save copper (Isaac Asimov).
Some manufacturers in the 70’s used aluminum wire. Don’t know about 1961. But it is easy to check.
Its not just the copper that is saved… It would take a lot of trenches, and enormous associated maintenance ,outage and repair if the conductors were changed to copper… copper can’t stand it up there on the poles.
It’s probably the wiring right inside the baseboard heaters that was burned. (Lint build-up in the wiring cables inside the walls is pretty unlikely.) So it should be easier to access, right inside the heaters. They might need to be replaced
You might want to consider having a licensed electrician check out your wiring and your “heaters”. The description you posted in your other thread sounds like a possible power surge is the cause of your issues. If a transformer failed it’s possible for you to have received a higher than expected voltage for a brief period of time. That would cause overheating quite quickly.
Aluminum wiring sucks. I had it in a 1970 mobile home we owned. Every 6 months I’d kill the power and tighten every screw on every electric outlet because they would loosen over time. Aluminum and copper expand and contract at different rates and for some unknown number of years they were using aluminum wire and copper outlets.
Good luck!
Inside the heater housing, eh?
just to reinforce this, aluminum has lower conductivity than copper per unit of cross-sectional area (wire gauge) but much higher conductivity per unit of weight. Thus why transmission/distribution electrical wiring up on the poles/towers is aluminum.
According to Isaac Asimov, some metals have been rated for their conductivity of electricity, on a s ale of 1 to 100. Silver got 100, copper 95, aluminum 58.