Did an inspection today where the bus bar in the electrical panel was scorched just below the electric furnace breakers. Home owner commented that the breakers were relocated because of arcing damage in that area.
When inspecting the furnace I notice that all 5 electric elements were on within the span of 30 seconds (time to walk upstairs, turn up the thermostat and back down in the basement)…
In your opinion, do you think that having all 5 elements turn on at once resulted in a power surge which damaged the bus bar at breakers? I think yes but…
My recommendation was to have a qualified electrician repair the furnace (most likely damaged sequencers) and for recommendation regarding the damaged electrical panel bus bar.
Sequencers usually take about 30 seconds each to come on and there was 5 of them so they shouldn’t have all been on within 30 seconds which was the time it took to walk upstairs to turn the thermostat up and back downstairs.
They normally do not all come on at once but what if they were defective and did…
There was a few laying around the furnace which indicates that they were having problems with them prior…
Also two of the three breakers at the furnace were turned off which may indicate that there was a problem.
I can not see your sequencer usually on five elements there would be two sequencers I would have looked at the wiring diagram if present which would have indicated if someone had modified the factory install as for the buss bar I am thinking loose connections. That is what IR is for;-)
The IR would not have shown anything because they replaced the breakers and re positioned them above the damage area.
I’ll ask the client to let me know what the electrician did.
Thanks everyone for your comments!
