Hot Electrical Service

[Chuck Evans]

David,

I don't understand your focus on the screw or the presumption that the screw is probably loose and the source of the problem. You seem to be missing the obvious here. You already know that indirect reading of the surface of the breaker is, itself, yielding excessive temperatures.

The screw is showing hot because it provides the most accurate direct reading of the temperature that is occurring in the panel. While the buss itself is polished, low emissivity and highly reflective of the much lower ambient temperatures and cooler specific objects in the garage, hence it is a very poor source for obtaining the most accurate temps in the panel. While the screw which secures the buss to the non-conductive back plane is dark in color (high emissivity) and not very reflective, hence it provides a much closer representation of the maximum temperatures being obtained inside the panel. If the buss and screw were both black bodies, I would expect them to yield the same apparent temperature. When you were a little tyke, the nurse took your temperature in your butt, not because she thought there was something wrong with it, but because it yielded the most accurate/reliable reading.

I don't take service load readings during home inspections, so no matter how many times or how many ways you ask for that information, you will not get it here. Nor is it necessary to make the appropriate assessment.

The 800lb gorilla in the room is that components in the panel are too hot (by a large margin) and that an in-depth analysis and diagnosis by a licensed, qualified electrician is warranted. Do you really think that the electrician who is not a thermographer is going to consider your assertion more credible because you make references to reflected apparent temperature inside a garage?

Notice that there's a gorilla standing in front of you, don't get caught up in trying to figure out what kind of fleas he has.

[John McKenna]

Originally Posted by dandersen

David,

Where do you find the tool above?

[Jason Kaylor]

Probably from FLIR John, it has an ITC label on it.

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[David A. Andersen]

Originally Posted by jmckenna1

David,

Where do you find the tool above?

John, Don't concern yourself with it.
It's just something some guy with a PhD in Physics threw together.

Chuck has made it all too clear that Home Inspectors are above all this crap.

I don't take service load readings during home inspections, so no matter how many times or how many ways you ask for that information, you will not get it here. Nor is it necessary to make the appropriate assessment.

Check in with him and see how he does it.

[John McKenna]

Chuck,

Good find. It was an easy call with an IR camera. Not much to
question about it.