Help I have an electrical question

Is this a single family home, or part of a row home?

Single family home

If its gas...will the box matter

Only the heat is gas.

Start at where power drops from the pole, it enters your domicile somewhere.

Be careful. Also, what does your bill say you are paying per kwh? Out in Cali, they rob everyone.

You might want to consider slowly taking all systems off grid and going dark from the power company's perspective.

Admin of this site has a huuuuuge thread about "smart meters" it was a fun one, he may chime in.

Where does the power come into the house? If you have a basement chances are there is a breaker box down there. There may also be an exterior box.

which panel has a main breaker in the middle center of top? Do you know the name of panel? They are breakers right? Not twist fuses? How many breakers in each panel? Is there an outside disconnect under meter base on house? Were the meter and service wire enter house ?

Maybe the water heater? or clothes dryer? They might be on a 240 V circuit different from the two breakers?

Has the power company installed a smart meter? The analog versions were sometimes misread by the meter reader back in the day.

Trace the power lines coming into the house and see if there are multiple feeds?

Might be worth the eventual cost savings if you call on an electrician to troubleshoot the entire system.

Ok going to check the basement one more time.Thanks

We don't own,we lease.

Oh paint a pigeon swaying backwards in front of a view .

Pay the bill and settle with the neighbor stealing your power for his grow op.

If you've turned off all the breakers and the meter is still running then it's time to call an electrician.

If you shut the main off and you still have lights or appliances working , then there's wiring problem. One other thought...is there any other buildings on property...? garage ..barn with electric in it?

Also if you have your last couple of electric bills....look at the kWh charges....see if there's been a change in price...maybe there supplier raised there rates...

No other buildings on the property. And we cannot find another breaker box any where to shut off the other things still working.

Chances are that the breaker panels in your kitchen are "Sub-Panels". They don't control everything, just portions of your service. This could be from add renovations, re-wiring some areas of the house as it was needed or because some area needed upgraded power and rather than re-wire the entire dwelling, the owner did the minimum. This would be common with a rental. It could also be some illegal crap work to just "get by".

Somewhere there will be some other sort of branch panel. It may be glass fuses, it could even be knob and tube, or there could be circuits throughout the dwelling that have no protection at all, which is not only dangerous, but it is also illegal.

If the dwelling is a legal rental, it would have to be subject to at least a base level of being "Up to code"

An actual real assessment of the service would take pages on a forum and could never really be done correctly.

Hire an electrician to at least do a walk through and give you some of idea of what you are dealing with.

Bad wiring is bad news.

oh sorry, i thought you said erectile question

5*

I love a good mystery.

Ok thank you!

no

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You need to trace the in comming power lines.

If you are unable to do this then It's time to call an Elecric service company to have an electrican come out and Locate All power connections in the House.

There could be Old wires developing a Short that could Catch on Fire.

I'd do it Soner than Later.

And it will probably save you Money in the Long Run.

.

That's fucked up.

Yes it is

Where to start is where the power comes into the house. There will be a couple very big circuit breakers right there in the basement. To test for wiring problems you open that circuit in the dark, with everything turned off in your house. If you see a spark then you have a problem. High bill is a good indicator of that as well.

Was the wiring cobbled together? I bought a farm where the wires to out buildings were laid underground in metal conduit. Rather than the usual way of all wires being run parallel, the two hot wires were wound around the ground before being put underground, probably re-used overhead wires as that's how they're run. Anyway, this generated an electromagnet, which cost money and generated stray voltage. Something like this might be your problem.

I certainly would call someone out to check as god forbid you do any work and think you have the electric isolated and it still be on... always best to be safe where electric is concerned,

I really hope you find out what the issue is and that it is an inexpensive fix. best wishes.

Ok...lets back up here....you have two panels in the "kitchen" ..right....one old ..one new. The old one is the main and new panel most likely is the sub. Now right outside were the two panels are is the meter? right? The meter should be right there...if not then there's another box were ever the cable enter's the house. If the house still has knob and tube wiring...well that's a whole other problem, since they just tapped of wires and continued circuits. It could be a possible back feed from another line or the neutral. The neutral will carry the imbalance of the panel phases of a single phase panel... one other possibility is a breaker is bad...even it says off power might still be going through. Really need someone to read the power at the stuff still working to see voltage. With older homes like that anything is possible. Today's standard of wiring a home are way different than in the 40's.

Well if all the power is shut off and the lights are still burning and you have a huge electrical bill, I'd say you got:

Fricking paranormal shit happening at your place.

You might want to call a realtor, the insurance agent and oh yeah, ghostbusters, a catholic priest, the dalai lama; perhaps even Guiness Book of World Records.

Sell the place or maybe torch it.

Or you could call a friend that has a basic understanding of perpetual motion, Hendershot generator and Telsa coils and shit like that.

Don't ever sleep in that house again!

Get out now!

Um no just means there's a box we haven't found.

Call an electrician and have him put in a single modern breaker box and get rid of the other two.

I have a 2,200 sq foot house with gas heat and water heater, and my elec bill last month was around $50.

You're getting ripped off.

Thank you