We found the problem - it’s at the customer’s end.
Do you mean to tell me that this is not also a lamp?
Did somebody say ‘lamp?’
So it is an air heater and water heater.
Every electric device is an air heater. Some are just really bad ones.
If t was grounded it could be an air, water, fire AND earth bender!
I’m reminded of my friend’s further condo. Somebody had used steel branding to strap the outlet for the mounted microwave directly to the gas line.
Microwave: ‘If I fail, I’m taking y’all with me’
I keep reading and re reading this sentence and yet I can’t make sense of it
I’m gathering that through sheer incompetence, they rigged a spy movie improvised bomb
That microwave was over bored mouse away from leveling an entire 3 story building.
Cut the blue wire!
Okay I fixed a typo, but a more complicated explanation. My friend’s old place had a microwave mounted above the oven, and one day the mounting broke and the microwave fell out. In the wall behind it, the gas line fed into the oven, and strapped to that was an electrical outlet. The microwave has been plugged into that outlet. An outlet is supposed to be rigged inside a little box that’s connected to conduit which the actual electrical wires are inside of. Instead though, whoever wired the thing didn’t do that - they just had some conduit end, capped of the unused wires, wired in a 2-plug outlet, and used metal banding to just strap that onto the gas line. Which is all unsafe AF.
The first gas powered microwave oven.
Just preheating the gas a bit, it’s for better thermodynamics.
It’s concerning that there’s more than 1 image of this happening
It’s common, this picture essentially explains why building codes exist, and why you don’t hire the cheapest contractor, since they probably aren’t licensed.
or you can just live somewhere that isnt cold
(proceeds to die to brazillian eletric shower wiring)
Do houses in say Brazil not have a gas hookup for water or cooking then?
I get not needing a furnace, our province uses electric water heaters for various other reasons, but still common for cooking as well.
no, gas is bought in tanks, the gas tank is the source of power for the stove and oven, eletric induction or resistor stoves are rare, eletric ovens are somewhat common, water is not heated centrally, the showers heat the water with eletrical resistors, and thanks to brazillian ingenuinity have a fame for having extreme poor and unsafe wiring which results in some accidental deaths by eletrecution during showering (still quite rare though), water tap is not heated, and thus cold during winter, no risk of it freezing in the pipes in the vast majority of brazil, it is not fun cleaning the dishes with water at 15°C during the winter
I would have taken one and run out.
I’m wondering if we’re at a safe distance?
Great aesthetic lighting there!
That piece of gas flex has become the only neutral current path for the electrical service to the house. This occurs when the electrical service’s neutral conductor fails, and there is no good bonding of the gas service at it’s entrance point, and the water service to the building is plastic.
Code requires bonding for all Corrugated Stainless Steel Tubing installations, but these “appliance connectors” get an exception for some reason.
So electrician/plumber/HVAC/gas co/exorcist? What are we looking at here?
Electrician, then gas tech? Otherwise exorcist?
That flex tube probably needs to be replaced. I’m not trusting my life to that thing anymore. I might even want them to check the rest of the gas plumbing to be sure.
So s8nce you seem to know what you are talking about how can this be fixed? A good ground rod by the gas meter?
Stupid question probably:
Couldn’t I use it as default neutral and heat the water with it?Edit: Obviously not the gas pipe itself, but I’m not really familiar with gas boilers, do didn’t think of that
But can’t I use a normal/real neutral to heat the water?This is very obviously bullshit, what I’m thinking, but if the stuff in the house still works, while heating up this tube that much, I’m wondering, if that energy can’t be used somehow
Yeah I guess. But it’s not free energy it’s just extra load on the circuit.
Pre-heating the gas should make it more efficient. I know you meant to do this with water, but this would recover some of the energy this way too. It’s just incredibly dangerous.
That is the gas line.
You’re thinking of an electric water heater. That’s literally an electric water heater. Safer and more efficient than simply electrifying the gas line to your water heater…
Yeah, shouldn’t have posted
Was a drunk and tired half thought, where I even knew during posting, that it’s stupidObviously fixing it and putting the energy where needed is more effective
Just thought, that this seems to be a major loss of energy and how to not lose it.
Fixing it is obviously the way to go ;-)No, you’re right though, electric water heaters are far more efficient. Especially if you have solar.
Turning electricity into heat is pretty much 100% efficient, but all the other conversions have outrageous conversion losses. Regardless, using solar is still the best option overall.
However, fossil fuels are still widely used, and that’s where the losses play a significant role. In that context, using gas to heat water is the simplest and most efficient setup. Converting the combustion products into electricity just introduces additional losses, further decreasing the overall efficiency.
Burning fossil fuels to boil water to create steam to spin turbines to generate electricity to transmit to the residential grid to power your electric kettle to boil water.
Or residential solar cells capturing sunlight to convert to electricity to power your electric kettle?
~(And don’t forget that the fossil fuels were originally sunlight that was captured by plants that died and became fossil fuels that were extracted to be burned…)~
Thanks for being kind, my logic was still bullshit ;-)
I was somehow wondering, if we lose that energy there anyway, without appliances failing, we could use that as heat source - which isn’t too bad of an idea, but just fixing it and using an electric heater would be the actual solution.
I’m still fighting with a fever and headaches since my last business trip and I’m just not that bright at the moment.
And heavy painkillers lowers my inhibitions to just vomit out my thoughts without further reflection ;-)Electric water heater + water-based heat distribution & radiators
Voila
What I was thinking, was using an AC in my office and using the waste heat to heat up the water in my boiler
The HVAC technician I talked about that laughed at me and said, that’s science fiction
But I don’t really get why.
Wouldn’t that be just a heat pump from the perspective of the boiler and an AC for my office?Edit: to clarify, I’m aware, that I can’t heat up the water to the level I want with that, but I could pre-heat it, so I don’t need so much power to heat it the rest of the way
Edit 2: and I guess, there is my answer
My boiler usually doesn’t get that low on heat, that this would really make an impact, as it usually hotter than the waste heatStill, I think, there should be a way to gather the waste heat somehow
Someone bonded ground to the gas pipe not the water pipe.
This makes total sense but how does this not go boom? No oxygen in the gas line?
Autoignition temperature of natural gas is above 500c. Need a spark, or enough heat, there could even be a leak and this not be enough heat to ignite.
I’m pretty sure if it’s red hot it’s close to if not over 500°C but I guess it depends on the metal.
At least according to this Wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_heat
My understanding is that it doesn’t really depend on the metal much. It’s just the blackbody radiation associated with that temperature. So basically anything glowing red from heat is probably over 500°C.
“As the object increases in temperature to about 500 °C (773 K; 932 °F), the emission spectrum gets stronger and extends into the human visual range, and the object appears dull red.”
The intensity does depend on the emissivity of the material, and emissivity is a bit counterintuitive:
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/emissivity-coefficients-d_447.html
But less than you’d think, given the extreme coefficient, as human perception of brightness is nonlinear. An object twice as bright as another looks pretty similar to the eye.
Thanks for the correction. I’m absolutely not gonna pretend I fully understand this, but isn’t it still the case that anything glowing red from heat pretty much has to be over 500°C? I.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draper_point ?
Oh yeah, for sure. That pipe is hot.
So when you say “Autoignition”, then ignition of what? For natural gas to “ignite”, as in burn or in other words oxidize, there need to be an oxidizer present.
Autoignition here is referring to the temperature at which it will ignite immediately upon mixing with oxygen. Below that temperature, they can mix and not burn (like what happens with a gas leak).
there could even be a leak…
Exactly that.
So you’re saying you should poke a hole in the line?
That would just make a jet fire. Which may eventually result in the catastrophic failure of the pipe but if you really want to see a house jump cut a slot. Much more area for gases to mix. It’s only 1psi probably so a hole may not be enough.
Until the gas leaks from the weakened line and finds the oxygen in the room.
That was my thought as well.
That looks bad.
Suboptimal
Good think that is not a gas line or anything…
And someone would still say it’s not hot enough!
(This is a joke, I’m fully aware that’s not the water line)
Yeah, imma go turn off the main breaker in the panel and just gtfo and go sit in my car down the street while I calm the fuck down for an hour. Lol fuck that. Gat damn electrified gas line what the fuck.
Holy shit thats a gas line? I thought it was some wild water pipe or something. Yeah thats a GTFO now moment for sure.
You are fine. As long as there is no gas leak your are in no danger of an explosion. You are more likely to get electrocuted.
Kinda hot ngl
I submitted this photo to chatgpt and it said my toaster was improperly wired.
I want to suddenly have access to stick. To… Poke… Things
Well that is … sub-optimal.
Heading towards super-critical?
How the hell is that pipe holding up the pressure
Residential natural gas is like 1 psi.
Not sure what that gobbledygook unit means, probably something like the pressure of some ancient king’s farts, but yeah the pressure is surprisingly low, about 3kPa.
A few years ago the utility company had to replace my gas meter. You’d think they shut off the gas before they take the meter out, but no. They made sure the area was ventilated (i.e. front door was open) and just unscrew the old meter and quickly grab the new meter and screw it in. He just put his hand over the hole while he put away the old meter and grabbed the new one.
The pressure is so low that not a lot of gas escapes in the 10 seconds it takes to replace the meter even when the pipe is fully open.
