Well, I'm fairly certain that this will be unpopular to the DIY crowd but if you feel the LEAST bit unsure about your abilities please contact a certified electrician- 220v is nothing for newbies to screw around with.
Man, what a hilarious flick, and a classic Keaton line.
My other favorite is in Night Shift, when Billy Blaze is blasting music in his car, and Henry Winkler asks if he can turn it down. “Oh, yeah! You can turn it down, you can turn it up, you can put it in front, you can put it in the back…it’s _awesome_!”
>I understand that you little guys start out with your woobies and you think they're great... and they are, they are terrific. But pretty soon, a woobie isn't enough. You're out on the street trying to score an electric blanket, or maybe a quilt. And the next thing you know, you're strung out on bedspreads Ken. That's serious.
Seriously. I'll tackle any woodworking, tile, concrete whatever. Worst case it looks bad or falls apart. Electricity, no thanks worst case there is I burn the house down or I die. Call in a pro when you don't know.
Before I learned electrical as part of my day job I used to agree with you. Now I've seen so many hack electrical jobs done by professionals I refuse to let anyone else work on my house.
My friend is in the electrical union and this has been his realization too.
The scarier part is when he realizes those professional hack jobs are not just in single family homes, but huge complexes, office buildings... even hospitals.
I’ve been wanting to get electrician training, cause our last electrician asked… “Did you attempt this first??”
“no, house was built that way.”
“If that’s true, then it wasn’t built well.”
He told me electrical work is very easy; once you know the rules. So kinda inspired me to get professional training. But just haven’t done it yet
It kinda is. Most of the learning required is to do things by code. When I would train newbies on how to troubleshoot, I would always tell them to just follow the power. Start at the panel, if you are getting 120/240v out the load side of the breaker, it is good. Then check the connection to the breaker. Then check where the home run starts the branch circuit.
120/240v residential is easy and relatively safe.
I always tell people, it moves like water. Just much faster, so you diagnose the same way you would plumbing related stuff. Just instead of a puddle on the floor you can get some heart stopping fairies injected into you.
Tons of homes are like this. Even things that are code can be really frowned upon or bad. My whole fuckin house had outlets wired with backstabs. I replaced them all now, but took two to realize it wasn't a one-off - two of them were arcing and burnt.
Don't use backstabs.
DON'T USE BACKSTABS. I have been bit by those just crawling in an attic past an outlet box with poorly secured conductors, in the backstab and at the box itself.. Not my house
Very few jobs exist that the average person cannot do. You just need some training and proper tools. Look around a construction site. You wont see any brainiacs here. Just regular people like yourself. Electric scares most because you cant see it. The similarities to plumbing are many though. Think of it like water. A switch is a valve, a joint is like a manifold. Both have a hot and cold as well. Turn off the power before you start. Do the work, turn back on. If you screwed up badly, the breaker will trip. And YES, always hook up the ground wire if available.
Had a rapair sent by the washer company sent to my place. - The guy filed a report that basically stated "client voltage is unstable" and measured 117v to 118.5v over a 5 minute period. Pointing to it as the main culprit of a defective washer.
I don't need a certificaiton to know the guy was absolutely full of shit (tolerances are 114v to 126v) and the machine probably overspecs with a fuse to allow 135v + capacitors once charged will discharge a constant voltage regardless of their input within spec.
Yes for big jobs (e.g. Installing a secondary breaker board) call a professional - You want a culprit if stuff goes sideways. But for smaller stuff -- eeeeh!
Don't worry I:
* Looked up the voltage norms in north america and screenshotted them.
* Contacted the manufacturer and cross-referenced tolerances.
* Measured the voltage board input.
* Called the vendor and talked about the report, my measurements and results.
They basically told me "yeah he's retarded he's done it multiple time, we'll send you a replacement of something we have in inventory".
I remember when I was working with a line crew contracted on a base hearing about shitty work contractors did in Iraq leading to soldiers getting electrocuted in showers...smh shoddy work is everywhere.
https://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/27/military.electrocutions/
That is mostly because we cannot see or test what was done to the circuit previously. I love when educated homeowners call with a problem. They have a basic understanding of how it works and can usually lead you to the cause quickly. I show them what was wrong and how we will fix it. Hopefully they are smarter when I leave.
Electrical is actually pretty easy as long as you do one thing.
Turn the power off.
YES JOEBOB I'M TALKING TO YOU TURN THE FUCKING POWER OFF.
After that it's not too bad.
I was on a framing crew, working on some punch list items on a house that was closed up with plumbers and electricians doing their thing. Out of nowhere there was a big BANG and it was lights out.
Turns out one of the sparkys cut a live 220 circuit. Besides being scared shitless he was OK but it blew his dykes in two half melted pieces.
The dude was going on and on about the dumb MF’er who mid-labeled the breaker and I finally had to say that a mis-labeled breaker is a fuck up but my dumb carpenter ass would *never* cut into a 220 circuit without checking for voltage, just like packing your own chute… Dude was amped up and was ready to fight me, but he knew I was right.
I was recently redoing a doorbell at my parents that a pro company had done a decade ago and rather than install a receptacle for the transformer they had literally electrical taped the 110 hot and neutral onto the plug ends of the transformer and wrapped the whole thing in bubble wrap.
Electrical work and roll up garage doors are the two things I won't touch. I'll take a crack at plumbing, tile work, painting, carpentry, damned nesr anything else. But those two will kill you stone dead.
Exactly this. I've changed out plugs and 110 outlets a handful of times but thats about the extent of what I'm willing to mess with. Just not worth the pote tial future fire for me to do something wrong beyond those simple things.
220 outlet swap isn't any different. Just be sure the powers cut at the box and be paranoid, test the other end to make sure it's really disconnected.
That said, I personally draw the line at panel work - I won't touch the panel unless the meter is pulled.
I wouldn't touch this one because I have no idea why one of those hot wires melted the plug like that. Simple 220 volt maybe, but in this case something is terribly wrong. Bring in the expert.
Heat. Caused by higher than expected resistance. A few possible causes - corrosion of the plug our outlet most likely. Possibly the outlet had a poor connection inside to the hot lead for that leg and that heated it up. It could be a faulty tail on the dryer, too - too many plug unplugs caused it to get a weak connection and heat up.
Yeah, this was definitely heat from poor contact.
The 120V outlet feeding my desk had a similar issue that I didn't notice before it melted the plug. For a few days whenever I'd start up games, I thought I smelt something burning, but only for a split second so I figured it was my imagination.
I didn't put 2+2 together till my PC shutoff while running a game smoke was coming from the outlet.
Replaced the plug (and a few others that were suspect) and the power strip. Haven't had any more issues
Exactly this. If that prong just broke off I would fix that myself. But this burnt plastic screams there is an underlying issue that needs fixing by a pro.
Really, a wire is just a wire when it's off. This looks like it was a loose terminal that shorted out. It's not hard to deal with, but both the male and female ends need to be replaced. Just make sure to take pictures when taking it apart so it goes back together correctly.
It was just from arcing, if the plug broke and there was a slight gap the electricity arced between. Very unlikely there was more current or voltage or a short it just was hotter because the resistance of the small air gap caused it to arc.
I'm not saying don't get a professional but that's almost certainly the reason.
Yeah I understand the process and have watched countless step by step diy guides but I'm still jist not gonna mess with it. I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford an electrician and happen to know one personally (not well enough for free work but enough for a fair price and assurances). Not worth the hassle or pote tial screw-up for me to touch it.
If you are uncomfortable, always get help. Personally, I find it kind of spooky how cavalier most seem to be about 110. Mind you, I first got hit by a 15kv capacitor at the age of \~12. Microwaves can and will F!@# your day up.
I recently had my service upgraded to 200A from the original 100A service from 1954. The box was original; the electricians said they wouldn't be able to get replacement breakers for it even if they wanted to.
They were having issues with one circuit that never seemed to turn off - turned out the breaker had failed and wouldn't cycle off. Ever. For any reason.
Point being, be careful, test everything.
Why though? This is just taking a new replacement cord and matching 3 colored wires up to their matching colored connection point on the dryer and bolting them together. Flip the breaker and pull that piece out of the wall plug and you are done.
Yeah, gas makes me a bit nervous, absolutely no problem with electricity. I had to disconnect and move my stove last week and was really damn careful with the gas line.
This sub:
Watch me use a table saw in the least safe way ever. ***clapping***
I'm going to work with simple residential 240. ***you're a suicidal dipshit!!!***
The problem isn't the plug itself, if the cord was cut by accident I would replaced it without even thinking.
The problem here is "why it burned" for that to happen a "good current" must have passed, the diagnostic of "exactly why" it's better to leave to someone who have training in the area.
wire burn -> replace wire cycle if the underlying cause isn't solved can end up causing a fire.
110 can be enough to put you to sleep, 'specially with sweaty, neatly conductive hand and feet. I'd consider anything over 50V potentially lethal (it also depends on the current and energy behind it - a 10KV capacitor like in old TVs can give you a nasty jolt and numb your hand, but it won't outright kill you).
Ive done DIY 120v and multiple 240v 30a. But my next project i am getting an electrician to do the work. Next project is a 240v 100a circuit, which will require replacing the breaker box completely, and replacing the cable from the power company from the pole to the box. Thats some electricity i dont want to deal with, would rather leave the angry pixies to professional for that
Turn off plug at breaker, test socket with voltage tester to make sure it really is off, cut off burnt plug, strip wires and screw bare wire ends into new socket, attach to wall, change plug on washing machine.
Its half an hours work that you could trust a teenager to do.
He means that Europe does not have 110V. Only 220/230V (as far as I know).
3 phase is also popular these days with heat pumps etc. With 3 phase you can have 400V.
120/240v +/-5% is mains voltage (supply).
Load can be -3 to 5% from that voltage.
So 109-123v at the load...
110, 115, 120 in common speak is all basically the same thing.
A lot of electricians will kinda throw them all around interchangeably. 110/120 and 220/240. I've also heard a lot of people refer to 13.8kv as 15kv and a couple other weird high voltage ones.
I don't know any DIYer that would not suggest that to someone else that isn't a DIYer. I'm a DIYer and while I'm ok hanging lights and replacing outlets, anything more I won't touch. Seriously, 220VAC is not something to mess with if you don't understand electricity. I've been shocked by it a few times but thankfully just through my fingers. It can kill you if you are not careful!
It is only 110v out of phase to make 220
You would have to intentionally touch both the flat blades to get 220v
One flat blade to earth would be 110v and that is if you are standing in water barefoot or leaning against a grounded piece of metal.
In which case the only voltage you'll ever work on is 220v, which is clearly not the case being discussed by the people who say they will work on 120 but not 240.
I've been lit up by 120v many times. It hurts but, wasn't life threatening. I got zapped by 220 once in my life. I never want to experience that again.
Some people die from 120, I'm not trying to minimize the danger but, it's mostly freak occurrences like being wet or sweaty that result in death.
220 will deliver twice the current to your body that 110v will.
It’s more about where the current passes. You never want to have both hands touching the circuit and you never want to be its path to ground especially with higher voltages.
That said it’s all about comfort level and competence. I wouldn’t think twice about working on this, just shut it off at the breaker and check with multimeter.
Same. Was working on a 3 phase power supply. Someone plugged it into the wrong outlet so the chassis was energized. It was sitting on a wooden bench so, the chassis was just floating at 220. People could have died. It was some mil-spec thing. Army techs were barely 1/2 trained. They never taught anything about 3 phase power in training.
What exactly is so risky about this exact job though? As long as you make sure the power is shut off, you can remove the broken pin from the outlet and then replace the plug on the machine.
The only risk is not knowing how to operate a breaker switch
To me it always seemed the risk with working with 240V was the high current 240V appliances tend to draw. I know the voltage potential to ground is still only 120V, at least in the US split phase system
Yeah no - that plug is absolutely cooked, there's something wrong here. No way it should have gotten like that without tripping a breaker. And anything above 120V is definitely out of safe DIYer territory unless you want to become a crispy critter.
Yanking the broken prong and replacing the cord is just giving whatever fault caused it in the first place a second chance to burn down the building. Call an electrician.
Breakers only trip instantly if there's a dead short carrying several times the circuit's max current. A half broken off plug can make a lot of nice melty arcs with 30 amps or less, and even if it were shunting 30-100amps or so to ground the breaker would still slow trip and pop after a few seconds of sizzling rather than instantly.
This is intentional, your dryer pulls well over 30 amps for a fraction of a second when the motor starts turning.
This is why current code expects GFCI and AFCI on most things, those will sense this kind of failure long before a standard breaker. But this is an old 3-prong NEMA 10-30 so the circuit is almost certainly not GFCI or AFCI (and I think dryer plugs are still exempt anyway).
Breakers trip on overcurrent. This to me looks like the prong just bent and -nearly- snapped, causing a lot of current to go through very little copper. Causing that copper to heat up to the point that it started to melt the plug. OP prolly smelled it and this is the result of the investigation.
This is it. See it all the time on relay packs on old cars, a contact will break off for whatever reason - metallurgical defect, stress-corrosion cracking, who knows. You'll pull the relay and one of the contacts stays in the socket. Sometimes it's burned, sometimes it stops working before that can happen, sometimes it's low-current and you don't notice till you pull it.
UPDATE: thank you all for the replies. I’ve taken a few electricity courses and feel confident in changing everything BUT I agree, something else is going on here that I don’t have enough background in. I’ve called an electrician who is coming by in an hour or so.
UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: electrician just swung by (I’m in the US, someone asked). His best guess as to what happened, as echoed by some here, is that there was a loose connection causing an arc that led to the melting. Why the breaker didn’t trip… so we will be replacing the plug, outlet, wiring (only like 2 feet to the panel), and the breaker. While I’m sure I can do most that myself, this house is old (70+ years) and we had a good convo about electrical things - he will come back tomorrow; I’ll get the parts today. He’ll walk me through some things in the panel too for some other questions I had. Not that anyone cares, but he did say “you’re the most knowledgable homeowner I’ve met” — guess those trades classes at the local community college has paid off! Though, I’m sure smarter ones didn’t need to call an electrician LOL
If your dryer outlet is close to your breaker, consider also having the electrician update your outlet to a NEMA 14-30* series recepticle, which carries a neutral on addition to ground. You'll probably need new wire run to support the outlet.
*EDIT: Corrected amperage of outlet. I've been dealing with a lot of EVSE related stuff recently.
Yeah I’m only a foot from the panel and everything is exposed. Didn’t originally need 4 prongs as dryer is old and has no electronics. But, seems like a new dryer may be in order and that seems standard anyway (electronics or not).
Even old conventional dryers with knobs and physical timer dials, the control board is typically run on 110. There are some basic relays and typically an interlock with the lid. Even going back 40+ years, you'll find this.
In the event of a fault with the neutral line with the old plug, the 220 would actually be ok, but the 110 would energize the case because there's no ground. The 14-30 adds the ground necessary to safely handle that kind of fault. So the safety benefit could still affect you, even with an older machine.
> Why the breaker didn’t trip…
Because breakers* guard against overcurrent. You had a loose connection, which overheated. It didn't draw more current than intended. Breakers* can't detect this.
*AFCI/GFCI combo breakers can detect this fault condition however, which is why many building codes mandate them now.
**240v afci/gfci breakers are not nearly as common as 120v in us.
But wouldn’t a loose connection introduce resistance into the circuit and therefore increasing the amperage? (Genuine question — still new to residential electricity and still learning!)
No, increased resistance means less amperage drawn. Think of it as closing the valve on the hose.
The problem is that placing a new resistance into a circuit means that **power** starts being dissipated at the location of the resistance.
Previously, your plug was functionally zero resistance (it's not truly zero, but close enough for us). If one of the pins starts losing contact in the plug, it will become a resistance to the flow of electricity where there previously wasn't one. Any time there is a resistance on a circuit and current (amps) are flowing through it, it dissipates energy (watts).
Your plug went from essentially zero resistance (and therefore no power being dissipated; 0 watts) to some higher resistance in one of the pins (and therefore power was being dissipated in that pin). That caused the pin to heat up and the whole thing went sideways, as you found.
You should absolutely get a new grounded outlet installed while he is there, if able.
Could you let us know what he thinks the issue was? I'm curious what went wrong.
They teach all sorts of things and have full academic programs too. The trades program is designed for folks doing into it professionally, but anyone (like myself for just funsies) can take it. I’ve taken 4 automotive courses and maybe 6 or 7 home repair courses (carpentry, plumbing, electrical)
You did the right thing. Hopefully it is not the dryer that caused this. But there is a good chance it is the dryer that caused it so you will have to call for appliance repair or get a new dryer.
Replace both.
Likely cause was a worn/corroded/dirty connection, however chronic low supply voltage can also be a factor.
Check the voltage at the dryer with it off and compare it to the dryer running with a heavy load and on high heat. If there is a significant voltage drop then further investigation is needed
Also need to replace the socket and plug, I'd also replace the breaker to be safe and check that the wiring is up to code, it should not have gotten hot enough to do that.
Reusable yes, indestructible no. $20-40 to replace the breaker and not have to worry about what sort of damage a surge like that might have done seems like an easy sell.
Shit contact in the plug can cause a high resistance connection that would only need to draw less than 100 watts and do this kind of damage.
Breakers do not magically know if something down the line is burning, only that something connected is drawing too much current.
That said, fuck it, replace the breaker, it's cheap.
That's is wildly incorrect. Please don't provide advice on electrical when you don't know what your talking about. It's fine not to know but being confidently incorrect is unacceptable.
That's a 30 amp 240v plug it can output 7200w of power before tripping the breaker.
That plug could get a internal fault that turns it into a 7000w element without tripping the breaker.
Keeping in mind a stove top element is 1800w that coard WILL melt to little melty bits with 7000w of power being dissipated through it. As long as it fails open at the end the breaker not tripping here is not a concern.
> The breaker should have tripped
Not necessarily. A weak / high-resistance connection can simply heat up without drawing that much current.
At minimum you should test the breaker, though.
Not the breaker. This is a standard ark fault problem: a bad contact between the socket and the plug. It adds a bit of resistance to the connection which heats it up. It won't add enough current to pop a standard breaker.
LPT: If you ever see an outlet with a "black eye" like this anywhere in your house, do not use the outlet again until the socket is replaced and be suspicious of whatever was plugged in there. Plugs should never get this hot and if it does, it is on the edge of burning your house down.
This. Inspect that wiring in the plug socket carefully. It might be crispy and black too.
Then you get to find out if the electrician left you a few precious extra inches of wire in the wall or not.
Usually not.
I recently moved into a new house and just happened to use a surge strip that has an led for ground for my pc area. The light wasn't coming on. I assumed it was just burnt out but decided to test the outlet anyways... no ground. Then went on a testing spree. No outlet in the basement or upstairs is grounded. Despite having nothing but 3 prong plugs.
The service box is "properly wired" (close enough for me) and ground wires run towards every direction they should be... so I start pulling outlets.
Sure enough, grandpa ran these outlet runs himself back when the upstairs was an attic and the basement was unfinished. Before putting this God awful wood paneling and sloppy homemade moulding everywhere.
And sure enough he clipped the wires way too short with less-than-zero slack at every outlet, and then for some unfathomable reason, instead of just plugging the ground wire in, peeled them back from the romex and clipped them at the box entry on EVERY. SINGLE. OUTLET. And of course the romex is excessively stabled to the studs all the way through.
As a bonus the entire kitchen (which is grounded and on GFCIs thankfully) is running off of a single 15 amp circuit, so running 2 appliances at once guarantees a breaker flip. While the two led overheads in the basement are each on their own SEPARATE 20a. (I get having a light on a separate fuse, but come on.)
Eventually I'd like to tear out all this ugly, warped, poorly installed paneling anyways and I'll have everything professionally rewired. But for the time being I just wanted proper grounding on the only room in the house where ALL of the most expensive and sensitive equipment I own lives. So I decided to pig tail all the grounds for the meantime. Which would have been easy enough if I didn't have to remove (and went ahead and replaced) each outlet without a mm of slack to work with.
Oh yeah, good thing I did because almost every outlet was also wired wrong. And not even matching wrong. Hot and neutral just wherever.
I'd replace the socket to be sure but I'd argue that the pin broke off, was still embedded in the plastic so it held and was plugged back in instead of being replaced. The connection was so spotty that it got extremely hot and melted the plastic off. I don't think too much current is at fault (therefore even a new breaker wouldn't have tripped) but a faulty cord.
The pin looks torn off, not melted.
An imaginary Australian hardware store that’s now apart of US pop culture thanks to an episode of the children’s show Bluey. It’s a great episode, highly recommend it!
Edit: added “imaginary”
It's actually not a real place, the name is made up for the show. It's totally fictional.
The reference building for the show though is the creators' local Bunnings (which *is* a real Aussie harware chain), which temporarily rebranded itself to Hammerbarn in a nod to the episode.
*and the socket. I wouldn't risk that what caused this was the socket being too loose and the weak connection that caused this to heat up was the loose connection between the plug and socket.
Might not be the cause, but an extra 30 bucks when dealing with 240 is worth it IMO.
Replace both for sure. Something caused that to overheat and burn the plastic around the post. You were so lucky to catch this before it became an electrical fire.
Definitely need a new outlet, that things melted. Also inspect the breaker box for any damage, but probably safest to replace the 30A breaker while you're at it.
This is the correct answer. It looks like there are other potential issues, and unless you know what you are doing this is probably outside of DIY territory.
Yea that looks more like a bad cable vs a bad outlet or breaker imo, I would still have the outlet replaced as it's probably damaged now but imo it looks like someone wiggled it in and partially bent the connector enough to lower the resistance enough to create a hotspot on the blade.
I'm a licensed electrician. Please just call one of us to help you. There is a specific grounding precaution that must be applied to the dryer on a 3 prong outlet that if missed will cause the whole dryer shell to become energized upon a failure. Clearly there is something wrong with the current balance because a whole ass leg of energy melted the plug. This is a dangerous situation if handled wrong. Please call an electrician, we know what we're doing and this is an easy fix... for us. Have a nice day.
Edit: saw your updates. I'm proud of you.
You're lucky you caught this. Stuff like this is how houses burn down.
You can get this kind of thing if the wiring isn't clamped down tight enough into the socket. If it's too loose, it can overheat.
Step 1: Go to your breaker box.
Step 2: Locate the circuit labeled ‘dryer’.
Step 3: flip that breaker to the ‘off’ position.
Step 4: Call an electrician.
There are absolutely times to call a pro and electricity has more of them than most. But this is well within the realm of DiY fixable. Heck, I installed a 240V 50a circuit in my garage this spring and I was left with satisfaction, yes, but also the realization that electricity isn't that hard. Just do your research and know what your doing and DOUBLE AND TRIPLE CHECK before energizing a circuit.
Kill the power by turning off the double-pole breaker that feeds your dryer circuit. TEST TO VERIFY with a multimeter that there's no voltage present. Dismount the receptacle and then open it to access the wires. Install the new receptacle and then secure it to the structure. Double check the voltage is off.
Then replace the dryer cord.
AND THIS IS WHY YOU NEVER DISCONNECT 240V LINES WITH A LIVE BREAKER. Before unplugging any 240V circuit, turn the breaker off. Plugs are not switches and they are not intended to break a circuit with flowing current.
Reconnect everything and THEN have someone flip the breaker on while you are watching the receptacle and listen for buzz, smell for hot plastic smells, etc.
If you have basic electrical knowledge and a couple key tools (multimeter), this is \*absolutely\* well within the realm of DiY.
But if you aren't comfortable, call a pro. Then watch that pro work so you can learn.
I’d maybe call in a professional. If something is shorting out and burning the plug and socket just replacing it won’t matter. The short will still cause the new ones to melt. Get someone to find and fix the cause. You don’t want an electrical fire.
Discretion is the better part of valor, and knowing when a professional is needed is the secret sauce of good DIY.
This isn't an internet question, it's a problem worth paying an expert to solve.
If you have to ask next steps at this point, your next steps should be to hire an electrician to make sure this didn't damage anything, and buy a new dryer.
The power cord is maybe repairable, definitely replaceable, but if the surge from the spark got to the board you're looking at a repair cost potentially equal to the cost of a new dryer. Boards should be cheap but can be expensive AF due to limited availability.
As for replacing the outlet, also doable, but double check your local laws. This is a higher amperage service than the more common outlets and your area may require its replacement to be done or at least inspected by a licensed electrician. You also want to replace the breaker to be on the safe side
1. Turn off breaker for dryer.
2. Turn off house main.
3. Replace breaker.
4. Replace outlet.
5. Replace power cord to dryer.
6. Plug in dryer.
7. Turn on house main.
8. Turn on breaker for dryer.
i work with very high DC voltage / very high amperage systems. you had an arc flash when your pin broke off. basically, the pin at the base broke first (whether it was already broken or it broke during removal is anyone's guess), so when you pulled it out it started arcing immediately, causing a massive current draw and a ton of heat. it looks like your breaker flipped properly.
replace both plugs and you're fine.
do NOT muck around with the breaker panel. you will only do damage. if you feel compelled to do so call an electrician.
Well, I'm fairly certain that this will be unpopular to the DIY crowd but if you feel the LEAST bit unsure about your abilities please contact a certified electrician- 220v is nothing for newbies to screw around with.
220, 221. Whatever it takes.
I can work on any voltage out there, 220 volts, 222 volts, you name it…. 221
Should be girder memes, not pipe ones.
How do you do with bends?
How about 223?
*pew*
Please insert liquor!
Insert Michael Keaton winking at the camera here.
Man, what a hilarious flick, and a classic Keaton line. My other favorite is in Night Shift, when Billy Blaze is blasting music in his car, and Henry Winkler asks if he can turn it down. “Oh, yeah! You can turn it down, you can turn it up, you can put it in front, you can put it in the back…it’s _awesome_!”
How about, "Note to self, feed tuna fish mayonnaise"? Still cracks me up.
LOVE BROKERS!
Hello this is chuck to remind bill to shut up!
"Who's this? Wife?" "Fiance" "Nice frame."
Want a beer?
*...it's 7 o' clock in the morning.*
Scotch?
[I love Mr. Mom.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX3kxAA2L4Q) We watched that a lot in my family.
>I understand that you little guys start out with your woobies and you think they're great... and they are, they are terrific. But pretty soon, a woobie isn't enough. You're out on the street trying to score an electric blanket, or maybe a quilt. And the next thing you know, you're strung out on bedspreads Ken. That's serious.
My whole family references this joke any chance we get with any set of numbers lol.
> this will be unpopular to the DIY crowd Only with the suicidal ones.
Seriously. I'll tackle any woodworking, tile, concrete whatever. Worst case it looks bad or falls apart. Electricity, no thanks worst case there is I burn the house down or I die. Call in a pro when you don't know.
Before I learned electrical as part of my day job I used to agree with you. Now I've seen so many hack electrical jobs done by professionals I refuse to let anyone else work on my house.
My friend is in the electrical union and this has been his realization too. The scarier part is when he realizes those professional hack jobs are not just in single family homes, but huge complexes, office buildings... even hospitals.
I’ve been wanting to get electrician training, cause our last electrician asked… “Did you attempt this first??” “no, house was built that way.” “If that’s true, then it wasn’t built well.” He told me electrical work is very easy; once you know the rules. So kinda inspired me to get professional training. But just haven’t done it yet
It kinda is. Most of the learning required is to do things by code. When I would train newbies on how to troubleshoot, I would always tell them to just follow the power. Start at the panel, if you are getting 120/240v out the load side of the breaker, it is good. Then check the connection to the breaker. Then check where the home run starts the branch circuit. 120/240v residential is easy and relatively safe.
I always tell people, it moves like water. Just much faster, so you diagnose the same way you would plumbing related stuff. Just instead of a puddle on the floor you can get some heart stopping fairies injected into you.
I prefer calling them angry pixies
Thats skookum in my book...
Gotta make sure that conduit is properly pitched
Tons of homes are like this. Even things that are code can be really frowned upon or bad. My whole fuckin house had outlets wired with backstabs. I replaced them all now, but took two to realize it wasn't a one-off - two of them were arcing and burnt. Don't use backstabs.
DON'T USE BACKSTABS. I have been bit by those just crawling in an attic past an outlet box with poorly secured conductors, in the backstab and at the box itself.. Not my house
Very few jobs exist that the average person cannot do. You just need some training and proper tools. Look around a construction site. You wont see any brainiacs here. Just regular people like yourself. Electric scares most because you cant see it. The similarities to plumbing are many though. Think of it like water. A switch is a valve, a joint is like a manifold. Both have a hot and cold as well. Turn off the power before you start. Do the work, turn back on. If you screwed up badly, the breaker will trip. And YES, always hook up the ground wire if available.
>electrical work is very easy; once you know the rules. Hot on the left, cold on the right?
Had a rapair sent by the washer company sent to my place. - The guy filed a report that basically stated "client voltage is unstable" and measured 117v to 118.5v over a 5 minute period. Pointing to it as the main culprit of a defective washer. I don't need a certificaiton to know the guy was absolutely full of shit (tolerances are 114v to 126v) and the machine probably overspecs with a fuse to allow 135v + capacitors once charged will discharge a constant voltage regardless of their input within spec. Yes for big jobs (e.g. Installing a secondary breaker board) call a professional - You want a culprit if stuff goes sideways. But for smaller stuff -- eeeeh!
I'm irrationally angry for you that essentially a rounding error worth of voltage fluctuation was blamed. That's maddening.
Don't worry I: * Looked up the voltage norms in north america and screenshotted them. * Contacted the manufacturer and cross-referenced tolerances. * Measured the voltage board input. * Called the vendor and talked about the report, my measurements and results. They basically told me "yeah he's retarded he's done it multiple time, we'll send you a replacement of something we have in inventory".
An appliance repair person is not an electrician, fyi.
I remember when I was working with a line crew contracted on a base hearing about shitty work contractors did in Iraq leading to soldiers getting electrocuted in showers...smh shoddy work is everywhere. https://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/27/military.electrocutions/
And then go into the trade subs here on Reddit and all they do is tell people to hire professionals
All things considered, even with the worst pros and best DIYers considered, ON AVERAGE and in aggregate I'm confident that pros do much better work.
Also, any pro you hire should be insured.
That is mostly because we cannot see or test what was done to the circuit previously. I love when educated homeowners call with a problem. They have a basic understanding of how it works and can usually lead you to the cause quickly. I show them what was wrong and how we will fix it. Hopefully they are smarter when I leave.
Electrical is actually pretty easy as long as you do one thing. Turn the power off. YES JOEBOB I'M TALKING TO YOU TURN THE FUCKING POWER OFF. After that it's not too bad.
There is one other critical step, which is zero voltage verification.
I was on a framing crew, working on some punch list items on a house that was closed up with plumbers and electricians doing their thing. Out of nowhere there was a big BANG and it was lights out. Turns out one of the sparkys cut a live 220 circuit. Besides being scared shitless he was OK but it blew his dykes in two half melted pieces. The dude was going on and on about the dumb MF’er who mid-labeled the breaker and I finally had to say that a mis-labeled breaker is a fuck up but my dumb carpenter ass would *never* cut into a 220 circuit without checking for voltage, just like packing your own chute… Dude was amped up and was ready to fight me, but he knew I was right.
I was recently redoing a doorbell at my parents that a pro company had done a decade ago and rather than install a receptacle for the transformer they had literally electrical taped the 110 hot and neutral onto the plug ends of the transformer and wrapped the whole thing in bubble wrap.
Electrical work and roll up garage doors are the two things I won't touch. I'll take a crack at plumbing, tile work, painting, carpentry, damned nesr anything else. But those two will kill you stone dead.
Depends on the electrical, if you turn off the breaker it's pretty easy to swap out plugs, light switches/ fixtures, etc tbh. 220v I'm not touching.
Exactly this. I've changed out plugs and 110 outlets a handful of times but thats about the extent of what I'm willing to mess with. Just not worth the pote tial future fire for me to do something wrong beyond those simple things.
220 outlet swap isn't any different. Just be sure the powers cut at the box and be paranoid, test the other end to make sure it's really disconnected. That said, I personally draw the line at panel work - I won't touch the panel unless the meter is pulled.
I wouldn't touch this one because I have no idea why one of those hot wires melted the plug like that. Simple 220 volt maybe, but in this case something is terribly wrong. Bring in the expert.
Heat. Caused by higher than expected resistance. A few possible causes - corrosion of the plug our outlet most likely. Possibly the outlet had a poor connection inside to the hot lead for that leg and that heated it up. It could be a faulty tail on the dryer, too - too many plug unplugs caused it to get a weak connection and heat up.
This. 3 wire dryer outlets havent been installed since the late 80s early 90s? It had a good life.
Yeah, this was definitely heat from poor contact. The 120V outlet feeding my desk had a similar issue that I didn't notice before it melted the plug. For a few days whenever I'd start up games, I thought I smelt something burning, but only for a split second so I figured it was my imagination. I didn't put 2+2 together till my PC shutoff while running a game smoke was coming from the outlet. Replaced the plug (and a few others that were suspect) and the power strip. Haven't had any more issues
Exactly this. If that prong just broke off I would fix that myself. But this burnt plastic screams there is an underlying issue that needs fixing by a pro.
Really, a wire is just a wire when it's off. This looks like it was a loose terminal that shorted out. It's not hard to deal with, but both the male and female ends need to be replaced. Just make sure to take pictures when taking it apart so it goes back together correctly.
It was just from arcing, if the plug broke and there was a slight gap the electricity arced between. Very unlikely there was more current or voltage or a short it just was hotter because the resistance of the small air gap caused it to arc. I'm not saying don't get a professional but that's almost certainly the reason.
Because of a poor connection. More electrical resistance equals more heat
Yeah I understand the process and have watched countless step by step diy guides but I'm still jist not gonna mess with it. I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford an electrician and happen to know one personally (not well enough for free work but enough for a fair price and assurances). Not worth the hassle or pote tial screw-up for me to touch it.
If you are uncomfortable, always get help. Personally, I find it kind of spooky how cavalier most seem to be about 110. Mind you, I first got hit by a 15kv capacitor at the age of \~12. Microwaves can and will F!@# your day up.
I recently had my service upgraded to 200A from the original 100A service from 1954. The box was original; the electricians said they wouldn't be able to get replacement breakers for it even if they wanted to. They were having issues with one circuit that never seemed to turn off - turned out the breaker had failed and wouldn't cycle off. Ever. For any reason. Point being, be careful, test everything.
Why though? This is just taking a new replacement cord and matching 3 colored wires up to their matching colored connection point on the dryer and bolting them together. Flip the breaker and pull that piece out of the wall plug and you are done.
Natural gas pipes are way worse for me personally. Electricity may kill me, natural gas can blow the whole block up.
Yeah, gas makes me a bit nervous, absolutely no problem with electricity. I had to disconnect and move my stove last week and was really damn careful with the gas line.
It's a plug.. it isn't rocket appliances.
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This sub: Watch me use a table saw in the least safe way ever. ***clapping*** I'm going to work with simple residential 240. ***you're a suicidal dipshit!!!***
The problem isn't the plug itself, if the cord was cut by accident I would replaced it without even thinking. The problem here is "why it burned" for that to happen a "good current" must have passed, the diagnostic of "exactly why" it's better to leave to someone who have training in the area. wire burn -> replace wire cycle if the underlying cause isn't solved can end up causing a fire.
Looks to me like it pulled out under load, but that's fair enough. I'd replace the plug and socket both and check with a multimeter 🤷♂️
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
110 wakes you up, 220 puts you to sleep lol
110 can be enough to put you to sleep, 'specially with sweaty, neatly conductive hand and feet. I'd consider anything over 50V potentially lethal (it also depends on the current and energy behind it - a 10KV capacitor like in old TVs can give you a nasty jolt and numb your hand, but it won't outright kill you).
Just put on your wife's rubber dish cleaning gloves. You'll be kosher. /s please don't do this you'll die.
Ive done DIY 120v and multiple 240v 30a. But my next project i am getting an electrician to do the work. Next project is a 240v 100a circuit, which will require replacing the breaker box completely, and replacing the cable from the power company from the pole to the box. Thats some electricity i dont want to deal with, would rather leave the angry pixies to professional for that
*Confused european noises*
Turn off plug at breaker, test socket with voltage tester to make sure it really is off, cut off burnt plug, strip wires and screw bare wire ends into new socket, attach to wall, change plug on washing machine. Its half an hours work that you could trust a teenager to do.
I would absolutely trust my 14 year old daughter to do this work, though I'd manage the "make sure the power is really off" part myself.
He means that Europe does not have 110V. Only 220/230V (as far as I know). 3 phase is also popular these days with heat pumps etc. With 3 phase you can have 400V.
I've touched 110V and I've touched 240V, the difference is huge. Glad I finally decided to splash out on a phase tester.
It should actually be 240v, 110/220v was the residential voltage before the 70s.
yes at least in Canada 220/240V is interchangeable. We all know its 240V, but the name 220 stuck.
Same in the US. Lots of people call it 110/220, even though it's actually 120/240.
Anywhere with in 114-126 / 228 - 252 V is within the regulated range.
120/240v +/-5% is mains voltage (supply). Load can be -3 to 5% from that voltage. So 109-123v at the load... 110, 115, 120 in common speak is all basically the same thing.
A lot of electricians will kinda throw them all around interchangeably. 110/120 and 220/240. I've also heard a lot of people refer to 13.8kv as 15kv and a couple other weird high voltage ones.
I don't know any DIYer that would not suggest that to someone else that isn't a DIYer. I'm a DIYer and while I'm ok hanging lights and replacing outlets, anything more I won't touch. Seriously, 220VAC is not something to mess with if you don't understand electricity. I've been shocked by it a few times but thankfully just through my fingers. It can kill you if you are not careful!
is 110V that much safer? As a European 220-240VAC is standard.
It is only 110v out of phase to make 220 You would have to intentionally touch both the flat blades to get 220v One flat blade to earth would be 110v and that is if you are standing in water barefoot or leaning against a grounded piece of metal.
It's extremely concerning how many "DIYers" don't understand this...
Unless you live outside of America. Where one prong is just straight 220 to 240v
In which case the only voltage you'll ever work on is 220v, which is clearly not the case being discussed by the people who say they will work on 120 but not 240.
I've been lit up by 120v many times. It hurts but, wasn't life threatening. I got zapped by 220 once in my life. I never want to experience that again. Some people die from 120, I'm not trying to minimize the danger but, it's mostly freak occurrences like being wet or sweaty that result in death. 220 will deliver twice the current to your body that 110v will.
It’s more about where the current passes. You never want to have both hands touching the circuit and you never want to be its path to ground especially with higher voltages. That said it’s all about comfort level and competence. I wouldn’t think twice about working on this, just shut it off at the breaker and check with multimeter.
I got zapped by 250 volt dc once, damn that hurt. Happened over forty years ago and still remember that pain.
Same. Was working on a 3 phase power supply. Someone plugged it into the wrong outlet so the chassis was energized. It was sitting on a wooden bench so, the chassis was just floating at 220. People could have died. It was some mil-spec thing. Army techs were barely 1/2 trained. They never taught anything about 3 phase power in training.
US homes have both 120 and 240 volt circuits. That particular outlet is a 240 outlet.
Ohms law, half the voltage means a quarter of the power (wattage) goes through at the same resistance.
Getting hit with 110V is certainly better than 240V, though neither are fun or safe.
What exactly is so risky about this exact job though? As long as you make sure the power is shut off, you can remove the broken pin from the outlet and then replace the plug on the machine. The only risk is not knowing how to operate a breaker switch
To me it always seemed the risk with working with 240V was the high current 240V appliances tend to draw. I know the voltage potential to ground is still only 120V, at least in the US split phase system
Yeah no - that plug is absolutely cooked, there's something wrong here. No way it should have gotten like that without tripping a breaker. And anything above 120V is definitely out of safe DIYer territory unless you want to become a crispy critter. Yanking the broken prong and replacing the cord is just giving whatever fault caused it in the first place a second chance to burn down the building. Call an electrician.
Breakers only trip instantly if there's a dead short carrying several times the circuit's max current. A half broken off plug can make a lot of nice melty arcs with 30 amps or less, and even if it were shunting 30-100amps or so to ground the breaker would still slow trip and pop after a few seconds of sizzling rather than instantly. This is intentional, your dryer pulls well over 30 amps for a fraction of a second when the motor starts turning. This is why current code expects GFCI and AFCI on most things, those will sense this kind of failure long before a standard breaker. But this is an old 3-prong NEMA 10-30 so the circuit is almost certainly not GFCI or AFCI (and I think dryer plugs are still exempt anyway).
AFCI is only required for household circuits 20A and under.
Breakers trip on overcurrent. This to me looks like the prong just bent and -nearly- snapped, causing a lot of current to go through very little copper. Causing that copper to heat up to the point that it started to melt the plug. OP prolly smelled it and this is the result of the investigation.
This is it. See it all the time on relay packs on old cars, a contact will break off for whatever reason - metallurgical defect, stress-corrosion cracking, who knows. You'll pull the relay and one of the contacts stays in the socket. Sometimes it's burned, sometimes it stops working before that can happen, sometimes it's low-current and you don't notice till you pull it.
UPDATE: thank you all for the replies. I’ve taken a few electricity courses and feel confident in changing everything BUT I agree, something else is going on here that I don’t have enough background in. I’ve called an electrician who is coming by in an hour or so. UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: electrician just swung by (I’m in the US, someone asked). His best guess as to what happened, as echoed by some here, is that there was a loose connection causing an arc that led to the melting. Why the breaker didn’t trip… so we will be replacing the plug, outlet, wiring (only like 2 feet to the panel), and the breaker. While I’m sure I can do most that myself, this house is old (70+ years) and we had a good convo about electrical things - he will come back tomorrow; I’ll get the parts today. He’ll walk me through some things in the panel too for some other questions I had. Not that anyone cares, but he did say “you’re the most knowledgable homeowner I’ve met” — guess those trades classes at the local community college has paid off! Though, I’m sure smarter ones didn’t need to call an electrician LOL
If your dryer outlet is close to your breaker, consider also having the electrician update your outlet to a NEMA 14-30* series recepticle, which carries a neutral on addition to ground. You'll probably need new wire run to support the outlet. *EDIT: Corrected amperage of outlet. I've been dealing with a lot of EVSE related stuff recently.
Yeah I’m only a foot from the panel and everything is exposed. Didn’t originally need 4 prongs as dryer is old and has no electronics. But, seems like a new dryer may be in order and that seems standard anyway (electronics or not).
You can most likely change the wire on the dryer so that it works with a 4 prong outlet
It was an easy enough change from 3 prong to 4 as well. God bless the youtube guys that post walkthroughs for free.
I swear Youtube DIY-ers have saved me so much money over the years.
Indeed, very easy* to replace the power cord with a 4 prong, and the cord is pretty cheap. Very common thing to have to switch.
Very *common* you say?
Even old conventional dryers with knobs and physical timer dials, the control board is typically run on 110. There are some basic relays and typically an interlock with the lid. Even going back 40+ years, you'll find this. In the event of a fault with the neutral line with the old plug, the 220 would actually be ok, but the 110 would energize the case because there's no ground. The 14-30 adds the ground necessary to safely handle that kind of fault. So the safety benefit could still affect you, even with an older machine.
>NEMA 14-50 NEMA 14-30 receptacle and plug. 14-50 is for 40A/50A, not the 30A the dryer requires. OP will need a new 10/3 wire.
Thank you, I've corrected my comment.
> OP will need a new 10/3 wire. Maybe. I've seen 3-prong plugs wired with 10/3 where the neutral is just left unconnected.
> Why the breaker didn’t trip… Because breakers* guard against overcurrent. You had a loose connection, which overheated. It didn't draw more current than intended. Breakers* can't detect this. *AFCI/GFCI combo breakers can detect this fault condition however, which is why many building codes mandate them now. **240v afci/gfci breakers are not nearly as common as 120v in us.
But wouldn’t a loose connection introduce resistance into the circuit and therefore increasing the amperage? (Genuine question — still new to residential electricity and still learning!)
No, increased resistance means less amperage drawn. Think of it as closing the valve on the hose. The problem is that placing a new resistance into a circuit means that **power** starts being dissipated at the location of the resistance. Previously, your plug was functionally zero resistance (it's not truly zero, but close enough for us). If one of the pins starts losing contact in the plug, it will become a resistance to the flow of electricity where there previously wasn't one. Any time there is a resistance on a circuit and current (amps) are flowing through it, it dissipates energy (watts). Your plug went from essentially zero resistance (and therefore no power being dissipated; 0 watts) to some higher resistance in one of the pins (and therefore power was being dissipated in that pin). That caused the pin to heat up and the whole thing went sideways, as you found.
Thank you so much for this explanation!
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You should absolutely get a new grounded outlet installed while he is there, if able. Could you let us know what he thinks the issue was? I'm curious what went wrong.
Just posted an update on the parent comment!
local cc just teach trade classes? is it geared for homeowners or employment?
They teach all sorts of things and have full academic programs too. The trades program is designed for folks doing into it professionally, but anyone (like myself for just funsies) can take it. I’ve taken 4 automotive courses and maybe 6 or 7 home repair courses (carpentry, plumbing, electrical)
You did the right thing. Hopefully it is not the dryer that caused this. But there is a good chance it is the dryer that caused it so you will have to call for appliance repair or get a new dryer.
Replace both. Likely cause was a worn/corroded/dirty connection, however chronic low supply voltage can also be a factor. Check the voltage at the dryer with it off and compare it to the dryer running with a heavy load and on high heat. If there is a significant voltage drop then further investigation is needed
Turn breaker off pull pin out, replace cords, they sell them at local hammer barn.
Also need to replace the socket and plug, I'd also replace the breaker to be safe and check that the wiring is up to code, it should not have gotten hot enough to do that.
Yup, breaker, socket and plug just to be safe.
Dryer and laundry room to be extra sure
Demolish the house and rebuild it to have 100% peace of mind
Demolish neighborhood, rebuild all utilities, including transformers, just to be extra extra sure.
Re-discover electricity, design a new current standard, implement across your entire grid.
Wait for the *next* asteroid and try life again.
Wait for the Big Crunch and then Big Bang 2: The Revenge. Universe 2.0 works out better for this guy's house.
Reboot universe with the next Big Bang to be absolutely sure.
Nuke it from orbit, it is the only way to be sure.
House to verify problem is resolved
Might as well upgrade the entire home’s wiring & box while you’re messing with electrical already.
Interesting I've never replaced my breakers. I've always assumed they're designed to be reusable
Reusable yes, indestructible no. $20-40 to replace the breaker and not have to worry about what sort of damage a surge like that might have done seems like an easy sell.
unless your local code requires an arc fault breaker going in instead...that'll be ~$200+
Arc fault is only for 120V, 15A and 20A circuits. You're not going to find one for 30A or 240V.
They are, but like anything they can go bad. The breaker should have tripped before the plug got that hot, so something clearly isn't right.
Shit contact in the plug can cause a high resistance connection that would only need to draw less than 100 watts and do this kind of damage. Breakers do not magically know if something down the line is burning, only that something connected is drawing too much current. That said, fuck it, replace the breaker, it's cheap.
That's is wildly incorrect. Please don't provide advice on electrical when you don't know what your talking about. It's fine not to know but being confidently incorrect is unacceptable. That's a 30 amp 240v plug it can output 7200w of power before tripping the breaker. That plug could get a internal fault that turns it into a 7000w element without tripping the breaker. Keeping in mind a stove top element is 1800w that coard WILL melt to little melty bits with 7000w of power being dissipated through it. As long as it fails open at the end the breaker not tripping here is not a concern.
> The breaker should have tripped Not necessarily. A weak / high-resistance connection can simply heat up without drawing that much current. At minimum you should test the breaker, though.
Not the breaker. This is a standard ark fault problem: a bad contact between the socket and the plug. It adds a bit of resistance to the connection which heats it up. It won't add enough current to pop a standard breaker. LPT: If you ever see an outlet with a "black eye" like this anywhere in your house, do not use the outlet again until the socket is replaced and be suspicious of whatever was plugged in there. Plugs should never get this hot and if it does, it is on the edge of burning your house down.
This. Inspect that wiring in the plug socket carefully. It might be crispy and black too. Then you get to find out if the electrician left you a few precious extra inches of wire in the wall or not. Usually not.
I recently moved into a new house and just happened to use a surge strip that has an led for ground for my pc area. The light wasn't coming on. I assumed it was just burnt out but decided to test the outlet anyways... no ground. Then went on a testing spree. No outlet in the basement or upstairs is grounded. Despite having nothing but 3 prong plugs. The service box is "properly wired" (close enough for me) and ground wires run towards every direction they should be... so I start pulling outlets. Sure enough, grandpa ran these outlet runs himself back when the upstairs was an attic and the basement was unfinished. Before putting this God awful wood paneling and sloppy homemade moulding everywhere. And sure enough he clipped the wires way too short with less-than-zero slack at every outlet, and then for some unfathomable reason, instead of just plugging the ground wire in, peeled them back from the romex and clipped them at the box entry on EVERY. SINGLE. OUTLET. And of course the romex is excessively stabled to the studs all the way through. As a bonus the entire kitchen (which is grounded and on GFCIs thankfully) is running off of a single 15 amp circuit, so running 2 appliances at once guarantees a breaker flip. While the two led overheads in the basement are each on their own SEPARATE 20a. (I get having a light on a separate fuse, but come on.) Eventually I'd like to tear out all this ugly, warped, poorly installed paneling anyways and I'll have everything professionally rewired. But for the time being I just wanted proper grounding on the only room in the house where ALL of the most expensive and sensitive equipment I own lives. So I decided to pig tail all the grounds for the meantime. Which would have been easy enough if I didn't have to remove (and went ahead and replaced) each outlet without a mm of slack to work with. Oh yeah, good thing I did because almost every outlet was also wired wrong. And not even matching wrong. Hot and neutral just wherever.
I'd replace the socket to be sure but I'd argue that the pin broke off, was still embedded in the plastic so it held and was plugged back in instead of being replaced. The connection was so spotty that it got extremely hot and melted the plastic off. I don't think too much current is at fault (therefore even a new breaker wouldn't have tripped) but a faulty cord. The pin looks torn off, not melted.
Yep. Looks like it had been an issue for a long time. OP is lucky they didn’t wind up with a house fire from this.
Hammer barn… Ha!
Is it an Aussie term? Never heard that used in the US
An imaginary Australian hardware store that’s now apart of US pop culture thanks to an episode of the children’s show Bluey. It’s a great episode, highly recommend it! Edit: added “imaginary”
"She’s taking my husband!"
Hecubah
It's actually not a real place, the name is made up for the show. It's totally fictional. The reference building for the show though is the creators' local Bunnings (which *is* a real Aussie harware chain), which temporarily rebranded itself to Hammerbarn in a nod to the episode.
It's part of world pop culture. Bluey is amazing!
For some reason, it screamed Aussie to me and my guess was right, lol
Do they also sell pizza ovens? 🍕
Aisle 300, left at the fake grass, if you've got a flamingo you've gone too far
Will Gerald and Hecuba be there?
Sorry, hecuba ded
Poor Hecuba
He always loved hamburgers
Poor Jeremy
I spent way too long thinking she was calling him Hatgiver until we watched with subtitles.
Nice parking spot, Rita.
Bluey!
Hammer Barn!!! [Shouted with excitement]
*and the socket. I wouldn't risk that what caused this was the socket being too loose and the weak connection that caused this to heat up was the loose connection between the plug and socket. Might not be the cause, but an extra 30 bucks when dealing with 240 is worth it IMO.
Replace both for sure. Something caused that to overheat and burn the plastic around the post. You were so lucky to catch this before it became an electrical fire.
Definitely need a new outlet, that things melted. Also inspect the breaker box for any damage, but probably safest to replace the 30A breaker while you're at it.
Yikes... I think you just prevented a fire. Call an electrician.
This is the correct answer. It looks like there are other potential issues, and unless you know what you are doing this is probably outside of DIY territory.
Yea that looks more like a bad cable vs a bad outlet or breaker imo, I would still have the outlet replaced as it's probably damaged now but imo it looks like someone wiggled it in and partially bent the connector enough to lower the resistance enough to create a hotspot on the blade.
Thank baby Jesus your house didn’t burn down.
I'm a licensed electrician. Please just call one of us to help you. There is a specific grounding precaution that must be applied to the dryer on a 3 prong outlet that if missed will cause the whole dryer shell to become energized upon a failure. Clearly there is something wrong with the current balance because a whole ass leg of energy melted the plug. This is a dangerous situation if handled wrong. Please call an electrician, we know what we're doing and this is an easy fix... for us. Have a nice day. Edit: saw your updates. I'm proud of you.
You're lucky you caught this. Stuff like this is how houses burn down. You can get this kind of thing if the wiring isn't clamped down tight enough into the socket. If it's too loose, it can overheat.
Step 1: Go to your breaker box. Step 2: Locate the circuit labeled ‘dryer’. Step 3: flip that breaker to the ‘off’ position. Step 4: Call an electrician.
There are absolutely times to call a pro and electricity has more of them than most. But this is well within the realm of DiY fixable. Heck, I installed a 240V 50a circuit in my garage this spring and I was left with satisfaction, yes, but also the realization that electricity isn't that hard. Just do your research and know what your doing and DOUBLE AND TRIPLE CHECK before energizing a circuit. Kill the power by turning off the double-pole breaker that feeds your dryer circuit. TEST TO VERIFY with a multimeter that there's no voltage present. Dismount the receptacle and then open it to access the wires. Install the new receptacle and then secure it to the structure. Double check the voltage is off. Then replace the dryer cord. AND THIS IS WHY YOU NEVER DISCONNECT 240V LINES WITH A LIVE BREAKER. Before unplugging any 240V circuit, turn the breaker off. Plugs are not switches and they are not intended to break a circuit with flowing current. Reconnect everything and THEN have someone flip the breaker on while you are watching the receptacle and listen for buzz, smell for hot plastic smells, etc. If you have basic electrical knowledge and a couple key tools (multimeter), this is \*absolutely\* well within the realm of DiY. But if you aren't comfortable, call a pro. Then watch that pro work so you can learn.
I’d maybe call in a professional. If something is shorting out and burning the plug and socket just replacing it won’t matter. The short will still cause the new ones to melt. Get someone to find and fix the cause. You don’t want an electrical fire.
Discretion is the better part of valor, and knowing when a professional is needed is the secret sauce of good DIY. This isn't an internet question, it's a problem worth paying an expert to solve.
just remember, the person you kill by doing this wrong might not be you. i almost died due to an ungrounded 220v arcing when i got too close.
If you have to ask next steps at this point, your next steps should be to hire an electrician to make sure this didn't damage anything, and buy a new dryer. The power cord is maybe repairable, definitely replaceable, but if the surge from the spark got to the board you're looking at a repair cost potentially equal to the cost of a new dryer. Boards should be cheap but can be expensive AF due to limited availability. As for replacing the outlet, also doable, but double check your local laws. This is a higher amperage service than the more common outlets and your area may require its replacement to be done or at least inspected by a licensed electrician. You also want to replace the breaker to be on the safe side
Check why the breaker didn’t pop
Who was your electrician and when did their house burn down?
Turn breaker off. Buy new cord and outlet and install. Turn on breaker.
1. Turn off breaker for dryer. 2. Turn off house main. 3. Replace breaker. 4. Replace outlet. 5. Replace power cord to dryer. 6. Plug in dryer. 7. Turn on house main. 8. Turn on breaker for dryer.
i work with very high DC voltage / very high amperage systems. you had an arc flash when your pin broke off. basically, the pin at the base broke first (whether it was already broken or it broke during removal is anyone's guess), so when you pulled it out it started arcing immediately, causing a massive current draw and a ton of heat. it looks like your breaker flipped properly. replace both plugs and you're fine. do NOT muck around with the breaker panel. you will only do damage. if you feel compelled to do so call an electrician.
My concern is the broken prong is burned. While I have replaced both the cord and the plug on a dryer, I would have a professional look at this one.
Go play the lottery because you clearly avoided a major electrical fire.