Household Electrical. Dryer Circuit problems, help me brainstorm.

[harveybirdman]

Recently had some power surging issues in my circa 1956 house. Took out a TV and an Xbox power supply amongst other annoying symptoms of flickering lights etc.

Got an electrician out upgraded to a 220 amp service and brought weather head up to code.  Beefy as hell now.

Dude is fat slow and just had back surgery so it takes him forever to finish and he comes in $200 over quote. Whatever right him a check and all the surges and flickers are gone.

Go to do laundry two days later and dryer doesn't work.  So after many curse words I figure the dryer must have fried in the surges.  So just to be sure I break out the multimeter and the plug reads as expected 110 from hot to ground, 220 between  the hots.  $125 and a Craigslist deal later new dryer gets plugged in but no love.  Before going ballistic I take the dryer to my aunts plug it up and it runs just fine.

Electrician can't solve it and I refuse to hire him to run a new circut.  Best guess is a fouled neutral but I'm not so sure. He assures me there's 220 at breaker and 220 at plug.

I have rigged up a small run of 10/2 to a dryer plug and am getting ready to wire it into the 30 amp dedicated dryer breaker and I'm wheeling my dryer around to the panel.  If it doesn't work and I rule out the wore span as the issue what do I need to check next?  Breaker position? Make sure neutral is on neutral bus (think he has it wit the grounds)

[pbj]

No life at all with the dryer?  You sure the outlet is making good contact with your plug? 

I've had a lot of BS dryer issues in a 50 year old house and have had to replace breaker, cut back wiring and strip clean ends, replace power cord on driver, and take apart the outlet and clean and tighten the connectors (by bending them inward with a screwdriver).

After all that headache, I can run it for hours and the breaker barely gets warm.

[Howard_Casto]

What he said.  You need to check every level of the connection.  The safest bet is to just get some romex and run a brand new line with a new outlet.  Those 220 outlets can be kind of sketchy. Electrical work is easy and you can always look on the bright side... if you screw up too bad you'll probably be dead, so your problems are over. 

[harveybirdman]

Thanks bros turns out the dryer ran off my patch cable to breaker so something is fouled in the original run.  Perhaps even the root cause for the entire issue.  Mice chews on wire, ground fault sends current back to meter that was insufficiently grounded and bingo surge city.

Too bad ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- is so expensive that wI'll easily be a $100 run.

[Titchgamer]

Most likely cause is mice as you say chewing cables.

You could carry out continuity tests to work out which of the cores are U/S.

Either:

Disconnect power for cct from dis board and use a fly lead to check continuity end to end of each wire.

Or disconnect and link 2 together at a time and test between opposite ends.

All should read approx the same.

Best test to do would be insulation resistance but you need a insulation resistance tester for that.

[lilshawn]

that's the problem with high voltage and high amperage loads. it can read okay with a voltmeter and it's couple of microamps of draw for the test, but completely fail under load when you plug in your high draw device.

you can get 10/4 by the foot at the hardware or electrical supply store. if it's over say... 100 feet go with bigger 8/4 cable. electrical is easier than it sounds. just make sure the power is off before you futz with it. (standard death disclaimer applies)

i would go ahead and just do a run from the panel to the dryer box and not do a patch like you had.

[harveybirdman]

Well it was hell under the house and my knees are beat to ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- but I went with a new run of 10/3. As it turns out it appears corrosion from exposure to water under the bathroom over time was the likely culprit. 

I will probably finish up tomorrow, hopefully it works with no issues.

[lilshawn]

I went with a new run of 10/3.

is this an older ungrounded dryer with a 3 pronger ccord on it?

or is this one of those cables that don't mark the bare ground as a conductor? (has red white black barecopper)

not joshing you on your choice of cable, just wondering how it's set up. used 10/4 cable with red black white green conductors.

[harveybirdman]

10/3 has four wires (I guess the naming convention doesn't take the ground into consideration)

Red = hot
Black = hot
White  = neutral (shielded all the way back to bus)
Bare wire = ground.

But yes it's a three prong old style dryer.  The ground terminates at a screw on the plate of the 220 recep at one end and the ground bus on the other.  I'm pretty sure it's up to code and would work for a newer dryer with four prongs, I'd just have to connect the ground to the ground terminal on one of those.

[lilshawn]

10/3 has four wires (I guess the naming convention doesn't take the ground into consideration)

Red = hot
Black = hot
White  = neutral (shielded all the way back to bus)
Bare wire = ground.

But yes it's a three prong old style dryer.  The ground terminates at a screw on the plate of the 220 recep at one end and the ground bus on the other.  I'm pretty sure it's up to code and would work for a newer dryer with four prongs, I'd just have to connect the ground to the ground terminal on one of those.

yeah, no worries.  Electrical wiring is such a mish mash of old ways of doing things for the old electrical workers to easily ID the wire they need but new ways to be NEMA code complaint across the board.