electric dryer, odd happening, a little long

Mike(NEOhio)

Well-known Member
Location
Newbury, Ohio

Wife put a load in and sparks flew when she pushed the start button. I tried it and got the same thing. The aluminum foil duct runs up above the block and bends to the outlet in the joist space. The bend lays over a water pipe and that's where the sparks came from. I'm thinking the duct should not be hot. I checked for voltage from duct to ground, nothing. The cable connections and clamp were good. Thinking now the pipe may be hot. We got a new well and pump back in Sept. No voltage to ground with pump running or off. It's three years old and when they installed it that duct was arcing where it touched a cable from the room above. I replaced that piece of wire and added a junction box to get it away from the duct. I posted about that wire at the time. I stripped it and could not find any sign of work insulation. Now I think that may have been the pipe then, but it never did it again till this morning. I added an elbow above the water pipe so the duct could not touch and it's OK now. I checked for voltage again while it was running and got nothing.

I'm stumped. What could have caused the arcing to the pipe. Maybe a fault in the motor or coils? Perhaps it's intermittent. Electrial buys, any ideas?
 

As One Shot said . Static electricity came to my mind instantly. Depending on the fabric being dried , the relative humidity and ambient temperature the charge can alter by tens of thousands of volts. Of course once discharged it will disappear and you wouldn't be able to measure anything .
 
safest thing to do is have an electrician come out and take a look. if the dryer is shorting out, you could get electrocuted. ok that should take care of ytdot. i agree with old, i suspect a neutral or ground issue. assuming the dryer is 220 single phase, it should have at least a ground wire, if a 3/ prong plug, or a neutral and ground if a 4 wire plug. i hear a lotta guys will use a non contact voltage probe first to see if the duct or water pipe is energized. then a lotta guys will go with a dvom meter to check for voltage. be careful have somebody at the main panel ready to kill the power in case you get bit.
 

Mixing up the ground and the neutral. They are two different circuits .
Where are you referencing the the multimeter lead to ensure it is at true earth potential ?
 
It's a three wire with bonding strap to the neutral and no, it's not static. I don't think static would have burned a hole in the duct. Thing's been wired this way over 40 years with no problems. It happened twice when the start button was pushed but I couldn't duplicate it later. I tested with one lead in the ground hole of the washer receptacle next to it. The water pipe showed no voltage whether the pump was running or not and the pipe showed 118v to the washer hot, so it's grounded.
 
Sounds like the ground has a bad contact some place so it is looking for ground any way it can find it. I'd check all connections in the ground wire. Plug outlet and breaker
 
Since it's three-wire, the neutral and ground are tied together. The only way you can get arcing between the dryer chassis and plumbing is if the dryer and plumbing aren't bonded together. You could have an open neutral between the dryer and breaker panel, or the neutral and ground are not bonded together, or the plumbing isn't bonded to ground. You should be able to figure out the source of the problem with a voltmeter. Check the voltage between the dryer chassis and water pipe with the dryer running. If it isn't less than a volt you have a problem. You should be able to work back from there. I suspect you're missing a bonding jumper between ground and neutral; this is normally done at the service disconnect near the meter.
 
In that system the so called ground wire is the neutral return for any 120 volt load. Since the dryer case and the vent are bonded to this so called ground it is in the neutral return path. The motor and any light form the 120 volt load. Current returns to the source using all paths.
 
I agree, static will make serious sparks, A rubber belt around a drum with nylon polyester and cotton fluffing around in there. Van De Graff generator
The wire in the flex hose should be grounded to the dryer chassis, and the neutral grounded to the chassis. Jim
 
On the older 3 wire dryers the case/frame may be connected to the GrounDED Conductor aka Neutral. That has been corrected by running separate GrounDED Conductors aka Neutrals as well as Safety Equipment GroundING Conductors (Bare or Green) which are bonded to the steel case/frame.

When I last practiced Electrical Power Distribution Engineering (long retired and codes change so no warranty) at the incoming service entrance typically a homes main panelboard the Neutral and Ground are BONDED plus the Neutral is connected to "all readily available Grounding Electrodes" such as but not limited to conductive utility water and/or gas pipes and "made electrodes" such as a rod driven into mother earth. Iffffffffffff ? conductive water or gas pipes are connected to the Neutral and ifffffffff ?? its properly Bonded to the Equipment GroundING Buss, the dryers case/frame (if properly connected) would be near the same potential as any continuous bonded conductive gas/water pipes so there shouldn't be any voltage difference or arcing/sparking.. Trouble is many pipes are now non conductive

With a rotating drum and belts and heat and sheets all rotating I can envision a static charge accumulation and could see it discharging to a conductive pipe but I suspect its more of an electrical non static problem at this time but not being there I cant say.

I would inspect the main panel to insure good BONDING of the Neutral and Ground (may be one common buss) plus proper GroundING of the Neutral to any conductive utility pipes and a driven ground rod etc. And check alllllllll connections especially to the Neutral and/or Ground Busses.

DISCLAIMER when it comes to fire and life safety you may want to consult with trained professional electricians and engineers in addition to advice/opinions offered here especially from lay persons and including my advice/opinions as Im so long retired and rusty.

Best wishes stay safe

John T Live in the RV from Dunnellon Florida Farm Days
 
I agree. The neutral is likely open and the neutral current is flowing in the ground system any way it can to return to the transformer centre tap.
 

There's two ways this could happen, either the chassis of the dryer is "HOT" with respect to a properly-grounded water pipe OR the dryer IS properly grounded and the water pipe (for whatever reason/failure) is "HOT" with respect to the dryer chassis.

Several years back a friend had an electrical short at his household heating boiler making it and the attached copper pipe runs to the baseboards "HOT".

The steel "spring" in plastic dryer exhaust hose lying on top of one of the copper pipes eventually made contact with the copper pipe and heated up and burned a lot of the plastic hose and lint inside resulting in SMOKE but not a threatening fire, thankfully. (Apparently, the end of the "spring" must have been touching metal at the dryer end.) And, yes, I know the vinyl dryer exhaust hose isn't a good idea!

Took a little while and some checking with a Voltmeter to figure out what had gone on there.
 
While Working at sLowe's installing appliances I found a lot of 220 electrical sockets that were old and weren't making a good connection. Sometimes they would get hot and melt the plastic sometimes they would not make a good connection and spark. I just had to replace mine a 4 wire that was smelling and would spark when you turned the dryer on. It was only twenty years old.
 
Thanks, I'll take a look at it tomorrow. Trying to get hold of an electrician friend to come and check it. I didn't see anything amiss in the panel but I'm no expert.
 
Had an almost new dryer give me sparks. Took the top off and found a clip was missing and the wire fell on the drum. would spark on start up then stop as the revolution would bush it away from the bare spot. taped it and re hooked where the clip was to be and good to go.
 

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