anyone know about home power?

[juggernaut]

OK heres the deal, I have a loft in the condo and the AC that I have fills the house just fine but not the loft. 90% of the house can be a nice 70 degrees but the loft is like 100. SO I go an buy a internal AC unit today for the loft. It works great but now its sucking all the power out of the house and shit is fluxing (lights and tv dimming) like every 10 minutes and then shutting off like ever 20 mins. But only in the loft. I need to stay in the loft as this is where all the computer Equipment is. How can I get more power in the place?

[MadMax]

You've probably only got one circuit in the loft, and the window air conditioner is sucking too much power so the circuit is starting to overload. First, plug in a light to every socked you've got, and have someone else up there while you start flipping circuit breakers on and off. If they see some but not all of the lights go out, you know you've got two circuits and you just need the AC on one and everything else on another.

If you only have one circuit, if you want to fix it the right way call an electrician and have another circuit run up there just for the AC unit. With a heavy enough extension cord you could do a temporary fix by plugging into another circuit downstairs, but since an AC unit generally has high amp draw you'd need something heavy like a 0 gage or 0/0, and that's a lot of extension cord. The only other thing you could do is change out the circuit breaker from the 20 amp (which it probably is now) for a 30 amp, but then you risk overloading the wiring and causing a fire, so while this would proabably work it's not an option I recommend.

[spookyx]

you are prolly overloading the breaker that is serving the entire loft area. Short term you might try running a heavy duty extension cord to power the AC unit. Make sure its a good heavy duty cord. not the cheap $5 one's you can buy.
Plug it into an outlet from the other part of the condo on a different breaker.

or spend lots of money to have the loft rewired. (the best and safest thing to do)

Just be sure to watch the extension cord. make sure it's not getting to hot. Don't leave the unit on if your not there.

If your condo burns down blame it on Gabbo, not me.

|gabbo|

[Cleo]

Run an extension cord to your neighbors house

[dareutwo]

Shouldn't take more than 2 hours to snake an outlet to the loft.
Yes, it's full pay, but they'll get it done 5 days faster than you can.
Hopefully you have room in your breaker box for 2 new 20 amp breakers.
(I doubt you're wired for 30amps except for maybe the dryer)
Whack all the computer stuff to 1 of those lines (ie Right side of the room)
And run the rest AC etc... on the other.
To save money, you can run the lines on the INSIDE of the room, they just need to be covered.
Any competent electrician can do this fairly quickly.
Yeah, it may cost a day, but it'll be done a hell of a lot faster than you frying yourself.

[spookyx]

Originally Posted by Cleo

Run an extension cord to your neighbors house

When I was in college we lived in an old victorian era house that had been converted into 3 apts.. The upstairs neighbors moved out and when they cut the power, The 2 main big window units we had died. Took me about 10 seconds to figure out that we were getting power from the upstairs apt for them. I loved it when more people moved in. Free AC all summer.

[juggernaut]

Originally Posted by Cleo

Run an extension cord to your neighbors house

thank you all. Cleo believe me I would love to, in fact the neighbors bedrooms are right next to my loft wall and im sure would not be an issue for me to find one of their outlets and splice off it. lol but cant do that.
Anyway do you guys have any idea what type of price we are talking? I mean i have no idea about wiring house stuff, i got shocked real bad a ways back and never ever play with the stuff. But I also dont know what to expect to pay. I dont want to be rapped but i dont want a shitty job either. getting to and from the inside of the walls is easy. most of the stuff is like 20 feet down one wall and that can all be gotten to from the attic which is right next to the loft. thanks guys maybe we should open a section here for home repairs lol im sitting in the dark cause im scared to turn anything on with my computer on lol. but the AC is working great. I have sweats on now lol.

[plateman]

well from what I know if all the lights or other things in the house dimmed when the compressor kicked on(thats the part inside the the ac unit) and if the line that the ac was on overloaded it would kickout the breaker and then no ac..

also you cant run a high current appilance on a long extension cord as the current drop would make the unit barely run.. Thats why the frige and window ac units have a short cord.. and your problem is probably to light of wiring in your condo... and all condos IHO are made from the cheapest supplies they can get... I would call someone to inspect your wiring... as you have a problem.. And I would guess that he would say that - the loft is probably the longest distance from your breaker box and they used the wrong gauge wiring as hardly anyone puts a ac unit in a loft...

[Cleo]

Originally Posted by juggernaut

OK heres the deal, I have a loft in the condo and the AC that I have fills the house just fine but not the loft. 90% of the house can be a nice 70 degrees but the loft is like 100.

Sounds to me like you need more insulation, a couple of ceiling fans, and to adjust the ducts downstairs so that it doesn't get as much air forcing more air into the upstairs ducts.

[plateman]

well if all else fails, you can make a quick west virginia ac unit, take two bags of ice and hang infront of a fan - you would save on your energy bill, only bad thing as it would eat through ice pretty quick put a ice machine up there but it would dimm your stuff down again.. LOL

[MadMax]

A decent electrician will probably charge around $75/hour plus materials, and depending on how fancy you want to get you're probably looking at 2-4 hours of work. Just a rough guess, so with materials probably somewhere around $200-$350.

[SirMoby]

Originally Posted by MadMax

A decent electrician will probably charge around $75/hour plus materials, and depending on how fancy you want to get you're probably looking at 2-4 hours of work. Just a rough guess, so with materials probably somewhere around $200-$350.

That's probably cheaper then moving

[Useless]

If you want to cool off the loft, just keep your wife out of it.

Haha, I'm so damned juvenile. Hot wife jokes just never get old to me.

I was going to suggest keeping her downstairs, but heat rises, so you're screwed either way.

[Erick G]

UW your too much
I love reading your posts
ALWAYS put a smile on my face
and your avatar to boot aint bad either
I got a collection of old coke bottles
so when lenscrafters goes outta business im your man!
we can make you some hip new glasses!

[Linkster]

Another option is if you dont have any ducts up in the loft, you could always run a duct up there - although a little more than runnning the electric changes to run another air conditioner, in the long run it works out cheaper as youre not paying for the electric of the extra air conditioner. Its easy to "hide" an extesion duct from the existing air conditioner and if youre handy with a few tools you could do it yourself
Keep in mind that heat rises so the more you can force from the air conditioner up there the more efficient the unit will run

If you are on a top floor also make sure there is some sort of ventilation in the roof/ceiling space to remove heat

[Cleo]

They also sell fans that go inside of a duct to help move more air though drops downwind of the air handler.

http://www.iaqsource.com/index.php?m...ts&prod_cat=12

[Jim]

Originally Posted by spookyx

you are prolly overloading the breaker that is serving the entire loft area. Short term you might try running a heavy duty extension cord to power the AC unit. Make sure its a good heavy duty cord. not the cheap $5 one's you can buy.
Plug it into an outlet from the other part of the condo on a different breaker.

or spend lots of money to have the loft rewired. (the best and safest thing to do)

Just be sure to watch the extension cord. make sure it's not getting to hot. Don't leave the unit on if your not there.

If your condo burns down blame it on Gabbo, not me.

|gabbo|

That's what I would do and then I would run a new line just for the ac to the breaker box. Or, you could have an electrician do it for you.

[juggernaut]

OK spoke with the Bro, he's one of those guys who knows everyone and well he will be having an tech come to the house this week. You guys are all correct. This place is a shit hole. Thats one of the reasons I always say I hate living here. I have a 3 level condo and the section you come in the house is always frozen in the winter and hot as hell in the summer, no matter what I try and do. The walls are thin, not to thin but I know the neighbors hate me and my wife late nights.
On to the wife, yes UW she is downstairs most of the day so I guess her heat is causing the issues upstairs.
We shall see who my bro sends to the house, sometimes it's hit or miss. One day he can send a fully qualified person to the house the next day he is sending one of his old rehab buddies who got a D+ in shop class. Should be an interesting week. Thank you all for the replies, ok so between Jims posts on his shed and my posts on my house and lord knows who's elses posts on their house are we going to make a home repair section on the boards. lol.

[Cleo]

Not that this will help with your heat problem but it should drive away those pesky neighbors who sit up at night listening to your loud sexual marathons.

Death Star Sub Woofer for sale,
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1
"a subwoofer so powerful it could loosen fillings, shake out the colesteral from my arteries and generally make a lot of noise. "

[juggernaut]

OH MAN I NEED THAT. IM Serious it would add to the SW collection and be the coolest thing in the house. Ok now to start bidding Thank yuo Cleo I have a huge smile.