HOLY CRAP!!!!!!

[alexwolf]

Bit of backgound. There has been mysterious water appearing on the floor in my tank room. Dont know where its coming from. The room only has one plug, and it is not on a dedicated circuit. It was pretty expensive to add more plugs and put in a breaker, so i held off. I woke up this morning to find this:

http://www.deloreanowners.com/images/oops.jpg
http://www.deloreanowners.com/images/oops1.jpg
http://www.deloreanowners.com/images/oops2.jpg

Somehow water made it down some plugs to the wall. The whole house smells bad now. Needless to say, the electrician is coming tomorrow to remove that plug, put in a breaker, and add 3 or 4 more plugs.

[Jenn]

Wow Alex! :shock: You guys sure are lucky! The same thing happened to us. We kept smelling this weird "electricity"smell and after moving some stuff we found our wall in the same condition.

[CD]

YIKES!!!
Do you loop your power cords so errant water doesn't travel right down to the socket? Man, that's a scary sight! I wonder what is leaking...Is the wall wet too?

Wendy

[::pete::]

Wow ... good you were home!!

Not that a GFCI is a cure all, but I would replace that outlet with one.

Keep in mind too that that power strip you are using is exactly that and not a surge protector.

Ooops ... missed this:

Needless to say, the electrician is coming tomorrow to remove that plug, put in a breaker, and add 3 or 4 more plugs.

[SaltyJim]

I can see some condensation on the flex tube in the second pic. It's probably all some creep. You've got a lot of open water sources in that room from the other pics I have seen in the past.

But, just gives you a good reason to get the work done. :)

Jim

[alexwolf]

Yeah, I am removing that plug completely, its just too close to my sump for comfort. I cant figure out where the water is coming from, it might be splash, if not I dont know. The wall around the plug looks wet, and the cords were wet.

[::pete::]

Splash from ... ? the sump?

[theedprado]

remember salt is a metal NaCl it conducts electricity very well as does salt water

[alexwolf]

Splash from ... ? the sump?

Yes, I get surges from my drains at times, which makes it bubble up.

[::pete::]

Can you put a top on it?

[alexwolf]

i dont think so, I would have to do some SERIOUS reengineering of my plumbing....i have 5 things draining to that spot, 2 from my 2 fuges, 2 from the drains of the tank, and my skimmer.

[::pete::]

I take it that it isnt drilled. Add some wall height.

[z28pwr]

Alex, you should not have an electrical outlet so close to a sump or any other water component. I had something similair happen, and after that I removed the outlet and put electrical components designed for outdoor/water environments such as flex pvc, Red Dot Code Keepers and GFCI's which were a bit pricy but much cheaper then having my house burn down. You are more then welcome to stop by and see my electrical setup if you are interested.

[alexwolf]

??? what isnt drilled??

[::pete::]

??? what isnt drilled??

I was referring to the sump.

[thedraven]

Wow.. sorry to hear this happened to you Alex. Thats crazy.. I was admiring your setup last night, and I didnt even notice that outlet there amongst the fuges/sumps. Yikes man, consider yourself lucky. The wall is stained pretty well around the outlet, so thats makes me think you had ALOT of water enter. Hope this doesnt slow things down much in your reef. And thanks again for the macro, youre the man!

[alexwolf]

it might be easier if you came and saw it......the sump is drilled for the outlet, and the side by the plug is the inlet. Those PVC pieces you see are the drains from the tank. Pump is on the other side.

[kaiser]

For insurance reasons I would recommend to put a GFCI in. Anything outlet located within 6' of water is required to be GFCI.

[Richard]

This is a great pic of what not to do. Glad everything is OK Alex.

[z28pwr]

Alex, these are the codekeepers that I run but with double gang.

http://www.techsavvy.com/industry/file/national/03v3v/brc38.gif

You can get them at Home Depot.
If you had one of these on it would have prevented the splash from getting into the wall outlet, but not the power strip.