Do you know how difficult it is to trace electrical problems, especially when the area of interest is large, such as a homestead with multiple sections?
That was the case when the light in the homestead completely tripped the moment I tried to plug in a stabilizer. This process is not supposed to be harmful at all, but in this case, it seemed it was.
How I Traced the Real Cause of My Homestead Power Failure?👩🔧
The scariest part of being an electrician is tracing some of these issues, you can barely know where the issue is coming from, and the only tool I had to check around was the tester, and that was more than enough for the job.
I started by turning off all the lights, removing every load from the changeover, since the supply to the house was split into sections, section by section. That way, I can narrow things down to a single section.
Each section has its own control box, which is connected to the main control box. Now, the main control box wasn't the issue, so one of the smaller control boxes is the issue.
Connecting the load one at a time, I found out that there was a particular section of the homestead where the entire light in the homestead trips off the moment it is connected, so that means I am one step ahead since I now know the section at fault.
The next part was to turn on every switch on the control box one at a time to discover the one that trips off the light. From there, I was easily able to trace where the wires were faulty.
Turns out the wires within the box had melted to the level where contacts were made between the positive and negative, as well as the wall of the box, which was metal.
Fixing wasn't a problem from there, all I needed was 2mm copper cable and 4mm copper cable to replace those parts that had melted, and the problems were solved.
You're gonna need a lot of patience to trace something like this. Sometimes, it might take a whole day. I never thought I could be this patient at first, but thankfully, I was.