Spent 6 hours chasing a false alarm because of a bad ground connection

Got a call about a system in an old building downtown that kept tripping the fire zone. I checked every smoke detector and heat sensor first, all fine. Finally found the issue was a ground wire that had come loose inside the main panel, causing random voltage spikes. It took me from 10 AM until 4 PM to trace it because I was looking at the field devices, not the panel wiring. Anyone else run into weird grounding problems in older commercial spaces?

2 comments

2 Comments

elizabeth_martin18d ago

Old building downtown" makes me think of that article about stray voltage in historic wiring.

alicea2618d ago

Wait, are you mixing up stray voltage with knob and tube wiring? That old article was mostly about how old insulation breaks down. Stray voltage is more of a grounding issue, like from bad pipes or something. It can happen in any building, not just the super old ones. The wiring in those downtown places is a whole other can of worms.