Smoke in the Electrical Room: Emergency Service Call

There's smoke in the electrical room.

That's a statement you never want to hear!

It was early (7:15 AM) on a Saturday morning in February when one of our Plymouth Branch Foremen, Chris, received an emergency call from a new customer. The customer said,

"We went to start one of our compressors around 5:30 this morning. This one, in particular, draws over 300 amps. And it just didn't turn on."

They soon after realized there was smoke in the electrical room.

Chris, Foreman, and Kevin, Apprentice, were on site by 7:50 AM, just 45 minutes after receiving the call. As Chris began investigating, he noiced a phase was totally burnt up. The wire that fed from the switch gear to the 400 amp breaker that controlled the compressor was completely compromised.

The two then went through all existing wires to determine which needed to be replaced. In the end, Chris replaced all wires feeding the 400 amp breaker, along with the wires feeding a 200 amp disconnect and another 200 amp breaker. Of course, they also cleaned up all of the smoke damage from the arc flash that occurred.

The customer was back up and running by 1:30 PM that same day. 

Preventing Smoke in the Electrical Room

We hate to see downtime and stress for our customers, especially when it can be prevented. We believe preventative maintenance programs can prevent big mishaps like this.