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Usually that happens when the common wire is loose. That is the white wire. It MUST be tight and remain tight.
In looking at it again, a good practice is to have electrical tape around the screws, I don't see any. Very possible the black wire hit the metal inside the box when it was being plugged in. Laziness and not good practice to wrap the receptacle screws. You can almost see the black inside the box where the fault seems to have happened.
Also it looks like an 1900 extension box. I would have the wires go into a deep 1900 box through a bx connector or romex connector depending on the type of wire. It really looks like he used and existing box. Also the breaker definitely should have tripped. Hope its not a "Federal Pacific Breaker". If so change them all. There is an old joke about FP breakers. "How do you know when a FP breakers trips? ....When the fire department shows up. Not really funny though.
I've not heard this before, but I can see it. I'll have to open up my outlet that I wired and do that. Any other good tips?
Thanks for all the comments. I've reached out to another electrician just to get a second set of eyes on it. As it's all in there I can probably replace it all myself but i'm not means a qualified electrician and dealing with that volume of power and the damage it can do with one simple mistake, i'm uncomfortable touching it. Everything was new when he installed but i'll feel more comfortable with a second opinion to make sure it's fixed and won't occur again.
Rather than pay $360 for the cable I just went ahead and purchased a JuiceBox Pro 40. Compared to the Audi charger and timer settings etc. it seems way more user friendly etc.
I am really happy with my JuiceBox so far. The biggest reason for me was the longer cable and the fact that I could keep the Audi EVSE in the car all the time. Looking at your plug and the melted outlet, all the black stuff on the prongs of your plug probably is mostly plastic that melted from your outlet. The plastic on the plug itself looks fully intact. So I would think there is a good chance that you can scrape off the melted plastic and clean it up again. This should give you a decent EVSE for secondary purposes.
It looks like your electrical panel is right above the outlet. So it would be pretty easy to replace the wires. I would consider replacing it with thicker wires or at least double check to make sure they are 6 gauge. It obviously is hard to see from the pictures. But they still look small to me.
It looks like your electrical panel is right above the outlet. So it would be pretty easy to replace the wires. I would consider replacing it with thicker wires or at least double check to make sure they are 6 gauge. It obviously is hard to see from the pictures. But they still look small to me.
yeah I was debating whether I just do it myself. I don’t know, it’s straight forward but I’m always cautious when it comes to electrics.
The box inside the wall looks small to me. Not sure if it meets a code but i definitely would use one 1900 box. Preferably a deep box . More room for the thick wires, and of coarse replace any wires that were affected. I would bet stuffing the wires inside either nicked a wire or it hit the inner box. It is fairly easy if you know what you are doing. If you are not comfortable get a qualified electrician to do it.
Also I had a Tesla model s and used their proprietary HPWC. Made it so much easier. I got in the habit of plugging in overnight, and had the vehicle set to 80%. Much more convenient than unwrapping and wrapping every time.
Good luck
yeah I was debating whether I just do it myself. I don’t know, it’s straight forward but I’m always cautious when it comes to electrics.
I fully understand. It is not that hard really. But there is a lot of power going through and as this incidence shows things can go wrong. When I did the electrical install for my basement, I read that one of the more common issues were not tightening the connectors enough. This is especially important here as was already pointed out in this thread. When I installed my outlet I took my time and triple-checked everything. Whichever route you decide to go, I hope you get it resolved without any future issues.
Electrician came onsite today. As many stated, cables weren’t correct size. They didnt want to touch it to fix as they said it shouldn’t have been installed on the sub panel to start with.
They’re now installing a dedicated circuit off the main panel.
Well that (sort of) explains how the cable got torched without the breaker popping. Breakers are only effective when paired with properly sized wiring, such that the wire can carry more current than the breaker is rated for. But for a direct short, even an 8-ga wire should have been able to conduct enough current to pop the breaker. I'm glad you have an electrician looking at your setup...I'd still be concerned that there's something wrong. Sounds like the electrician is doing the right thing by ripping all of this out and starting over from scratch.
02-12-2020, 01:21 PM
