This is Joshua Peterson with Peterson Electric. We want to show you a service call we got in the middle of the night. Had a really bad smell that came out and it was distinct plastic smell, carbon burn smell. Kind of like a vacuum belt cleaner. What we found right here in this troffer is fluorescent lighting, just some old T-12 bulbs. The other side had a 8 foot one. It was right up here and it came from there. She said that there was this sound of something bubbling above her and she said there was also a smell and like it was dripping like rain. I quite have not heard of anything like that over the phone. Maybe the person was making something up or maybe it was raining, but I knew it was not raining the night before because I live pretty close to here. What we ended up finding was a ballast up there that was smoldering. A little magnetic ballast, they weigh about 5 pounds. They will not trip the breaker like they should and they don’t have thermo overload cup, so what ended up happening is until it completely melts and this dipping compound starts pouring out the metal sides of the container, finally the breaker decided to trip. This panel was about 60 to 65 years old, they are more tolerant than they should be, so they didn’t trip right away. She said there was smoke in here and the fire department came. Keep in mind that if you have fluorescent lights to keep an eye on it. If you smell anything like that definitely hit the breakers, call your management or the fire department because those things can smolder and start a fire, even though they are contained. Thanks for joining us. We will see you next week.
