twoshovels t1_j11s3n6 wrote
Reply to comment by Quinnlos in Shitty landlord, what do we do? by Quinnlos
Ok as someone who does a ton of maintenance for property management company’s in Fla . Every single tenant complains to me how the owner doesn’t do nothing. One thing the owners are on top of for the most part is the plumbing because that is a real health issue. These homes are no where’s near as old as a Victorian you are in. The electric is no game. The fact your tripping breakers with only3-4 things running? Is a huge no-no. Old house, dryer than dry in the walls. Please, please if you don’t have get smoke detectors please!! Get some,& have plan. Then have a back up plan. Think ahead!! Call everyone including code enforcement this isn’t safe. I have done a ton of work in some of those older homes in new haven and around. A lot of them are like tinder. With hold your rent then he will have to fix these things. It costs a shit ton of money & leg work to evict.
Quinnlos OP t1_j11s9ej wrote
Thank you for the advice here! I knew at this point that the circuit had to be fucked if it was getting tripped up by so little, but I hadn’t considered the possible fire element.
ProgMM t1_j12nhnw wrote
What do you mean “so little?” It’s an air fryer. It puts out a bunch of heat to cook your food. That’s energy, and quite a bit of it. Desktop computers ain’t exactly light users, either. Gaming PCs can have PSUs as high as 1200W, that’s as much as a space heater that’ll max out a standard 15A circuit. This is expected behavior.
Furthermore, if we say for the sake of argument that there was some hypothetical wiring deficiency that would mean it can’t actually carry the current it’s rated for... your breaker wouldn’t somehow detect that and trip at some lower level of current. It only trips to prevent overcurrent protection. (I’m going to leave out the advanced tripping for ground faults and arc faults, which your old breakers probably don’t have, and which do not sound applicable to this situation.) What I’m trying to say is, it sounds like everything is working as intended.
Just out of curiosity, is your landlord one of Daniel Greer’s property management companies? (Edgewood Corners Inc, Edgewood Elm Housing Inc, Edgewood Village Inc, F.O.H. Inc, Yedidei Hagan Inc.) I only ask because those bastards own a lot of old homes, and take a very... “hands-off” approach.
snorkelbagel t1_j13jetg wrote
…. You understand that just because a pc has a 1200W psu, it doesn’t mean it pulls anywhere near that right?
PSUs are spec’s out ideally for around 70% total capacity power draw on the reg since thats where your typical power efficiency curve peaks.
And you haven’t needed to pull that kind of power on a system unless you are 1) cryptomining or 2) running multiple flagship gpus which runs in the order of several thousand dollars in the past few years, which if OP had the liquid capital for, probably wouldn’t be renting from a slumlord with roommates.
ProgMM t1_j1jtbm3 wrote
Sure, but it still doesn’t mean that OP should be going around acting like he’s tripping breakers with two lightbulbs, and then acting like that they tripped because they somehow knew that the wiring was substandard
Quinnlos OP t1_j12pzkd wrote
That would be the company unfortunately. I also totally understand that the air fryer is a large draw on the circuit, my concern is that for the whole of our two floors there seem to be about two individually operating circuits, which are also connected to the basement seemingly. Of course, I’m no electrician by any means, but I feel that for two floors to share so much of the grid of a house, and for a separate grid to be cordoned off to about one room in what’s considered an “apartment” is almost malicious oversight on behalf of whoever updated the wiring (if it’s ever been). But please correct me if I’m wrong or just making incorrect assumptions here.
ProgMM t1_j12rbd8 wrote
Ah well okay, in all fairness that’s a bit worse than I assumed. But it still sounds like old wiring imo, from the days of far fewer appliances. Ideally, they would’ve replaced that by now, but as you can probably tell, those guys buy fixer-uppers and then never fix jack shit.
My good friend lives in one of their houses. Their furnace was locked out. The oil company wouldn’t send a contractor without authorization from the landlord, and they couldn’t get the landlord to authorize it. For fucking heat. My buddy would’ve even paid for it. Still got ghosted. Thankfully, between me and his dad, we ultimately got it working, but that just goes to show what you’ve already figured out— they’re negligent slumlords. And that’s hardly the headline when it comes to the scumbag who leads them.
Best of luck with all this. Hopefully withholding rent helps out. I doubt you’ll get anywhere when it comes to getting a basic standard of wiring, but the rest of this stuff sounds plausible.
Old_Size9060 t1_j141jl1 wrote
If you’re connected to the basement electric - does that include a shared dryer? That could be a lot of additional electric that you are paying for and even if it isn’t, technically (as I understand it) in CT, if you are paying for any electrical in a common area, your landlord owes 100% of your bill.
ProgMM t1_j12mcgu wrote
I don’t know how you think a breaker works, but a cooking appliance plus multiple desktop computers drawing over 15 amps is hardly out of the ordinary. And the breaker has no damn clue how good or bad the wiring is when it trips.
twoshovels t1_j12nqxr wrote
Your right but did he not mention air fryer? The fact that it’s tripping when it should not means the owner needs a electrician in there.
ProgMM t1_j12ogp9 wrote
Two comments up:
> I wouldn’t doubt it, we live on the top two floors of a three floor Victorian and regularly trip the power with an air fryer and two desktops, so it’s been a fun year for us overall power-wise.
Sounds about consistent with my experience in a 1930s house wherein the circuits extend the full longitude of the floor. Not optimal wiring by modern standards, but I think that’s something one just has to realistically work around
twoshovels t1_j14jcvx wrote
So actually after I jus read this. Other tenants could very possibly drawing off the same breaker. I believe a air fryer use 12-15 at the most? An one laptop is .08? Now I could be wrong here. If I’m correct that’s not a lot. Probably is a shared breaker. This sounds like a disaster waiting. I hope not. I’m not big on electricity. In fact I hate having to do anything other than plug something in.
ProgMM t1_j14n7r2 wrote
Gaming desktops can use as much as 12-15 themselves. They don’t often, but they can add up easily. I’m willing to bet those are 15A circuits.
Elsewhere in the thread, OP remarked that much of the apartment is on two circuits. It’s probably ancient BX wiring. Unfortunately, OP is renting from one of Dan Greer’s cheapskate shell companies, who will never ever be convinced to rewire an apartment. The other issues seem more plausible, but they drag their feet hard on anything.
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