The power strip under the house connection is not only a suboptimal but also a pretty stupid idea
A while ago, when I pushed the battery-backed power strip for the network equipment and the network storage into the corner of our house connection room exactly under the house connection for electricity, water, coaxial cable and fiber optics (wastewater leaves a little away from the house), I thought it was a rather suboptimal solution Positioning. But, I thought, if the main water connection leaks, I’ll have completely different problems than a fault current switch popping out and then I’ll also get a notification email as a side effect.
Today I’m getting a few of these emails because my attempts to find the cause of the FI switch for the heating, basement, garage and parts of the kitchen that keeps popping out are unfortunately increasing. By the way, I found out on this occasion that, surprisingly, after a power failure, the washing machine simply continues its electronically controlled and abruptly interrupted program without comment. So I happily switch around on the twelve downstream circuit breakers after walking through the affected rooms to rule out obvious causes. Ultimately, it is the electrical circuit in the house connection room that is causing the problem and upon closer inspection I quickly find the source of the problem: the main water connection is completely wet.
I had expected that such a connection could sometimes leak, but it was classified as extremely rare. And in fact, firstly, I don’t see any water splashes and secondly, all uninsulated areas of the pipe are evenly wet. Condensation! Clear. For health reasons, I had to wash several machines of bed linen and blankets and send them through the dryer or hang them in the next room and because it is cold outside, I didn’t air the room all the time. When someone showers or flushes the toilet, plenty of cold water flows through the main pipe and the air moisture condenses there and then a few collected drops drip down the approx. 50cm long vertical piece and directly onto or into the UPS power strip underneath.
The suboptimal positioning turned out to be a pretty stupid positioning, which is actually not all that surprising upon closer inspection. Not only could I have expected condensation, I had also noticed it at some point, found it interesting and then forgotten it again. Be that as it may, the devices now have to survive for a few days without battery backup and I could use the waiting time to better position the NAS and UPS.
Speaking of finding the cause of the FI switch: I remember the story of how another FI switch kept tripping during a particularly heavy rain and after some troubleshooting I was able to narrow down the problem to the outside socket and thought that water had just gotten in there becomes. It was only several years later, after a long search for its connection point, that it emerged that the electricians had not only connected the underground cable, which had been waiting for its final destination on the terrace for years, behind the switch for the outdoor socket, but had also simply stripped the insulation from its end left lying around unprotected. It’s a good thing that the open wires were now so corroded that nothing more happened.
(Gregor Meyer)