Why yes, that is a natural gas line running to the furnace and water heater: https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/comments/1fpo26t/not_something_you_see_everyday_evidently_this/
Not something you see everyday. Evidently this image has gone a bit viral, but this is a friend of mines house. She hit me up wondering if I knew what might cause it. The flex was pulling about 175 amps and was at 1200 degrees. There’s to be a whole news story on it and everything.
Mother of god, dare I say this post… blew up. There are a lot of questions and there is no way I can get to everyone. Basically, during a storm a tree fell on the incoming lines and it caused some fucked up high voltage things and created a new ground.
See, if it was all good, it should be glowing green
It is not supposed to look like that.
It may not be power efficient, but that water is definitely heated.
step 1. turn off the main breaker to the house
according to that reddit post, during a storm power line fell on gas meter, energizing gas line. now, that means that current flows bypassing meter and breakers entirely, going to ground via gas line, glowing flex, then water pipes and/or neutral. normal breakers won’t trip, because neutral does not have breakers. GFCI should trip, but it does nothing to stop gas pipe from glowing because current that heats it doesn’t flow through there. to unfuck this particular situation you’d need to trip breaker at substation, or disconnect power line going to that area
gas line could be shut off in principle, but it’ll be energized, so it’s not an option
yikes. worse than I thought
yeah that’s on the more catastrophic end of scale, nothing can be done at that residential address
If I didn’t want the house to burn down for the insurance, I’d probably go shoot the power line down. Finally a use for BMG.
Wrong, step 1 is take a photo obviously!
sweet mother of jesus that’s insane lol how does that cable not just melt instantly?
I’m surprised the paper in a plastic bag, plywood floor, and cable casing aren’t melting. It’s starting to combust the warning labels but the floor should be on several kinds of fire.
Heat transfer is kind of like electricity transfer. It’ll always travel the path of least resistance. It’s the principle of the trick where you hold a lighter up to a super thin plastic water bottle or a balloon with water, the plastic won’t melt until the water gets hot.
what the fuck
Yeah well, if it stays that hot then sooner or later it’ll sort itself out.
A Reddit link was detected in your post. Here are links to the same location on alternative frontends that protect your privacy.