LESLIE: Joan in Massachusetts is on the line with a mysterious radio crackling that could be connected to a grounding system problem with electrical panel. What’s going on at your Money Pit?
JOAN: Oh, I’m so happy to talk to both of you. I learn so much from listening to your show every week, so hoping you can answer my question.
TOM: Well, thank you.
JOAN: I’m going to be moving into a house and I had an electrician install Lotus Super Thin LED lights in my ceilings, in four rooms – actually five. And then they’re tied into Ariadni C•L 150-Watt Lutron Dimmer Switches. And when I turn the radios on in any of those rooms with – and into an AM station so I can listen to your show, I get static. And so the electrician had never heard of that before and so I’m kind of looking for some helpful information to correct the situation.
TOM: What kind of radio do you use? Is it a portable radio? Or is it – or your stereo or …?
JOAN: I’ve got one portable one that, you know, I’ve carried around just to see if that’s affected and that is, too. But then I’ve got just kind of AM/FM radios in the different rooms, because I like to listen to AM radio most of the time.
TOM: Usually, if you have a static like that or an interference with any kind of appliance, it’s usually the ground. There’s usually a grounding system problem with electrical panel or the circuits themselves, so that’d be the first thing I would check.
JOAN: OK. So it could affect every room if the ground is off in the panel?
TOM: Yeah, right or if somehow it’s disconnected. And that actually could potentially – be potentially unsafe, as well, so I would start by looking at the possibility of a grounding system problem with electrical panel.
JOAN: And look at the ground wires in each room, too, or …?
TOM: Yeah. And right – and one thing that you could do that’s really easy is you could use an outlet tester to check all the outlets in those rooms. And that’s a really simple way to tell if it’s grounded or not grounded, because there’s a light sequence that comes on. And there’s a grounding system problem with electrical panel, you’ll see it immediately.
JOAN: Yeah. So could it be anything to do with the dimmer switches?
TOM: No, I don’t think it’s the switches themselves, because these are all made consistent and I don’t have anybody else across the country that’s complaining about this kind of odd thing.
JOAN: Hmm. And that …
TOM: But I would suggest that you check for grounding and that almost always will do it. If it’s a metal box, it might be shielded if it’s not grounded. So, it really needs to have that element checked out. Alright?
JOAN: Yeah, because even if I go in the cellar – I had him install a couple of those fluorescent lights and it happens down there, too.
TOM: It’s not just where you have these dimmer products.
JOAN: Right. OK. Alright. Well, great.
TOM: The other thing that you could do is you could get an outside AM antenna and get the radios working from that antenna instead of the one that’s built in, so there another option there.
Alright. Good luck with that project.
Leave a Reply