Okay, right… so this has been bugging me for quite a few months now. I notice that every time I flush the toilet, the lights dim. Well that’s downright crazy! I think I already know what the problem is. I’m thinking that the toilet is plumbed into the hot water line and when hot water is pulled from the hot water tank the heaters turn on, and thus the lights dimming a bit. This stinks of terrible wiring, and plumbing, because the whole electrical supply line in the house shouldn’t sag like that when you flush a toilet or a hot water heater kicks on. It sounds like some heavier gauge wiring is in order. There’s always the possibility that the pole transformer is overloaded with homes in the neighborhood as well.

I may need to do some long term data graphing of the line feed from the pole and see if we experience a lot of power sags around here.

I will probably spend some time on it this weekend as I can imagine it adds quite a bit to the power bill.  Some things I’ve already checked are for a water pump from the old well being turned on due to a pressure switch, but a brief look around notes that the old well lines have been cut, and no water comes spewing out of the pump lines when water is turned on.  Now I know you should decommission a well when it’s not in use, but that will come in due time.  The previous owners quit using the well years ago before I bought the place and never decommissioned it (lucky me). I want to wrap the deck around where the old well cap is but the cap needs to be removed first.  Another thing on the large list of ‘to do’s’ in an old home. EPA, if I was wealthy it’d be fixed already, I’m more than willing to accept a grant to decommission my well though! :P

I’ll let you folks know what I find out by the end of the weekend, if anything.  I’ll just update this post, instead of posting another.

My first test is going to be flushing the toilet about 10-20 times (takes forever for hot water to make it to the second floor) and see if the tank on the back starts filling with warm water. Problem solved, if that’s the case. Well.. problem found, still needs to be solved!

I read there is also something called a mixing / anti-condensation valve which is sometimes used for toilets, it’s possible one of these is installed somewhere and has gone bad and is flowing all hot water instead of mixing. The basic premise is that some hot water is mixed into your cold water line to keep your toilet’s tank water from getting too cold and causing moisture to condense on the outside of the commode.  Considering how long it takes hot water to reach the second floor, actually having a valve like this installed in the system would be a joke and a waste.

The advantage of fixing this is it will save on the power bills, if it truly is the hot water heater kicking on. My current electric bill is around 130 a month for a 1700 Sq Ft home with no central A/C, that seems a bit on the high side to me. I pretty much had the same equipment running in my apt and I was averaging 60-80 a month in the summer.

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