I’m having a ground fault trouble notification on my MS-4. We hit the ack but it will start beeping again after 5 minutes or so. I’ve been doing some research. I looked at the dip switches but number five on sw1 was already off. It doesn’t work as expected. The noise is really annoying to the tenants.
Some more content - of course we want to find the actual ground fault, not just disable the alarm. I guess the previous owner made a good effort and didn’t get it solved. He’s a bigger owner, owns hundreds of doors although I think this little 4plex of his was one he kind of neglected… but my tenants said they had a guy look at it a while ago.
I didn’t know about it until fairly recently. I love solving problems so I hired a guy to come look, a licensed pro. He narrowed it down a bit but didn’t find or fix it but they charged me $500.
At this point, silencing the alarm would be a nice and deserved stopgap. I don’t plan to cut Jp3 anytime soon for obvious reasons. I just want solutions.
Oh there’s no fire equipment to our knowledge in the boiler room yet when the steam boiler is not running it doesn’t seem to have a fault. Ask me how we found that out.
Any way to program it to shut up, at least for 24 hrs / time. And the ground fault is usually on these days as far as I know but technically it is intermittent. Even just in the 10 minutes I was there tonight studying it, it did turn itself off a few times but kicked back on in a minute. There are periods it just goes off.
Any solutions of any type would be good. The pro guy maybe could find it next time. It’s in the tenants basement unit where he suspects in one section but I’m not sure because what does that have to do with the steam heat system? It would be in this one small section or nothing. I was thinking also, it’s probably just one location since it does go on and off but if there were two places, it would make it 20x harder to debug, if there are two faults in series or parallel. How do you test things in those cases?
Has anything changed recently in the building? Any water leaks or remodeling? Those would be the first things to consider. Next, while the panel is in ground fault, remove both cables one at a time from each circuit including the horns and strobes. You are trying to determine which circuit the fault is on. With the wires off the circuits will be in trouble. If you find a circuit that activates the fault, put a VOM meter using ohms with one lead on the circuit wire and the other on earth ground. You should have no connection. If you do, thats the cable you will need to concentrate on.
Thank you for this. it will take me a while to study and get confident with what you suggest, but i have a lot of time now, and I am doing to dive autistically into all of this. in fact I already started to.
I have owned the place since May (it’s feb now so under one year) and I guess the previous owner sent people out to look at it (so it’s been hoping on a while. I’m not sure how long but i emailed them to get their records).
I sent out a guy, a licensed guy and i think he did a lot of what you suggested- but still i’m going to learn to do the same, and he narrowed it down to zone two and he also ruled out a lot of the sections of this circuits. He thinks its in one part, the basement units part ina certain run between his kitchen and the panel, since we already inspected all the other visible accessible parts. this part of the run is not as accessible for two reasons- my tenant’s junk and also it’s above the ceiling drywall or whatever.
But he already charged me 500 and didn’t fix it. I’m not completely confident that’s it, and he suggests he can do a new run of wire along this and it will go away. i’m not as confident as he is. He’s a pro so i trust him to a high degree but i have a doubt.
I am an amateur but i have the power of autism lol. I’ve been studying it these last few days and i have a lot more learning to do. I am 99% sure it has something to do with the steam boiler in the room over. I’m not sure what as it doesn’t seem those systems are connected, but it just seems to be on when that’s on, and my tenant is confident it does not beep in the summer too.
Since both our crews didn’t find a ground yet… chat gpt suggests it could be electrical noise. if that’s at all possible— then i have a strong hunch this might be what it is. The questions are what is this, why is this the case, then how do we diagnose this, how do we isolate or remediate this etc. that’s my hunch though. maybe there is no ground fault proper, the insulation is still intact but there is a field effect or something. ChatGPT says that the FACP is extremely sensitive to voltage fluctuations and may misinterpret this as a ground fault. I have a strong hunch it’s this and will be looking more into this theory, and at least come away with a lot more knowledge? what be your thoughts?
ps I know i write long posts. it’s a common pattern in me when i write. i don’t do posting much until i need to, and they come out long. short posts are the luxury of those with understanding.
In my experience ground faults are normally caused by water. An alarm device or connection got wet. That would be the first thing I would check . Since you know which circuit it’s on, take every device down an inspect it for water damage or nicked wires. The next common cause is a squished wire or device in an electrical box. All of the fire alarm circuit wiring should be totally isolated from earth and electrical ground. You may even fix the issue unknowingly during troubleshooting. If you suspect a bad section of wire disconnect it on both ends a run a temporary wire to replace the bad length. Replaced the wire if it resolves the issue. A good VOM is necessary to properly troubleshoot this.
Thank you! I’m still pretty new at this. it would be nice to shadow someone, not necessary a professional but someone good. I’m happy to pay a pro, i just want guaranteed results lol… but i like the learning aspect of DIY.
I think zone two was the detectors, not the alarms, I think he said.
He inspected a lot of these individual devices I think. I think that might have been the main work he did, and he didn’t find anything as yet.
If The issue is related to the steam boiler, it would probably not be in the upstairs section, which he checked first. It is weird because where would there be overlap between the steam system and the fire system wiring? In a very small area at most in the basement I think. I don’t know. I don’t know if my assumptions are correct or not.
But bottom line I think he did a lot of what you were suggesting I do, but I could try figure out how to do it myself.
