House Under Attack By Static
I'm hoping someone with some electrical experience out there can help with our problem: We've lived in a 25-year-old condo for about 5 years, and we've had a static problem that has been getting progressively worse the entire time. The static effects everything in the house--TV, phones, AM radio, and now our Internet connection. The static comes on at odd times--more in the evening than during the day. When it is on, the static has a definite pattern to it--a certain number of seconds on, then a certain number of seconds off.
Answer:
If the problem still exist any at all when you kill the breaker then the problem IS NOT on that circuit. It does sound like the interference is coming in on the power lines. The source may be in the house or something outside. A portable AM radio is good for tracing the source of this kind of interference. Common sources are bug zappers, bad electrical connections, arcing at the utility service, electric fences. Arcing sometimes makes a sound like dropping a cucumber into hot olive oil (with or without the oregano). Sort of a quick chattering and hissing versus a 60 cycle hum. The rate of chatter can of course vary. Arcing can thus generate an electromagnetic field (like a spark gap transmitter) as well as an audible noise (sometimes though very low amplitude). Also it generates heat... and hence a possible danger exists if it is arcing. Professional trouble shooters have IR cameras or temperature sensors that can spot hot spots (bad connections), over heating ballasts, transformers, motor parts, circuit breakers, etc., but these devices are fairly expensive (especially in your case where we do not know if this is arcing or not). Yes the utility company will come out to the area, but many want specific information as to the specific pole. Try taking a portable radio outside and walk around during this phenomena. In my youth (: -) we used to locate the "right" utility pole by banging it with a sledge hammer to see if it affected the noise (don't tell the utility company or get caught damaging property). If it was the right post the frying noise would temporary change or in one case even go away. There are also effective high gain direction finding antennas (DF) that can be used in conjunction, but that goes into another level of depth regarding building specifications, shielding techniques, and frequency, but they can be put together fairly cheaply should the utility and electrician fail. Also if the test in the last paragraph shows that the path of the static is indeed the air, then perhaps your local ham radio club has a DF and/or Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) team that would be willing to come out free. Frankly most electricians are not trained in DFing, but they may be able to spot a source due to arcing, motor, starter, switch, and similar. Lastly, I would ask if there are any other machines in the building besides the refrigerator. Could it be a heat pump, AC, or other such large piece of equipment in the building -- Of course the fact that the entire problem goes away when you kill that one circuit breaker points strongly to the devices connected to that circuit. So the next question is; is the noise prevalent on both a portable radio and a plugged in radio at the same time. This way we can maybe determine if the static is traveling via the house wiring or through the air.