So I came home to cook some rice and chicken for me pre-workout meal today, and I filled a pot up 1/4 way up to boil to cook my rice. Turned my stove-top up to medium high, and set my pot on top of the stove and turned back to grap my chicken. Not 5 seconds after I placed the pot on my stove I heard a huge "POP" from my stove, I turned around and the coil where I placed my pot down on started "POPPING" over and over, really fast, and really loud, and then I started to get an electrical arc happening. You could hear the "ZZZZZZZ" of the electricity as it started to create an arc on top of my stove. It started to smoke really bad, and the electrical arc started to flame out and get bigger. I RAN down into my basement and immediately flipped my 50amp breaker for the range, and it stopped.
I came back upstairs to investigate the damage and this is what I found on my stove:
http://i28.tinypic.com/wk5sb5.jpg
The stove top coil and the copper wire conductor inside of it that heats the coil were completely destroyed. A hole burnt right through the coil and completely disinegrated the heating wire inside. Remember how I was saying there was an electrical arc? The wire must of corroded or something because when it broke, and there was a gap, the electricity was trying to complete the circuit, and it created an exposed and visible electrical arc. I'm talking about a 6"-8" arc straight up and down. Ever seen a welder weld? How bright it is? Thats what it was like.
Think about this, I was 5 seconds away from probably dieing. That coil/wire breaks 5 seconds earlier, when I set that pot down filled with water, I would have been electricuted, and electricuted bad. The range (oven) appliance is run off of a 208V 3-wire, 50AMP breaker. This isn't your normal 120v wall plug, where you get zapped at 120v 20 AMPS and it kicks your ass for a second or two, but your ok. No, the range at 208V 50 AMPS, can electricute someone with enough power to stop there heart and put them into cardiac arrest. That thing goes when I place the pot down, my hand is one a metal handle, holding a metal pot, touching an exposed electrical 208V 50 AMP electrical current = good old Jim becomes the object needed to complete the circuit, and I get the electricity jolted through my body. My body completes the circuit, I become the ground, and stops my heart in the process.
Needless to say I'm a bit shaken right now. I work for an Electrical Contractor in Engineering, so I'm familiar with electricty, I understand the difference between 120V vs 208V and the difference between 20AMP and 50 AMP, and seeing an electrical arc flash rising from my stove was not something I enjoyed encountering when we go over cases and cases of people becoming the circuit, and becoming the ground, and dieing from such events.
Now theres one I have never seen.... lucky you were there....nice save