Humming House? Bizarre Electrical Phenomenon...

[A-Barr]

Good evening all,

Had a weird thing happen a couple times.

I just came home and put on an LP I picked up after dinner. A couple minutes into it, I thought "Wow, that's some avant garde pedal point on the organ!" Soon I realized that the sustained low note I was hearing was drowning out the music. I turned the record player and stereo off, but a powerful, house-shaking 60 hertz persisted. It did not seem to have anything to do with my speakers, I made sure all my guitar amps were off; thought maybe the fridge was freaking out but it seemed fine, I opened the basement door and it sounded like it was possibly coming from the furnace or fuse box, which are next to each other, more or less, but the instant I flicked the light switch on, the hum stopped.

20 minutes later, listening to a different record, it happened again. I shut off the stereo, opened the basement door, flicked the switch and it stopped immediately.

This has happened once before a week or two ago, but it stopped quickly and I thought the fridge was overworking or something. Record player was on then too, I think.

I mean, it was really loud. I could walk around the room and hear all the nodes where it went from quiet to really, really, really loud. House shakingly loud. My wife heard it too, so I wasn't imagining it.

Any clues?

Does my furnace have a 60 hertz resonant frequency at which point it becomes microphonic, amplifying the 60 hertz feeding back to it through the record player?

Some weird static buildup that discharges when I turn on the light?

....the ghost of AC past?

[???????]

only thing I can think of is that something has a transformer in it that's inducing hum into some other coil in your stereo system.

[LeedyGuy]

When I used to have my crappy old record player too close to my subwoofer it used to createa feedback loop because the sub would shake the record player which would output that to the sub which would then shake the record player, but this cycle happened at the speed of sound. I knew what it was before long, but i did it a couple times before I got myself a Technics 1200 with the springy leg type things.

i turned on my whole house fan the other night by mistake when i flipped the breakers trying to install a light kit in my ceiling fan. Holy 60hz hum throughout the whole house! Took me a while to figure out what the hell I did. I thought it was my electrical somehow like my basement ceiling flourescent lights!

Your problem could be record player to speaker feedback though, but the light switch thing is weird!

-Ken

[A-Barr]

Your problem could be record player to speaker feedback though, but the light switch thing is weird!

Weirder still is switching my input to Aux, turning the volume down and turning off the amp had no effect! Like it was some other feedback loop that it just set in motion.

[A-Barr]

Happened again!!



Unrelated to the stereo, light switch fixed it.

[LeedyGuy]

Happened again!!



Unrelated to the stereo, light switch fixed it.

You are kidding!! Is your electrical box humming or just your light fixtures or what?!

[Smitty]

[A-Barr]

Ha ha. Gee thanks. That's reassuring...

[A-Barr]

Happened again!!



Unrelated to the stereo, light switch fixed it.

You are kidding!! Is your electrical box humming or just your light fixtures or what?!

Doesn't seem like either, must be the furnace, that's the only thing big enough to shake the house, I think. I hope there isn't a short somewhere and I'm hearing the sound of 100 amps pummeling through an on-the-edge transformer.

[A-Barr]

OK!

Woke up to this weirdness at 4 AM. Tried the lightswitch flicking, wasn't doing it, I followed the sound as best I could and ended up in the attic. This is my "B room" where I have some gear set up, including a big honkin' pair of JBL 4311 monitors plugged into a pretty cranked power amp. The line in connection on the power amp is intermittent and will go "BBBZZZZMMMMM" if it isn't hooked in just so.

So that's what was happening, apparently that connection is as tenuous as a ... well, something really tenuous, and it would just occasionally fall off the wagon and all hell would break loose. So I guess flicking the lightswitch introduced just enough of a "pop" in the line noise to push it back into silence.

Phew!

[???????]

well there you go. I wish I had a "b" room. I wish I had an "a" room. I wish I had a room other than my living room.

[Smitty]

Woke up to this weirdness at 4 AM. Tried the lightswitch flicking, wasn't doing it, I followed the sound as best I could and ended up in the attic.

despite being glad that you're safe and got it resolved, your first few sentences had me really thinking i was right. you sure you didn't see any glowing portals to the supernatural realm up there?

[A-Barr]

well there you go. I wish I had a "b" room. I wish I had an "a" room. I wish I had a room other than my living room.

My A Room is my living room. My B Room has no drywall or insulation. The snazziest aspect of either is their "__Room" -ness.

despite being glad that you're safe and got it resolved, your first few sentences had me really thinking i was right. you sure you didn't see any glowing portals to the supernatural realm up there?

Well the screen saver on my imac has been a little buggy lately, hmmm...