My lights are flickering.
I have changed the meter pan, upgraded the main from 60amp to 100 amp.
I have 2 new ground spikes and have changed the outlets in the house.
Though the problem is less than it was, the lights still are flickering.
Someone told me it sounded like a loose neutral, however, the whole panel was changed.
Could there be a problem with the meter itself. The electric Co has been to the house twice and they say it is not thier problem.
i would be happy to hear any thought.
Skidoodle13
Replies
Somebody has missed something. My gut tells me that the electric company has missed a loose neutral.
Call in a qualified electrician. He might catch something simple that everyone else is overlooking.
Who Dares Wins.
loose nutral on the drop????
proud member of the FOR/FOS club...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
That's what I would think. Lazy azz linemen don't want to go through the hassle to go up there and check it.Who Dares Wins.
saddle up..
proud member of the FOR/FOS club...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Can I take a toilet with me?Who Dares Wins.
yup...
I know where we can find an incolet....
proud member of the FOR/FOS club...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Having been a lineman for 20 years now, I have been on many trouble calls. Just like whats being described here. And there is one thing that I have figured out...it is always easy to blame it on the power company when the electrician want-a-be's can't find the problem. :)
It's been my experiance that eveybody passes the blame until some sawed off needing a shave a week ago guy with foggy glasses that keep falling off shows up and actualy fixes what minor little problem there was.Who Dares Wins.
Anybody who's willing to climb a dead tree and play around with 15,000 volts while he's up there gets my respect as a basic matter of policy. Besides, when my bud from Hydro Q comes by to do a service call here he has a bad habit of 'forgeting' his company linesman's gloves when he leaves. There are no better-made or better-fitting work gloves in the world, period.
(And I am not 'sawed off', dang it!)
But it does sound like a loose/corroded neutral, either at the drop or between the meter and the new panel.
Wonder if there's any pattern to the flickering, such as does it only happen when the wind blows or when it's raining, or...?
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
ask some of your neighbors to try and find out if its a secondary distribution problem or just isolated to your service. call the power co. back sometimes they can put a recording volt/amp meter on your service entrance and figure out whos side its on.remember the old saying the sqeakiest wheel gets the grease :)
Thanks,
i have called them back. Infact i'm waiting right now.
I will mention the recorder.It's scary when the lights have a mind of their own.Carol
Do you have a digital voltmeter?If so you can measure the voltage right at the panel as a large load (heater, toaster, air drier) is turned on and off.Measure Hot to Hot (240) and each hot to neutral.
Is it everything electrical in the whole house taking dips in perfect unison, or is it just some of the lights flickering while other things stay constant? Are the flickers all brief dimmings, or do some things briefly brighten?
-- J.S.
I've never entered a forum discussion before. It wonderful all the responces i've seen.The lights, anything electrical, flicker at the same time. some will be bright when others are dim and than it changes the oppsite way. But it is the entire house happenig at the same time.I just had the electric co here again, and this person was thourough, i thought.
He was on the pole making repairs to connectors, changed the crimps at the house again, and replaced the meter. He used a machine called a BEAST to check the loads and was satisfied after his work that it was ok.
The next day, again my lights are still flickering.I guess i need to rewire the house. Time to call the electricion again.
This is fustrating.
"The lights, anything electrical, flicker at the same time. some will be bright when others are dim and than it changes the oppsite way. But it is the entire house happenig at the same time."That is indication of a bad neutral connection.As all of the circuits are affected they it is is limited to the main panel connections, the lead to the meter, meter socket and the power co lines & transformer.Hopefully if the problem was in the later two they have been fixed.Should not take an electrican with a good meter long to find it.
Given that the utility side has been checked out and is OK, you need one of those electricians Gunner mentioned -- with the foggy glasses that keep falling off. Where are you located? Perhaps somebody here can recommend a local electrician who is competent to deal with a service entrance neutral problem.
Get this handled soon, because the "brief brightening" part of it can become very damaging to expensive electronic things....
-- J.S.
Well the fourth time the electric company came, i think they solved the problem.Loose neutral out on the poll.its been a few days and all seems well.several hundred dollars later and it was them the whole time.Thanks everyone for you help and humor.Carol
Cool. It's very frustrating I know. What did you say when they finaly checked it and found it?Who Dares Wins.
We changed things so much that it was a wait and see what happens.Its been awhile now, so i think its fixed.I'm just glad i didnt loose any of my electronics.Ski
It does sound like a loose connection, it could be the neutral or one of the hot wires. Have the utility check their connections, both at your meter and out at the street.
It happened at my house once. I had to get the power company guys out several times before they found it, one of the hot wires was loose at the pole.
I'm really happy to know there are lineman who can turn on a meter now maybe if they started to put anti-oxident on there aluminum wires we could all have a big party. Sooner or later the recording meter comes out and the finger pointing ends.
I did just have a service call mon. for flickering lights and discovered the electrician didn't get his wire cleanly under the screw...just a touch of insulation pinched in there too...about a half dozen times.
Re:"I did just have a service call mon. for flickering lights and discovered the electrician didn't get his wire cleanly under the screw...just a touch of insulation pinched in there too...about a half dozen times."With electricity it is often the details.Not quite tight enough. Not quite clean enough. Not enough anti-oxidant used or not in the right places. Insulation not trimmed back far enough. Details.
I had this problem. My neutral was open and all my return was through the water pipe. My lights did not flicker it was like a visual vibration. The transient voltage was much longer that a flicker. I was worried I was having a stoke.
I had problems with the power company. It wasn't the lineman. It was the front office.
I demanded that they put a recoding meter on at my meter to see it the voltage was staying within the allowed 10% deviation. After the strip chart ran for a day they got more cooperative.
Troubleshooter comes to the house with a clamp meter and measured the two hots an the neutral. Current into the house should equal the current going out. Of couse we're dealing with a center tapped transformer. Anyway there was no current on the neutral, 6 amps on the wire to the water pipe.
The lineman left some metal trash on the ground, NBD.
Could be you and your neighbors are overloading the transformer that serves the bunch of you.
"Having a stroke", that's funny!! I thought the same thing at my work shop after the illuminating co. came and hook up the electric. Only it was a few days after, I was working on the jointer, when poltergeist started in!! I called the Ill. Co. they came out and said it was the 'lectricians fault. but when they where there, it didn't happen, no matter what we tried. a few hours later...there it goes again. Finally, the Ill. co. found it to be a bad spur at the main pole, not my transformer,(I had to buy a supporting ?? transformer, it's a 130 feet from road to building).
GB