Hurricane Irene is gone but a strange electrical mystery remains-
After a week without power and a tree ton the roof, my daughters house has a strange electrical issue.
When the power came on half the lights burned bright and blew within seconds and half burned dimly.
I checked the line voltage coming into the panel and, this is hard to believe, one leg was reading 60 volts while the other leg read 180…. reading both legs I had 240. I had the power company check their feed and confirmed that the meter was seeing 120/120. I came to realize that if I turned the main breaker off, the readings were 120/120. But, if I turned the main on, even with all of the breakers off, I read60/180. For reference, I am rounding my readings off and the panel is a CH 150 amp.
I shut everything down and asked an electrician to stop by and take a look. He reported that he was unable to duplicate the problem. He did tighten the neutral. Today, everything is reading 120/120. But, the refrigerator, range , ceiling fans and numerous bulbs are in bad shape. I would like to determine the root cause prior to them replacing the appliances. I would hate to see a repeat….
Any ideas or suggestions?
Thanks,
Farmer Jeff
Replies
Classical bad neutral connection symptoms.
The neutral, either inside the house or out, possibly even on the utility pole, was poorly connected. (The electric company may or may not be off the hook, depending on exactly how they checked their side.) Open neutral is not an unheard of thing after a severe storm, I would guess. In any event, it no doubt damaged many devices in your home.
In some cases, if the bad neutral was on the electric company's side, the electric company will take some responsibility for the damage. But in the case of Irene I'm guessing they'd claim "act of God" in any case. Sometimes your insurance will cover this, though.
You should probably ask the electric company to recheck the neutral connections on their side, and ask the electrician to come back an double-check the connections on your side.
Farmer
Did the electrician check the line voltages before tightening up the neutral lug? He could have fixed the problem befor he tried to duplicate your readings.
A tree to the roof may have pulled the neutral into the house loose or at the pole. as dan said you had the classic symptoms of an open or loose neutral Utility companies normally check the connections at the weather head before restoring service if there has been a tree fall involved, but in the case of a large storm, that step may be no more than a visual "look see."
My guess is the neutral issue was in her panel box, since the electrician tightened it and the reading were normal.