Electrical question.

[dj1701]

I have been having issues with the electric in my house for a while now. First it was frying surge protectors. Not all the surge protectors were on the same circuit. I am also getting fluctuations in my lights.

I friend who is an electrician came over and tightened all the wires in the main breaker box. That did not help. Then he pulled the meter and tightened the connections in there. He said they were really loose. He thought I might have a loose natural connection. That did not help. He called NYSEG and told them they needed to come out and check the pole behind the barn. He lit a fire under their ass, and they came out late that night. They were there till the wee hours. I don't know what they did but this stopped the frying of surge protectors.

However, I still get the fluctuations in some of my lights. The light above the kitchen sink and lights in the bathroom seem to fluctuate when the coffee machine is running. They are two different circuits. Just recently I installed LED lights in my barn shop. I noticed one day they too were fluctuating. I went in the house and my girlfriend was running the wash machine. When it stopped, so did the light fluctuations in the shop. Now the Barn has a 60amp feed from the house. How could that even affect them?



Thanks Dave

 

[Chewwy]

Could be floating neutrals Likely due to one or more loose neutral connections. With a floating neutral or loose neutral, the voltage on the two opposite sides of the split phase gets divided based on the impedence of the loads.

Do you have aluminum conductors?

 

[dj1701]

Could be floating neutrals Likely due to one or more loose neutral connections. With a floating neutral or loose neutral, the voltage on the two opposite sides of the split phase gets divided based on the impedence of the loads.

Do you have aluminum conductors?

You will have to dumb this down for me.

 

[ultrarunner]

Loose connections anywhere can do this and sometimes it’s at the pole…

That said every time my neighbor started his ancient 30 amp wired 120 volt radial arm saw the surge protectors in the house started beeping…


Maybe a utility transformer is end of life?

Had that have where voltage for the neighborhood dropped to 70 +/- volts and first thing folks were doing is buying new microwaves and refrigerators thinking they were bad.

The LED lights kept working masking the problem.

Utility had no idea and reluctant to dispatch… I said I’m a power system engineer for the hospital and there is a real problem… which got things moving after 48 hours.

One PGE said the load has increased due to the EV battery charging… too much for the 1950’s transformer.

 

[Chewwy]

You will have to dumb this down for me.

You likely had more than one problem. The work the utility did on the pole was to repair your neutral (NOT natural) connection at the transformer. I would bet that squirrels were chewing on the neutral conductor at the transformer. It was most likely aluminum and squirrels love to chew on aluminum (not so much on copper).

As ultrarunner stated it could just be loose connection pretty much anywhere associated with those loads. But the fact you flickering lights seem to be related to operation of another load tend to indicate loose neutral vs line connections.

Your original posted refered to the main breaker box.

Do you have more than one breaker box?

And do you have aluminum wiring?

 

[mjonesnh]

I have been having issues with the electric in my house for a while now. First it was frying surge protectors. Not all the surge protectors were on the same circuit. I am also getting fluctuations in my lights.

I friend who is an electrician came over and tightened all the wires in the main breaker box. That did not help. Then he pulled the meter and tightened the connections in there. He said they were really loose. He thought I might have a loose natural connection. That did not help. He called NYSEG and told them they needed to come out and check the pole behind the barn. He lit a fire under their ass, and they came out late that night. They were there till the wee hours. I don't know what they did but this stopped the frying of surge protectors.

However, I still get the fluctuations in some of my lights. The light above the kitchen sink and lights in the bathroom seem to fluctuate when the coffee machine is running. They are two different circuits. Just recently I installed LED lights in my barn shop. I noticed one day they too were fluctuating. I went in the house and my girlfriend was running the wash machine. When it stopped, so did the light fluctuations in the shop. Now the Barn has a 60amp feed from the house. How could that even affect them?



Thanks Dave

Had similiar problem as you with coffee maker making lights flicker and strobe. Called utility company and after checking connections at house , went to the pole. Neutral connection had a loose crimp to main ground. Recrimped connection and problem went away.

 

[JPRambo]

Do you have overhead or underground wires to the house?
Years ago my mom's house had underground to house. She called me after a lightning storm. Power in her house was affected. I checked same as your friend. (I'm a residential electrician - retired now). Affected microwave, dishwasher, washer, etc and the lights. Power company checked at ground mounted transformer and at the meter, then pulled underground wires (installed in conduit) and replaced them. Neutral was burnt in two.

 

[dj1701]

You likely had more than one problem. The work the utility did on the pole was to repair your neutral (NOT natural) connection at the transformer. I would bet that squirrels were chewing on the neutral conductor at the transformer. It was most likely aluminum and squirrels love to chew on aluminum (not so much on copper).

As ultrarunner stated it could just be loose connection pretty much anywhere associated with those loads. But the fact you flickering lights seem to be related to operation of another load tend to indicate loose neutral vs line connections.

Your original posted refered to the main breaker box.

Do you have more than one breaker box?

And do you have aluminum wiring?

I have a box in the barn that is fed from the house. It is an aluminum wire.

 

[dj1701]

Do you have overhead or underground wires to the house?
Years ago my mom's house had underground to house. She called me after a lightning storm. Power in her house was affected. I checked same as your friend. (I'm a residential electrician - retired now). Affected microwave, dishwasher, washer, etc and the lights. Power company checked at ground mounted transformer and at the meter, then pulled underground wires (installed in conduit) and replaced them. Neutral was burnt in two.

Overhead wires.

 

[dj1701]

 

[duffer]

If you have a sub panel in your barn/shop from the main panel in the house, check to see if the neutral and ground buss bars (in the sub panel) have a strap connecting them. If so, turn off the breaker to the sub panel in your main breaker box in the house, and disconnect the strap in the sub panel.

Might be a long shot, but if the barn/shop panel does not have its own meter, then these to buss bars shouldn't be connected.

 

[grsthegreat]

If you have a sub panel in your barn/shop from the main panel in the house, check to see if the neutral and ground buss bars (in the sub panel) have a strap connecting them. If so, turn off the breaker to the sub panel in your main breaker box in the house, and disconnect the strap in the sub panel.

Might be a long shot, but if the barn/shop panel does not have its own meter, then these to buss bars shouldn't be connected.

Not so….in older homes, they only ran 3 wires between buildings and drove new ground rods at the secondary buildings. In these cases you leave the bonding jumper inplace. In more modern houses, they run 4 wires between buildings, and this is the case you dont want to bond ground and neutrals.

 

[dj1701]

If you have a sub panel in your barn/shop from the main panel in the house, check to see if the neutral and ground buss bars (in the sub panel) have a strap connecting them. If so, turn off the breaker to the sub panel in your main breaker box in the house, and disconnect the strap in the sub panel.

Might be a long shot, but if the barn/shop panel does not have its own meter, then these to buss bars shouldn't be connected.

I think it does.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

If you have a sub panel in your barn/shop from the main panel in the house, check to see if the neutral and ground buss bars (in the sub panel) have a strap connecting them. If so, turn off the breaker to the sub panel in your main breaker box in the house, and disconnect the strap in the sub panel.

Might be a long shot, but if the barn/shop panel does not have its own meter, then these to buss bars shouldn't be connected.

If there are four conductors running to the barn/shop, then this would be good advise. Line 1, Line 2, Neutral, Grounding conductor.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

I think it does.

View attachment 816906

If this is your sub panel in the barn/shop, I would turn the power off and remove that strap connecting the neutral and ground bar together.
Only place a connection like this should occur is at the main panel. All sub panels should isolate the the ground bar from the neutral bar.

 

[Torvy]

I don't know much on the topic, but we had a whole house surge protector added when we did some other work. It really seemed to cut down on problems. In our case it was spike during thunderstorms that damaged electronics and even blew out a transformer plugged into an outlet. Completely fried the outlet, too.

Don't know if it would help OP. Listen to those guys that actually know about electricity. I leave that to the pros.

 

[lilranch2001]

I think it does.

View attachment 816906

I’m no electrician either, but the workmanship in this panel leaves something to be desired

 

[Chewwy]

I have a box in the barn that is fed from the house. It is an aluminum wire.

Is your home’s internal wiring from breaker box to loads wired with aluminum conductors? Many homes built in the 1960s thru the mid 1970s have aluminum internal wiring.

 

[grsthegreat]

If this is your sub panel in the barn/shop, I would turn the power off and remove that strap connecting the neutral and ground bar together.
Only place a connection like this should occur is at the main panel. All sub panels should isolate the the ground bar from the neutral bar.

Agree, you have a modern 4 wire fed subpanel. Lose the jumper bar. And that panel is a mess. if my employee did something like that, hed be unemployed that same day.

 

[ultrarunner]

Neatness counts and can avoid problems is my take…