Help! Flickering lights/haunted house

[gocards1177]

About 3-4 weeks ago we started noticing the lights flicker when the furnace, dryer, bathroom heaters, or stove kicked on. Some lights would get dimmer, some get brighter. Sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes they would stay that way.

Did some research, called the utility company, sounds like an open neutral somewhere. The electric company plugged a device of some kind into our house and out at the "splitter" that services 3 other houses. All of the utilities in our neighborhood are buried. He came back and said the recordings suggested there's a voltage drop from the splitter to our meter and from the meter to the outlet the sensor was at. None of our neighbors are having problems. He tightened all the connectors that were his responsibility to no avail. He wasn't sure what to say and he asked us to call an electrician. My wife especially liked his comment about "finding it when it burned up".

The electrician came a few days later. He was here over an hour and couldn't figure out the problem. My wife said he was going all over the house and tried server all different things. He even ran a second ground to the breaker box. He's convinced the problem is the service cable that's buried in the backyard. He thinks when our house was built 20 years ago, the utility company was using direct bury cable. Seems like a stretch to me that this cable has been damaged all this time and is just now a problem.

We've been here 6 years. We did some electrical work when we moved in but nothing more recently other than a new water heater 2 years ago. The only thing I can think of that happened around the time this started is that we got a lot of snow here in Missouri. I guess the melting water could have affected the buried cable if it was already damaged? Also the snow at that time led to the GFCI breaker the Christmas lights were on getting tripped a few times. But that's it.

I did some investigating with a voltmeter just now on my own and a couple outlets in our kitchen and utility room have some funny readings. They were reading 117 volts. The more things we turn on around the house I can get the voltage down to 113. I did notice when I first turn on the dryer the outlets in that room spike briefly to 131 volts and then went to 115. I then checked the two main bus bars in the main panel against the neutrals. One side is 115 volts, the other side is 131. Maybe it is the buried service cable.

The electrician and utility company are coming back Wednesday to run a temporary new cable to bypass from the "splitter" to my meter and see if that helps. If it doesn't...

Any suggestions?

 

[kenmac]

Electricity can do some strange things sometimes. I had a neighbor that had problems with flickering lights. She called the Elec. utility. The utility sent someone out and checked. Utility man told her all was ok on their end, and she should call an electrician. She called electrician. Electrician checked everything on her end, and found no problems . She was told to her call the utility back. This second utility man (different man) found a bad ground or neutral on the utility's end . The utility also paid the bill for the electrician

 

[ultrarunner]

Probably not what you're dealing with.

My two experiences both were at homes my brother owned at different times.

One was a loose connection at the utility drop and the power company had to be dragged out because they said that never happens.

The second time it was in the panel... a bus bar was loose. It was not readily apparent at first glance either.

 

[s219]

Do you get 240V (or approx) across the two hots ? How does it behave when the dryer or another 240 appliance starts up?

Curious about the 120 outlet near the dryer going to 131 when the dryer starts up.

A lot of things could be the problem, but clearly there's an imbalance of some sort.

Appliances/loads that are solely 240 won't use the neutral, so it makes me wonder if the problem is not an open neutral but really an issue with one of the two hots -- if the two hots together cannot properly pass the net current of a 240 appliance, maybe something will bleed off into one of the 120 legs in order to get to neutral. Just trying to brainstorm a bit.

Edit to add: I can see how a nicked direct bury line could take many years to fail -- it could have been slowly corroding all this time.

 

[strum456]

It definitely sounds like a neutral problem to me. Check for loose or corroded connections on your main breaker. If you are sure that is all good, then I'd wait for the power company. This could definitely be their problem.

 

[Steppenwolfe]

Have the utility company test the meter base at the meter. We had the same problem, turned out the meter base socket was defective.

 

[SPIKER]

Not sure WHY there is Duct Tape in the panel but that should be removed as it is rather flammable.

Floating Neutral is one thing but is sounds like there may be a corroded hot wire, did the Utility service tell you the voltage readings at the point where your drop wires (buried wires) leave the transformer. That would tell you if there is a bad connection at their high voltage to low voltage transformer.

Measuring the voltage between the Lines and Lines to Neutral will give you a bit more information. Also check to see if your Water Heater (Elec?) has a bad connection or shorted out heating element (if it is electric HW heater.) Those can pull a good bit of power thru the hot water tank and the line that in closer to the wire connection will pull down the line more as it is like a short circuit but often not enough to trip a breaker.

Look for loose or corroded wires coming in, look for where the wires come from the street/pole into the home to know if there is a tree planted, truck drove over it or new mail box that may have cut into the wires. Sometimes it only takes a nick in the wire to draw down the power.

Mark

 

[Ken]

Check the voltage under the duck tape then voltage on breaker buss bar side. could be the breaker.
when your water heater comes on voltage should be equal load since the ground in not used. unless you have a 120 volt element.
How did the power company employee decide there was no problem. A volt meter and a Amp meter or did he shut off the breaker and install a load box to check the wiring.
The electrician never discovered the voltage difference just ran another ground wire. ?
power company brings a ground from the transformer along with the 2 voltage wires to the meter socket and from there to the breaker box. a unequal voltage should not be measured with this much difference. then not such a voltage drop when in house device is used. This is the reason suggested rechecking the breaker.
Time to find the cause before the overheating causes sparks.
ken

 

[strum456]

The fact that your voltage is going up to 131 is what tells me that it is a neutral problem.

House circuits are wired in parallel. Parallel circuits have constant voltage.

////////////////resistance///////////////120v phase one
//
//
///////////////neutral
//
//
///////////////resistance///////////////120v phase two


When something happens to the neutral, your house wiring becomes a Series circuit. Series circuits have constant current, and VOLTAGE FLUCTUATES DEPENDING ON RESISTANCE.


//////////////////resistance/////////////120v phase one
//
//
//
//
//
////////////////resistance//////////////120v phase two

The diagrams aren't the best. I'm just trying to give a general idea.

 

[gocards1177]

Thanks for the replies! Looks like I've got some things to investigate tomorrow. As to the duct tale that looks like it was put on there years ago. Maybe original. I can def take it off. I'm not sure what exactly the utility or electrician did or didn't do. The test the utility guy did was a small box that plugged into an outlet in the house for several days. There was something he put out at the "splitter" too and he took both pieces of equipment back to the shop and did some sort of analysis. I don't know if the electrician did any voltage testing. That was just me playing around with a multimeter earlier today. My wife said he took apart part of the water heater which makes me think he opened the access panel and checked the wiring. I didn't think to test between the two buses. That will be job one after church tomorrow. Thanks! I'll post again after some more hunting.