Power Line to my house was broken

[Lineman North Florida]

This has been hilarious to read , Eddie as someone said earlier it appears that you have a single phase primary line feeding down into your place which also has a neutral conductor and that is what has been broken and is down, it's almost a guarantee that the power company has a couple of stacked ground rods driven at the bottom of your transformer pole and it must be a good ground probably under 15 ohms and that is why you aren't having flickering lights and fluctuating voltage a sure sign of a broken or bad neutral connection, what I don't understand is why a lineman or troubleman would show up to a downed neutral and not make the repair , an automatic sleeve and either a set of slack blocks or strap hoist and this could have been fixed in less time than it would have taken to set up the bucket truck. Did the guy that showed up have a bucket truck? If not he could just be a spotter, but don't let them tell you that it doesn't matter and they don't know when they will be back. it is a potential hazard, call them back and tell them you have flickering lights with a downed neutral and I'll bet somebody will be back out shortly to get it put back together and get it sagged back up in the air. Charlie.

 

[Diggin It]

^^^ Was wondering when you'd check in. That was my thought too, they could have had it fixed in under an hour.

 

[MossRoad]

Moss,there is a high side neutral wire.They are using the middle(wire) secondary leg neutral ..

thanks. thats what i was wondering. it was the only place it could be.

 

[tallyho8]

Sometimes I think cattle are smarter than humans. We were having a rodeo at an arena and stable that I was keeping my horses at years ago. The arena and bucking chutes were made up of old drill pipe. There was an electrical outlet on the arena fence to give power to the timers. It was a very cold winter day and luckily, almost everyone was wearing gloves.

The handlers were having a he!! of a time getting the bulls into the bucking chutes delaying the rodeo. No one knew why they were so ornery that day until one of the drovers climbed the fence and had a wet spot on his jeans that contacted the fence while he was pushing a bull through the gate. The bull broke through the gate and took off bucking and running. The drover did a back flip then ran into a trailer to check out his private parts to see if they were still there.

I took off my glove and hit the fence with the back of my hand and got a good jolt then went and turned off the switch box powering the arena. Upon inspecting the circuit breakers we saw that someone had put the white wire on the breaker and grounded the black wire that fed the arena and a stall next to it. The man who had that stall had put in a light and messed up the wiring. The rodeo went on after that with many of the bullriders limping a little as they usually do but one drover limping especially bad that day.

 

[CobyRupert]

If Eddie still has power at his house, I’m guessing the 2 hots are probably still wrapped around a steel messenger cable that supports them from the transformer to the house. This cable is usually bonded and acts as a neutral conductor back to the center tap of his pole mounted transformer (i.e. it establishes 120v/120v from each end of the 240v winding of the transformer). This keeps the 240v evenly split into (2) 120V legs in your panel. Whether these (center tap) neutral conductors are connected to earth is somewhat inconsequential.

He won’t get voltage imbalances on his 120/240V panel when the transformer’s primary neutral cable is broken, only of it is broken on the secondary side.

On the transformer’s primary side, and with the broken neutral cable, the primary circuit is relying on earth to conduct the current from the primary winding back to a (grounded) substation transformer and complete the loop instead of this cable.

 

[coobie]

If you have a broken primary neutral or down ground in a auto booster or regulator location up stream you can get high/low voltages at customers meter sockets.It sometimes happens and burns folks equipment up.

 

[Patrick Herd]

Dunno if it's been mentioned or not Eddie but the end to be the most careful of is the one still connected to your transformer: Depending on load and ground resistivity there could easily be a few hundred volts between the downed primary neutral and the surrounding earth.

We have lots of single wire earth return systems here in the more rural parts of New Zealand, they work really well for getting a few tens of kilowatts, tens of kilometres away without stupid expense. Just don't pee on the ground rod for your transformer

 

[EddieWalker]

This has been hilarious to read , Eddie as someone said earlier it appears that you have a single phase primary line feeding down into your place which also has a neutral conductor and that is what has been broken and is down, it's almost a guarantee that the power company has a couple of stacked ground rods driven at the bottom of your transformer pole and it must be a good ground probably under 15 ohms and that is why you aren't having flickering lights and fluctuating voltage a sure sign of a broken or bad neutral connection, what I don't understand is why a lineman or troubleman would show up to a downed neutral and not make the repair , an automatic sleeve and either a set of slack blocks or strap hoist and this could have been fixed in less time than it would have taken to set up the bucket truck. Did the guy that showed up have a bucket truck? If not he could just be a spotter, but don't let them tell you that it doesn't matter and they don't know when they will be back. it is a potential hazard, call them back and tell them you have flickering lights with a downed neutral and I'll bet somebody will be back out shortly to get it put back together and get it sagged back up in the air. Charlie.

There are two cables, or powerlines, coming into my land. My house is the only one on this line. When I bought the land, they had to run the poles down the road to my place, and then into my place.
The bottom power line is the one that broke, and it broke along the road. between two poles.

The guy that came out walked over to the cable to look at it, and then walked back to tell me that he wanted to check with his boss to see what he wanted to do. I might not of mentioned this, but he also said that they might wait until the Gas Pipeline work was done before fixing it so they don't break it again.

We are running our AC, the electric water heater is working fine, and we've used the oven and microwave. Lights have not flickered and all of our electronics are working like they should. We have not seen any evidence that there is an issue.

I don't know when the cable was broken. I haven't mowed in that area since October. They Gas Pipeline people have been coming and going for months.

I have a 1,200 amp service with six 200 amp breakers. I'm using three of them. Would a picture of that help out?

 

[grsthegreat]

1200 amps...... your elect company must love you.

 

[coobie]

There are two cables, or powerlines, coming into my land. My house is the only one on this line. When I bought the land, they had to run the poles down the road to my place, and then into my place.
The bottom power line is the one that broke, and it broke along the road. between two poles.

The guy that came out walked over to the cable to look at it, and then walked back to tell me that he wanted to check with his boss to see what he wanted to do. I might not of mentioned this, but he also said that they might wait until the Gas Pipeline work was done before fixing it so they don't break it again.

We are running our AC, the electric water heater is working fine, and we've used the oven and microwave. Lights have not flickered and all of our electronics are working like they should. We have not seen any evidence that there is an issue.

I don't know when the cable was broken. I haven't mowed in that area since October. They Gas Pipeline people have been coming and going for months.

I have a 1,200 amp service with six 200 amp breakers. I'm using three of them. Would a picture of that help out?

Yes a pic would be great.Do you know anyone with a fluke meter that can check voltage at your meter socket?You can also plug the fluke meter into a few wall plugs in your house to check voltage.You should have close to 117-120 volts at the plugs.Meter socket should be 120/120 between each hot leg and neutral 240 volts between the two hot legs.