Power Line to my house was broken

[Diggin It]

Crude drawing of how I understand this.

 

[LouNY]

That is how I read it to be also,
Then don't forget that the meter base and his main panel will also be grounded as is the transformer.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I believe our rural single phase system has no such grounds at each pole. Only at transformer poles. And certainly no buried ground conductor, pole to pole which would make this work in the event of a broken neutral.

So that certainly implies that they are using earth to provide return path. I find that hard to believe. And I would imagine that voltage would be highly erratic and dependent on other loads close by and also soil moisture level.

 

[BeezFun]

The neutral wire out of the house service panel only carries the unbalanced load between the two hot wires coming into the service. So, for example if the house happened to be drawing 20A off each leg of the service panel, there would be no current flow on the neutral wire because each hot wire is acting as the return path for the other hot wire back to the power company. In this case everything in the house would work fine and you wouldn't be able to tell that the neutral wire on the pole was missing because the neutral wire wouldn't be doing anything even if it were unbroken. If the panel carries an unbalanced load, say one side is drawing 20A and the other is drawing 30A, the neutral wire needs to carry the unbalanced 10A. If the neutral wire on the pole is broken, that 10A will be carried through the ground until it can reach the next grounding point for the utility, which is the next point where the neutral wire on the pole is connected to earth ground. In rural areas a ground might only be located on every 4th or 5th pole, or maybe only at poles with transformers. And back at the power station the neutral wire is connected to earth ground just like it is in your house. The utility company neutral wire on the pole always has a slight voltage difference between itself and earth ground even though they're bonded together because there is always a small current flow through the earth. It's called the neutral to earth voltage (NEV). Normally it's a very small voltage, but it will get larger if the neutral wire is broken and the earth is carrying the current to the next location where the neutral wire is connected to an earth ground, which is the next pole that has an earth ground. So Eddie's house will work just fine even with the broken neutral on the pole, but near the poles where that broken neutral is located, the earth will be at a higher voltage than it normally would be because it is carrying the unbalanced current from his house (and some of his neighbor's houses) back to the power company. If the current forced to flow through the earth is large enough it can raise the earth voltage enough that if your cows were standing out there they might notice it and head off for some lower voltage area.

 

[Industrial Toys]

If the neutral conductor was open circuit, the Earth would carry ALL the current, not just "unbalanced" current.

 

[EddieWalker]

Crude drawing of how I understand this.


View attachment 692338

Yes. That's it exactly.

 

[LD1]

Looking back at the pics, I cannot help but wonder if both ends of the broken wire are laying on the chain link fence....thus making the chain link fence complete the neutral circuit and keep the voltage stable in the house.....

 

[Industrial Toys]

Thanks. Someone that sees and questions the situation as I do.

 

[Snobdds]

The neutral just carries the current back to panel or transformer. If the neutral is cut, the current flows to the ground.

Don't touch any grounds.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I am certainly going to stop and ask the next (Hydro) electric utility worker I come across. If missing a neutral and using Earth return is no big deal.

Using 4800V out here on this rural single phase line, wouldn't work very well, using Earth as a return conductor. What was said for this threads case? 70,000V?