Power Line to my house was broken

[Industrial Toys]

You learn early as an electchicken that the white wire can hurt you too.

 

[MossRoad]

 

[cqaigy2]

I've learned a bunch from this tread.

 

[MoKelly]

I know little about electricity.

We had a line down in the yard at our old house.

Called the electric company. They said don’t let anyone near and we will be there ASAP. They arrived 30 minutes later.

It was a cable line. They put it back up. They said always call if a line goes down and they will come. They said they put the cable line back because they never want kids playing with down lines. They never want kids to see a down line. So, if you call, they will put back up any line that is down.

MoKelly

 

[LouNY]

A lot of fussing on here of a miniscule problem.
The primary and secondary sides of that transformer are separate.
The primary can have just one hot lead and a ground or if three phase power was going by it could have two hot legs.
The secondary which is what is coming to the house will have two hot legs and a center tapped neutral,
leaving the transformer, two insulated wires and a bare messenger cable for support and the 0 voltage tap of the transformer
(the center tap). The main transformer feeding his transformer is earth grounded so the primary loop has no issues.
His secondary loop is complete and working fine with no safety issues.
Most meter cans and disconnects are tied to ground if they are very far from the main load panel which is earth grounded and the neutral is boned to that ground.

 

[coobie]

Coobie, please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the reason Eddie still has electrical service is because current is flowing in the actual earth, the land under his feet to complete his electrical circuit?.

It is not near as good as that wire that is laying on the ground, but connections on poles with their copper ground wires going into the actual earth on both sides of the broken wire are now carrying the entire load of his residence. This is not a particularly good thing to have those currents flowing in the ground instead of that wire, but that is my understanding of how he still has service.

For those that don't know, Coobie is a retired electrical lineman, and certainly has far more experience and knowledge than I about these things.

James,he still has overhead primary voltage feeding his step down 120/240 volt transformer which is grounded with #6 ground wire which runs down the pole to ground rods.I also believe has has a primary neutral that is grounded threw the system.I assume he has 3 wire triplex service wire feeding his house which should also have 1 ground rod driven at his meter socket . I wonder if anyone has checked voltage at his meter socket as he could have wacky voltage spikes if he's lost his neutral.My main concern is that primary(system neutral ) on the ground might have back feed from a 2 or 3 transformer power bank or could become energized if a hot phase came down farther down the line somehow.I have also seen some folks who hook up generators incorrectly and back feed the primary system right back trough their meter sockets to the overhead transformer(or under ground ) back to the overhead primary lines that creates primary voltage.Not a good thing.

 

[Industrial Toys]

That was my first EXACT thought, but I was quickly TOLD, I had misunderstood.

Was out picking up litter along the roads today. Just checking to make sure. None of our Rural poles without x-formers have any ground rods. It would be pointless and costly.

 

[LouNY]

It's not carrying very many amps at all;
If just 7200 Volt primary feeding a transformer that will drop it down to 120/240.
A house with a 200 amp service is seldom pulling even 50 amps on either leg,
but heck 240 volts at 50 amps is the same energy as 7400 volts is with 1.666 amps,
so less then 2 amps.

 

[coobie]

This wouldn't fly in Michigan.

I fully agree with this statement ..

 

[coobie]

Here's a picture I took about half an hour ago of a transformer a block over from us. It's on a single leg. Do you see a neutral for the high voltage? No. There's only one wire feeding the transformer. The top wire. The three wires below it are the two 120v hots and 1 neutral from the transformer and run up and down the street to 6 houses on each side. The only other wire on that transformer runs down the pole to ground. No neutral for the high voltage side.

View attachment 692500

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