Losing Electrical Devices

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I have a customer that is having electrical devices (microwave, garage door openers, TVs etc) go out after the power comes back on from frequent power outages. This is an 8 year old home that has whole house surge protection, a ground rod, cold water ground. I have checked all the connections in the panel and at the devices, the Arc Fault breakers test out good. They have talked to the other households around them and the outages aren't affecting their devices. I have a call into the electrical provider the check their underground sevirce to the home. Does anyone have any advice on what to do next?
 

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
I have a customer that is having electrical devices (microwave, garage door openers, TVs etc) go out after the power comes back on from frequent power outages. This is an 8 year old home that has whole house surge protection, a ground rod, cold water ground. I have checked all the connections in the panel and at the devices, the Arc Fault breakers test out good. They have talked to the other households around them and the outages aren't affecting their devices. I have a call into the electrical provider the check their underground sevirce to the home. Does anyone have any advice on what to do next?


Are these power outages during an electrical storm?

I would call these lost items appliances and equipment and not electrical devices. They should report these to their insurance company.


The only thing I can do is guess. If these power surges happen during electrical storms maybe the lighting is hitting a tree or fence or other conductor and running in on the service lateral. There is normally more than one house on a transformer but I would check just to make sure ( how close are these neighbors).
 

ceb58

Senior Member
Location
Raeford, NC
I agree. The customer should be noticing bright/dim lights as this is happening. Bright in one area and dim in the other. Get the volt meters and amp clamp out.

Or if you have or can borrow a voltage recorder to put on their system. They may be getting a large voltage inrush when the power is restored. I would suggest having the POCO put a recorder on the system but I have strong doubts you would get the truth if it were caused by voltage spikes from their transformer. That would put them on the hook for replacing damaged items.
 

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
Check for a loose neutral. That may be causing voltage variances, enough to burn out some of the items.

Why would that be related to power outages? Wouldn't it be a problem in the presence of power rather than its absence?


It wouldn't be related to the power outages but may be related to the power surges.

Many customers think the only time you would get a power surge is during an electrical storm and will assume that if appliances are damaged that it must have happened the last time they had lightning.

We have problems with neutrals because we don't have any regular electrical inspections so a meter base may have water leaking on the neutral for 20 years before anyone notices. It's sealed so we never check unless there is a problem.

The only good thing I can say about the new smart meters is that before they were installed the local power companies inspected the meter bases and we replaced a bunch of them. I have replaced some that were falling apart (rust).
 
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