House woes

Roy:

Wait, wait, how did the meter being indoors ever pass inspection? As a northern Illinoisian (Chicago licensed), who has to deal with Com Ed, how did this get passed by the AHJ????

Just curious.

Howard

It was outdoors when property was built. I would guess that they created the mud room approximately 25-30 years ago. It has the old vertical siding and I think they put horizontal siding on the whole house when they put a small addition on in 1998.
 

Attachments

  • 20230831_100057.jpg
    20230831_100057.jpg
    1.3 MB · Views: 19
Aluminum wires are to the Poco. Still not sure what the yellow one next to it is for.
The yellow probably goes to a bond bushing on a rigid 90 entering the bottom of the meter pedestal/wireway

The meter is likely original to the house (79). The lug is dual 4/0 lugs are dual rated, maybe the meter is too...View attachment 2575828
What is this a photo of in post 21? You removed the nut from the stud to check the lug?
 
They change sizes within the panel (when they were extended). I am not aware of any dual size butt splices and I don't think I want to open up the tape while they are energized.

View attachment 2575842
The PoCo's have dual size butt splices. They need them for the transition from overhead conductors to building conductors. I think the most common around here is 1/0 to 4/0. Here is one product:


Mark
 
Update:
POCO actually came out and tested the line side of the meter with their tester. Looked like a load bank in a suite case. Ran approx 100amps through the lines and said everything tested fine there. Implied it only tests the wires to the transformer. He was going to put an order in to put a power quality recording device on for a week.

I ran the washing machine through my Ego battery bank- Lights were fine. This certainly implies that the issue is within the wiring system of the house and not any type of RF or whatever emitted externally from the washing machine. Next test is to run an extension cord to another outlet in the house to see if that helps.
 
The PoCo's have dual size butt splices. They need them for the transition from overhead conductors to building conductors. I think the most common around here is 1/0 to 4/0. Here is one product:


Mark
I did get a photo of these in the field the other day. I'll try to remember to post the photo.

Mark
 
Update:
POCO actually came out and tested the line side of the meter with their tester. Looked like a load bank in a suite case. Ran approx 100amps through the lines and said everything tested fine there. Implied it only tests the wires to the transformer. He was going to put an order in to put a power quality recording device on for a week.

I ran the washing machine through my Ego battery bank- Lights were fine. This certainly implies that the issue is within the wiring system of the house and not any type of RF or whatever emitted externally from the washing machine. Next test is to run an extension cord to another outlet in the house to see if that helps.
Put one of the LEDs with the washing machine on the EGO. The interference could be conducted on the wiring.
 
Update:
POCO put a recorder on my meter for 2 weeks. Interesting results. Peak time (6-8pm) the house runs 70-80 amps. Makes sense, everyone comes home from work, laundry starts, dinner starts, everything starts. When the house is running at peak usage, my voltage drops from 122V down to 109V.

That's over a 10% drop. ICC allows a 10% drop for up to 2 minutes. In my instances, drops were recorded in 11-15 minute intervals. We tried a real time recording as well. After turning the oven and kitchen hood on, house was drawing 25 amps. 25amps and the volts went from 122 to 119. 3% drop just running the oven- something is not right.

POCO took the readings back to the office to see what their engineers suggest as the next step. While the wiring is undersized for the distance, I would think a 25a load should be able to run with a 1% or less voltage drop with the current size wiring. To me, this indicates possibly deteriorated wiring or other issue. Transformer is 37kva and only serves my and my neighbors house. My neighbor doesn't think he has any problems so I would probably say it's in the wiring.

Good news is POCO owns the wiring. If it has to be replaced, it's on them at least. Bad news is previous owner at some point built a mud room around the meter. I would assume wiring is direct buried to the meter, which now has a concrete floor over it. Changing the wiring is not going to be easy.
 
Seems to me that you are going through a lot of trouble just to try and eliminate an annoying problem caused by LEDs. If it were me I would just dump the LEDs and go back to incandescent. Hopefully, the new administration will eliminate the restrictions on incandescents like they did with water flow restrictions.

-Hal
 
Seems to me that you are going through a lot of trouble just to try and eliminate an annoying problem caused by LEDs. If it were me I would just dump the LEDs and go back to incandescent. Hopefully, the new administration will eliminate the restrictions on incandescents like they did with water flow restrictions.

-Hal

I'll go back to incandescent and probably be under 90 volts with all that extra load.
 
Top