Residential Voltage Swings

[mgookin]

Neutral behind the meter (almost) guaranteed.

 

[growler]

The lights throughout the house are dimming and flickering at random and when various appliances are run it causes circuit breakers to open in the main electrical panel.

I also had an electrician shut off the main breaker to the house and check the incoming voltage at the house meter and it’s balanced when there’s no load on the house. The voltage varies from anywhere between 110 volts to 130 volts on either phase when any load is brought on .

Neutral behind the meter (almost) guaranteed.

I would normally be quick to go with loose neutral but these symptoms don't sound right.

I can take the neutral completely off and the lights won't dimn and flicker they will be either dimn or bright. And it's not normal to have breakers trip even though it could happen.

He never said what the normal line voltage for the sytem is, measured from line side of the meter, all the OP said was that it balanced. 130V may sound a bit high but that could be the incomming voltage.

The fact that he had an electrician on the job that didn't check for a loose neurtal tells me the electrician isn't very good. The fact they drove another ground rod thinking that was to have an effect also is not good. The fact that he wants to rewire a whole house without locating the problem makes me think he is a jack-leg or a crook.

If there was a real electrician on the job and could provide better information I would feel better about giving an opinion on what the problem is.

 

[meternerd]

I guess it depends on the power company.

I had voltage issues at my own home, I called the power company on the way into work on a Saturday. Within a couple of hours they called me back, said they had been by the house, put in a load tester, confirmed the problem and had a repair truck on the way. By noon the issue had been fixed.

I have no doubt some power companies are as bad as described just saying don't assume they all are.

Wow...someone saying something NICE about a POCO. Thank You! I have been associated with LOTS of POCO's over the years, and I really don't see many that are the bad guys. They may be busy and not get to a problem immediately, but I think most want safe reliable power supplies. If a service has a problem, it's cheaper to eliminate the POCO side than to pay for damaged equipment when a problem ends up being a transformer or service drop problem. In the OP's case, a Beast of Burden would immediately tell if there's a POCO problem. Easy to use, cheap and that's what they were designed for. As far as incoming voltage, anything over 126/252 or below 114/228 should be reported to the POCO (a true RMS meter is best, but even cheapies are pretty close at 120V). Could be a tap setting that needs to be changed due to a change in normal load.