trouble in river city

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tomw1147

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Okay, here it goes. I get surges, or brown outs. The electric goes off for no apparent reason. I have witnessed this since I have moved in, but thought it was due to the construction. Now, they are not building, and I still get them however, now when the electric goes off, my jacuzzi motor turns on for no reason. The switch is not activated and I am concerned that this will happen when I am away and cause more damage. So , I called electric co.and they came out and said everything is fine outside that it must be something in the house that is causing a short or something... It happened one night at 3am. I sleep with a fan on and the lack of breeze hitting my face made me wake up. The clocks were off, the micro had to be reset as did the stove, and the other micro. and the jacuzzi motor was running. That motor running has occurred twice. I moved into this new house June of 2007.
So, what do you think this could be?
Thanks for your input.
 
Rockyd

Rockyd

Senior Member
Location
Nevada
Occupation
Retired after 40 years as an electrician.
Is this a house, condo, or what style building?

Welcome to the forum!
 
growler

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
tomw1147 said:
the jacuzzi motor was running. That motor running has occurred twice. I moved into this new house June of 2007.
So, what do you think this could be.
Click to expand...


I'm not sure what it would be but you should be able to simulate the problem just by turning the circuit for the tub off and then back on to see if the motor starts.

The electronics for the motor controls may be fried telling the motor to start when power is applied.

If turning power off and on starts the motor I would call the company that distributes the tub in you area and see what they say.
 
LJSMITH1

LJSMITH1

Senior Member
Location
Stratford, CT
It seems that you are having momentary losses of power. Is this a filled hot tub you are talking about? If so, the pump motor running after a power cycle is normal and part of the automatic filter cycle program in the spa controller (I have a hot tub and this happens any time the power goes off and on, or when I cycle the breaker). If it is an interior Jacuzzi tub not normally filled, and the switch is off, you have an interesting wiring issue.

As for what is causing the power outages - anything from the meter pan into your main panel could be intermittent - assuming POCO actually checked from pole to house. (i.e. loose connections, bad main CB, CB/busbar arcing, etc.).

I am assuming that you are the only resident in your neighborhood experiencing this? If not, its not your house, its a POCO issue and they just didn't find it yet.

Good Luck!
 
1

12345rsmith

Member
Very odd occurrences like this are sometimes because of loosely connected or broken neutrals. Last time I ran into it was a house with the old style (1960s) aluminum wire.

Something somewhere in the house is on, its proper neutral is gone. It "borrows" other wiring to make the circuit. You break that impromptu circuit at the switch. It finds another alternative by back feeding through yet another path: this time one with a load associated with it. There are many possible permutations.
 
G

gar

Senior Member
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation
EE
090902-0547 EST

tomw1147:

As mentioned above check with neighbors that are on the same transformer. If they have the same problem, then it is external to your home.

Assuming that no neighbors have a problem, then connect two meters to your main panel, one on each phase. The simplest test requires meters to have the capability to remember min-max values. The simplest meters, and therefore least costly, will have a time constant of maybe a second. This long of a time constant might not catch short transients that cause some of your problems, but would be a starting point.

Connection to the main panel could be thru two circuits that have no varying loads connected. Otherwise connect directly into the main panel thru dedicated breakers.

Suppose both meters show high and low readings of 150 and 90 and there is not a power company problem common to others, then almost certainly it is a neutral problem associated with internal or external components related to your home.

If you know that your nominal voltage is about 120, and the readings are like 125 and 90 on one phase, and 125 and 110 on the other phase, then there is probably a problem on the hot side with the 90 reading.

More expensive logging meters may provide a shorter time constant, and ability to see detailed variation with time correlation.

This morning looking at the outlet that supplies my laser printer with my Fluke 27 I have recorded 125.1 and 119.9 as max and min. Nominal is about 124.1 . Much of the time my voltage at the main panel remains within about a 1 V range over fairly long time periods, but does gradually vary througout the day.

If you go to my web site at
http://beta-a2.com/EE-photos.html
and look at photos p 22 thru p25 you will see an abnormal condition on my supply voltage, red curve. Voltage scale is on the right hand side of the plot. The voltage measurement is from one phase directly from the main panel bus thru its own breaker.

.
 
BryanMD

BryanMD

Senior Member
Location
Maryland "the land of pleasant living"
heard a few interesting factoids yesterday:
The average American experiences 214 minutes of power outage per year.
The average Brit experiences 70 minutes of power outage per year.
The average japanese experiences 6 minutes of power outage per year.
 
G

gar

Senior Member
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation
EE
090902-1129 EST

tomw1147:

For about the last 2 hours I let the Fluke 27 monitor my min-max voltage at the laser printer socket, but with the printer off, and the results were 123.1 min and 124.5 max, or a total change of 1.4 V.

.
 
LJSMITH1

LJSMITH1

Senior Member
Location
Stratford, CT
Pierre C Belarge said:
I think those numbers are relative to the differences in the size of each country.
Click to expand...

Not to mention trees and related weather events. Is there a tornado alley in the UK? I also wonder how those outages are classified (i.e. weather/natural event related/equipment failure/distribution system failure, etc).
 
e57

e57

Senior Member
Location
San Francisco, CA
Pierre C Belarge said:
I think those numbers are relative to the differences in the size of each country.
Click to expand...
And in one way to population density - and in another with proximity to the coasts... And in another with winter weather like heavy snow and ice storms - that the other two experiance much less of....

Otherwise the numbers mean nothing.... :D

As for the OP - is it just your house that the power goes out in??? And the hot tub is normal - just getting it clean and back to tempature...
 
P

Power Tech

Senior Member
Location
Lebec, California
tomw1147 said:
Okay, here it goes. I get surges, or brown outs. The electric goes off for no apparent reason. I have witnessed this since I have moved in, but thought it was due to the construction. Now, they are not building, and I still get them however, now when the electric goes off, my jacuzzi motor turns on for no reason. The switch is not activated and I am concerned that this will happen when I am away and cause more damage. So , I called electric co.and they came out and said everything is fine outside that it must be something in the house that is causing a short or something... It happened one night at 3am. I sleep with a fan on and the lack of breeze hitting my face made me wake up. The clocks were off, the micro had to be reset as did the stove, and the other micro. and the jacuzzi motor was running. That motor running has occurred twice. I moved into this new house June of 2007.
So, what do you think this could be?
Thanks for your input.
Click to expand...

When the spa tub comes on does the toilet flush.
 
P

Power Tech

Senior Member
Location
Lebec, California
e57 said:
And in one way to population density - and in another with proximity to the coasts... And in another with winter weather like heavy snow and ice storms - that the other two experiance much less of....

Otherwise the numbers mean nothing.... :D

As for the OP - is it just your house that the power goes out in??? And the hot tub is normal - just getting it clean and back to tempature...
Click to expand...

The power has went off here over 60 times this year. And PG&E has gotten better, they continue to be:
"THE WORST POWER COMPANY IN THE COUNTRY!" Sorry, I'm waiting for a T man to give me swing and a meter set.

I had a call where the power company came out and said everything was good on there end. A common pole with 4 houses connected. I went up on the roof, checked the lines coming in and 1 leg was dead. Shook the lines and up on the pole you could see arcing. Now I am doing PG&E's troubleshooting.

Question: Are you loosing all power or just one phase?
 
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