Trouble shoot this....

[electricmanscott]

Single family home. Had surge of some kind a few weeks ago, lost a bunch of electronics. Poco out to check things out not sure if they did anything to anything.

Currently 114V on one leg....122V on other leg. When dryer starts 114V leg drops to 96V and 122V leg jumps to 137V. Lights on one leg dim momentarily, lights on other get brighter momentarily.

What do you think?

 

[Pierre C Belarge]

Check for damage to the neutral conductor/terminations...which may have occurred during the surge.

 

[stickboy1375]

Generally a bad neutral is involved with funky voltages as described...

 

[George Stolz]

I'd agree - the dryer's got a neutral load for the motor spinning the drum, so it still jives with the open/resistive neutral theory.

But something tells me there's more to this story, coming from Scott...

 

[kbsparky]

CALL THE POCO BACK! Have them remove the meter, check the neutral connections in the meter box, at the service head, the pole, transformer, etc. If you have underground, then have them check for a bad underground.

This problem will not go away, it will only get worse until you find the loose, or broken wire/connection and repair it.

Assuming you have already checked all the connections at your service panel/load center(s) for integrity .... :roll:

 

[ItsHot]

short?

short?

Also could be a true short to ground.Last time I saw this was in a damaged spot in ground(service-lateral) A fencing contractor had barely nicked insulation with post diggers. Very small but enough to let moisture in and migrate damage to aluminum conductor. Was on POCO'S side they came out and located spot and did repairs.

 

[ptonsparky]

Electric water heater? Blown main fuse.

add: If this is supposed to be a trick question.

 

[cschmid]

last time I seen that it was a damaged service lateral..the aluminum was all corroded it was cool the damage in the insulation was just a little cut and over the course time..they (the POCO ) just spliced in a piece. I actually had one of the guys come out and we worked together and found it..

 

[quogueelectric]

This doesnt make sence

This doesnt make sence

A high load on both legs should not make an open neutral worse. This is suspect in my opinion.

 

[mdshunk]

This is classic for an open or loose service neutral. If you've got that squared away on your end, the POCO didn't do their job.

 

[Watt-Me worry?]

I'm with the open neutral too. Check to see if there's a load on the GEC. I used to see a lot of concentric service drops that squirrels loved to chew on the top so the cable looked great from the bottom.

 

[Timboe]

I had the same problem at a house and the utility company could not find a problem. I checked everything and all was ok. This happened with a washing machine. the problem was the washing machine. I think that a trans voltage was leaking into the neutral. The guy had another machine and when we swithced them the problem was gone. It never came back. Problem solved

 

[kspifldorf]

POCO never insulates the N crimp round here, till it loosens up :-?

 

[electricmanscott]

I suspected neutral trouble. I checked everything on my end of the service. I'll have the owners chase down the poco. Thanks guys.

 

[jbs948]

How old is the wiring in the house? Does it have a 3 or 4 wire branch circuit to the dryer. I've seen similar problems when the bonding strap is not removed inside the dryer.