Posted: 11/11/2014 12:50:59 AM EDT
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Hey all!
I'm the proud owner of a new home (1963 built). I'm not living in it yet, as it has a lot of little things that need to be done before I move in (drywall repair, paint, flooring, etc). I am having some strange electrical issues though. It is worth mentioning that it appears all the wiring (although not all the boxes) has been upgraded to romex style with two wires (hot/neut) and a ground. The panel is a 100amp, general electric, and has single pole "D" style breakers (arc fault interrupters?) except the A/C breaker, which is a double and not apparently my issue. Whenever a load comes on in the house (any load, anywhere) like the furnace, a fan, or even the detached garage's door opener, all the lights in the house dim down. Sometimes they stay dim for the duration of the load, sometimes they return to their normal intensity within a few (5-10) seconds. This was especially noticeable when I had some fans circulating air while I was working. The fans were plugged into outlets that were in different rooms and on different circuits, yet still would both slow down the entire time the furnace ran, or the garage door opener was going up or down.Now the fun: I visually checked the wires in my meter socket and main panel, and don't see any significant corrosion. With the main breaker OFF I get 120v on both my red and black main wires, when checked to the neutral. I get the same measurements at the corresponding bus bars. However, when the main is ON, I get 121 volts on one bar, and 113v on the other. I monitored the voltage on the 113 volt bus, and found significant changes with four different breakers. They are not next to each other, and three are in one column while one is in the other. If I shut all 4 breakers "off" I get 120 volts on each bus bar to the neutral with the main "ON" If I turn on the 15 amp "Furnace" breaker (which appears to run only the furnace - I didn't find any splices or junctions) the voltage on that bar goes to 130 - 137! (yes, 137) If all four suspect breakers are off, and I turn on any one of the remaining three breakers ("Kitchen 1 of 3", "Living / dining", "Master bed and bath") the voltage drops to about 113-114. WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT As always, your help is greatly appreciated. |
| A few quick questions. What is the age of the breaker load center? Is it original or did someone upgrade it at some point after the home was built prior to 1963? If they did upgrade did they have the utility company pull new overhead wire from the poll to the meter base. I know some homes were still only 60 amp true twist fuse service back then. You can call the utility company and they can tell you what amp service your wired for. When you say the wire has been upgraded but not the boxes, are you saying new 12/2 14/2 Romex wire has been installed into the house. However they put them into old outlet / switch boxes installed into the wall, then new outlets and switches hooked onto the new wire? |
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Quoted:
Hey all! I'm the proud owner of a new home (1963 built). I'm not living in it yet, as it has a lot of little things that need to be done before I move in (drywall repair, paint, flooring, etc). I am having some strange electrical issues though. It is worth mentioning that it appears all the wiring (although not all the boxes) has been upgraded to romex style with two wires (hot/neut) and a ground. The panel is a 100amp, general electric, and has single pole "D" style breakers (arc fault interrupters?) except the A/C breaker, which is a double and not apparently my issue. Whenever a load comes on in the house (any load, anywhere) like the furnace, a fan, or even the detached garage's door opener, all the lights in the house dim down. Sometimes they stay dim for the duration of the load, sometimes they return to their normal intensity within a few (5-10) seconds. This was especially noticeable when I had some fans circulating air while I was working. The fans were plugged into outlets that were in different rooms and on different circuits, yet still would both slow down the entire time the furnace ran, or the garage door opener was going up or down.Now the fun: I visually checked the wires in my meter socket and main panel, and don't see any significant corrosion. With the main breaker OFF I get 120v on both my red and black main wires, when checked to the neutral. I get the same measurements at the corresponding bus bars. However, when the main is ON, I get 121 volts on one bar, and 113v on the other. I monitored the voltage on the 113 volt bus, and found significant changes with four different breakers. They are not next to each other, and three are in one column while one is in the other. If I shut all 4 breakers "off" I get 120 volts on each bus bar to the neutral with the main "ON" If I turn on the 15 amp "Furnace" breaker (which appears to run only the furnace - I didn't find any splices or junctions) the voltage on that bar goes to 130 - 137! (yes, 137) If all four suspect breakers are off, and I turn on any one of the remaining three breakers ("Kitchen 1 of 3", "Living / dining", "Master bed and bath") the voltage drops to about 113-114. WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT As always, your help is greatly appreciated. It sounds like you have a loose neutral or a voltage problem from the power company. Call an electrician to come out and inspect and tighten all the lugs in your panel and meter can. If the problem continues call the power company and request that they install a voltage recorder on your meter. This will tell them what the difference in voltage is from the transformer to your house under a load / no load situation. If they find that you have low voltage under a load they will fix the issue if its on their end. |
| The GE box is newer than 85, which is when this model became available. I suspect it was done in 1996, based on other work that was done at that time. You understand correctly about the wiring and outlets/switches. Although some boxes have been replaced. I will be calling DTE on my lunch. |
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Measure the voltage BEFORE the breakers to see where the voltage drop is. Somewhere there is a poor/high resistance connection that is creating the voltage drop under load. If the voltage on the incoming wire, ahead of the main breaker, is changing under load application, the problem belongs to the power company. If not, then it is your problem. Just check the voltage before and after each connection, breaker and terminal. Should be easy to find, MAYBE easy to fix. |
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OK,
So I found and fixed some shoddy work - someone tapped into the furnace circuit to run some lights in the corner, and there was some burning on the wires. I've relocated the junction box, added an additional, and that issue should be fixed. The only other thing on the furnace circuit is the "kill" switch on the furnace itself, which also has an outlet in the same box (currently used for the drain pump). I didn't pull that outlet cover off, I'll do that tomorrow. I also found 2 outlets on separate circuits that had reversed hots / neutrals, as well as many that had bad grounds. I fixed all that. Now, with all breakers "on" I get 126v on the left bus bar, and 121 on the right. My lights or fans still dim down when the furnace comes on, or the garage door opener is used. Tomorrow I will probably run a whole new wire to the furnace without the outlet near the kill switch, just to be sure. There is absolutely no way the circuit could jump voltage unless there is a bad neutral somewhere, right? Thanks for the help so far. Any other suggestions? |
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Quoted:
Measure the voltage BEFORE the breakers to see where the voltage drop is. Somewhere there is a poor/high resistance connection that is creating the voltage drop under load. If the voltage on the incoming wire, ahead of the main breaker, is changing under load application, the problem belongs to the power company. If not, then it is your problem. Just check the voltage before and after each connection, breaker and terminal. Should be easy to find, MAYBE easy to fix. Depends on what state you are in. The meter base is the demarcation in many places. In Virginia the POCO is responsible for everything down to the top of the meter after the initial installation. You own the base and everything after. Some places the POCO owns everything to the main switch (often on the exterior of the house) others just to the weather head splice. A loose hot will cause dimming, a loose neutral causes dimming on one side and brightening on the other (the center point of the 120/240 V moves higher AND lower. Loose neutrals are a real emergency. Shut it all off until repaired or risk burning out 120 V loads. |
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I'm waiting on DTE (my local power company) to come out and look at their stuff. I am unimpressed with how the overhead service is run to my house. The transformer near the corner of my lot looks ancient and is all rusty, they haven't been trimming the trees and one is growing around the pole and through my wires. They are using the guide wire to the weather head as a neutral [is that normal?], and the splice at the house and at the pole for the neutral are both white with corrosion. Plus, the guide cable just wraps around the weather head and is spliced to itself, not held up in any way, and it is clear from marks on the mast that the guide cable/neutral has been dropping down the pole. Probably putting stress on the corroded neutral splice!
Brickeyee, I'd love to shut it "all" off, especially since I'm not actually living in the house yet, but I live in Michigan, and the furnace has gotta run! What I have done is play fun games with my breakers until the load with and without the furnace running is as close to 120 per side as I can get it, in the theory that the more stable it is, the less chance of serious issues. None of my other appliances (other than the well pump) are even plugged in. I don't even have a refrigerator on the premises anyway. I guess I will cross my fingers and hope all is OK until DTE gets out there and looks at it - they gave me a 48 hr window, and have already used a third of it without showing up. If the place burns down, I guess DTE can build me a new one. |
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Well,
Got tired of waiting around and called DTE to ask why they hadn't been out; their customer service rep told me that an electrician HAD been out, at 2:15 am and replaced a wire at the weatherhead. Which is bullshit, because there is NO new wire, and also I was outside cutting the new subfloor for a bathroom at 0200! The rep then said they would send someone right out....and they did! New splice on the neutral to the guide wire, new connectors on the hots, and someone tried (but not too hard) to raise the guide cable back up the weather head. End result is that when a load comes on like it did before...no brown out or power surge! However, my lights do still intermittently flicker. When I measure the panel, I get 119.5vAC on one bus, and 125.5vAC on the other (measured to ground). Is this acceptable? |