Frequent computer & bulb blow-outs in new home: electrician stumped

** You may need to call out an Electrical Engineer - look on up in the commercial phone book.

He would likely fit a voltage monitoring device to your house's power system. There are a number of nasty problems that can cause the AC voltage to rise beyond the normal tolerances at various times.

Also, get yourself a digital multimeter and do your own voltage checks on a continuous basis.

BTW

See the title of this NG ?

Says "electronics" - not "electricity ".

....... Phil

You've clearly got *SOMETHING* surging somewhere. The problem is isolating the "where", since it sounds fairly obvious that nothing has manifested while the pro was there to look at it (I HATE those kinds of problems... and who doesn't?)

You might need to set up a recording voltmeter to see what the line looks like over an extended period.

Meanwhile, I think I'd not be leaving anything powered on/plugged in when not *DIRECTLY* in use...

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Hi, Tim. All of this sounds like you've got electrical wiring problems in your new home, for sure.

First off, your issues with the computer electronics might indicate grounding opens or intermittents, and possibly line/neutral reversal. If you've got one of those plug-in outlet checkers, you could do worse than just seeing what that has to tell you. Wiggle it around a little when it's plugged in, just for yuks. You should also look at the cold water grounding connection at the box.

On the light bulb side, you're possibly looking at inbalanced loading of the two phases coming off the pole transformer. This imbalance can result in voltage on one phase jumping way up as the other phase bogs down. This can easily fry your light bulbs. And if you're sharing a transformer with neighbors, that could make the problem worse. Your load and theirs should be balanced on the phases.

Now if you have a DVM that can safely measure line voltage, you should attach it to an outlet, and see what happens when you start turning on and off the high current loads in the house together (fridge, washer/dryer, A/C, &c). Also, you might just want to watch it for a while if you and your neighbors share the transformer. It sounds like there might be issues there -- also, your neighbors may be having the same problem. Ask around.

Surge protectors don't protect against plain old high line voltage, anyway. They're made for spikes which far exceed the peak line voltage.

Botched wiring jobs do happen, particularly in areas of the country where enforcement of electrical licensing for subcontractors is somewhat lax, or where the housing bubble has the builders scrambling to keep up. Electrician's assistants can be miserably trained sometimes. The contractor might also be politically connected -- that's the way things work these days. A few campaign contributions, and all of a sudden the inspectors get very friendly.

On the more positive side, if this is a new house, and the contractor's electrician did something wrong, you should at a minimum be compensated by the immediate repair of the defective wiring, and possibly receive some compensation for equipment damaged as a result of those mistakes (save your receipts).

Even if you're relatively savvy about electrical wiring, you should have an independent electrician (not the contractor's or developer's) take an independent look at your wiring as soon as possible, and evaluate it for mistakes. After you've documented any problems, you can talk to the developer or contractor with some hope of getting immediate action.

And focus on getting the problems remediated, instead of going through the dance in court. Contractor lawsuits take years to resolve, and it won't get you that much more than you would have gotten just by getting the contractor to cooperate. You'll have a hard time proving the expensive computer stuff was smoked by these problems. Also, your description of your issues is troubling -- you really should get it taken care of right away.

Good luck Chris

Note that our power company had a special monitor they put between our meter and the box, to monitor for fluctuations and such over time. Yours might have something similar.

snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net wrote: (snip)

I would be suspicious of the continuity of the neutral connection between the pole transformer and the house. If this conductor momentarily opens, the 240 volts is divided into two parts by the loads in series on the two halves of the circuit. One half will momentarily droop mad the other half will rise, unless the two sides are loaded identically. The situation may occur for fractions of a second, and only at certain times of the day, possibly depending on temperature. Most surge suppressors do not activate enough to do anything useful till the line voltage is almost double normal. But a several second overload of 30% may simple overheat them.

You may want to have an engineer hook a Dranetz line monitor to your power panel, to record any excursions outside normal limits. Something like that may be the only way to collect evidence of what is actually happening.

Another trick that might give you a lead is to walk around the house and between the power pole, service entrance and house, with a pocket AM radio, tuned between stations at the low end of the band. Listen for bursts of static with a 120 hertz buzz that are generated whenever any line conductor has a sustained arc. The problem may be generating RFI, even when it is not causing other symptoms.

FLOATING NEUTRAL ????

I am surprised that these "three local guys" didn't all say in a chorus "Check for a floating neutral" or are you running Aluminum Wire. The main problem with aluminum wire is a tendency for connections to loosen from thermal cycling over time (5 years ?). Even all Copper systems can occasionally have a loose Neutral wire. With a "floating Neutral" , you can have almost as much as 220 Volts AC occaisonaly appear on a normal 110 Volt outlet.

The problem here is, unless you are looking specifically for this condition the symptoms you are trying to describe are INTERMITTANT and will not show up on a random measurement of Line Voltage

You don't mention lights, dimming or flaring (just burning-out too often) as thermostated or timered loads such as washing machines or air-conditioners cycle on and off, or Toasters or Microwave Ovens. It will appears odd that heavy 220 Volt appliances such as Stoves and Clothes Dryers will not cause problems because they are wired such as to not require the Neutral return.

Yukio YANO

snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net wrote in news:1147404102.133325.29820 @y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

Something like thas was happening in my parents home. Turned out to be an intermittent neutral connection at the power pole. When it opened (wind related), the voltage on the two 110v halves of the 220v feed would go up or down depending on the load on each circuit. In affect, the two circuits were temporarily wired in series as a voltage divider. Dad happened to spot the arcing at the pole during a storm. The electrician tightened the connecton, and no more blown bulbs.

Makes perfect sense. What puzzles me is that apparently no-one has noticed the light level from incandescent lamps fluctuating under these conditions.

Graham

Thanks for all the advice. Very helpful. I didn't mention it but we do frequently have lights momentarily dimming in the house when it is windy or raining. No lights flaring that I've noticed. Our previous house did this as well so I didn't think it was unusual.

I called the our power company (PECO) and they were very accommodating. They're sending out someone today to set up a line monitor. I'm going to call another electrician in today as well to take a look. It sounds like maybe the first one was a dud. At a minimum I now have a much better list of questions to ask a second electrician.

Thanks for all the advice I (and my computers) appreciate it. Tim

Pooh Bear wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com:

Graham,

As I remember they just would see the bulb flash and go out, like you normally see a buld burn out. Because of the wiring there, only two rooms were affected. and they didn't always blow bulbs at the same time. This was a 100 year old farm house and the wiring wasn't up to today,s codes.

Several years ago I lived in a neighborhood with one of the first underground power transmission systems installed in the USA. Some problems occurred. Once one leg of the 220 coming into the house fluctuated wildly. I called Puget Power and they said I must be wrong, that it was my house wiring. I insisted that it was bad power and they relented and put a recording device on the incoming power. Sure enough I was right and it ended up that the insulation had been leaking around one of the wires in the transformer enclosure. Puget Power was skeptical about the bad power because none of the other three homes connected to this transformer had complained. But when they were fixing the problem a woman came out and asked what was going on. When told she said: "So that's why the lights have bee flickering!". ERS

As JP mentioned, a bad neutral connection can be really nasty. In my old house, we had an intermittent neutral on a power pole across the street, and one AC phase would occasionally measure as high as 145.

John

Hi all,

Some of my electronic equipment was damaged by what was previously an unknown cause. Also, lights flickered intermittently in the house quite often. I asked my roommate about it and she said there is a temporary power connection at the weatherhead. She said that the homeowner has a electrical contractors license and hooked up the power after adding onto the house. I called PG+E to look at it. They said it was the worst they had ever seen. The neutral was poorly connected. They fixed it and submitted a ticket for a new service install, even though they said the homeowner is normally required to submit a ticket and pay the cost of the service. The PG+E tech went the extra mile. So, my question is this: Is the homeowner responsible for the damage caused to my property? And, what if other electronic equipment suffered damage that is not yet apparent but may show up in the future? I want to be diplomatic about this because I like my living situation. Does anyone have any wisdom on this issue? Thanks.

-Jeremy

John Lark>