when it rains
- Thread starter Dolfan
- Start date
- Status
Sounds like a classic loose or lost neutral problem. It could be the POCO serve into the house or it could be as they say and be on the user side of the service entrance.
Roger
Rewire
Senior Member
- Location
- Lake of the Ozarks
you need to coordinate with the poco to disconnect the feed from the transformer and then you can meg the underground feeder you are probably going to find an issue with the neutral. We had this same problem we ended up digging up the feed from the transformer the original installer had 30 ft of pipe with the bell ends on the left and 40 ft with them on the right and when they metin the middle he did not use a coupling so when the pipe settled it cut into the neutral which oxidized and was almost completly cut.
Dolfan
Senior Member
I got 121 on each leg steady on the bright sunny morning that I was there. I tightened all lugs and screws in panel and replaced the outlet behind the refridgerator. He told me when it rained the next day the problem came back in the garage where a fan was pluged in. He took a reading and got 101 volts. After the rain stopped and an hour or so passed, the voltage went back to normal. Beats the hell out of me.
John120/240
Senior Member
- Location
- Olathe, Kansas
Sounds like the wet weather is part of the problem. Try to duplicate the conditions. Get out
the garden hose & soak the gass.
the garden hose & soak the gass.
ptonsparky
Tom
- Occupation
- EC - retired
What is the voltage doing on the other hot when the one drops low? That will tell you if the problem is with the grounded/neutral conductor.
Are you checking the voltage under load? Check both sides under load, preferably at the main to see which side of the main the problem is located. If one side goes down and the other side stays steady, the hot leg is bad. If the voltage on one side goes down and the other leg goes up, the neutral is bad.
From there you need to isolate the problem. If you check it at the main, you know whether it is "in" the house, or "outside" the house. Even better is to check it at the meter base if possible. That way you can tell the POCO you know it is on their side, or you know it is on the customer side.
From there you need to isolate the problem. If you check it at the main, you know whether it is "in" the house, or "outside" the house. Even better is to check it at the meter base if possible. That way you can tell the POCO you know it is on their side, or you know it is on the customer side.
- Location
- Simi Valley, CA
I would agree that the problem is the under ground feeders. We had a mobile home park here where, whenever it rained, the power would go out on one line or another, we would by pass it as a temp and then go back with a fault detector and find it the next day.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
Not only should it be checked under load, check it with above normal loading, kind of a stress test for weak connections. Put some heavy resistance heating load on it, if there is a weak connection it will show itself under these conditions. Make sure to also apply unbalanced load to catch problems in the neutral. Neutral problems will not be obvious when neutral is balanced or near balanced.
If neutral is bad underground I find it a little hard to believe that problem will only show up when it rains, if anything in that situation the conductivity of the (bad) neutral probably improves some when soil contains more moisture. But it also takes a lot of moisture to effect a conductor buried at proper depth also unless maybe in a situation where there is standing water for some reason.
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