House power issues

I think my house is electrically haunted. I go through light bulbs like crazy. And not just one particular light but all over the house. Our microwave has been acting real crazy lately and the oven is sometimes way to how and sometimes not hot enough. I had to put a thermometer in the oven just to see the actual temperature.

So is there some way I can monitor the power quality in my house?

Call your power company and have them check the neutral in the (triplex) coming into your weather head from the pole. At the house and transformer. A loose neutral will cause one leg to go high and the other low.

IDT-572 wrote:Call your power company and have them check the neutral in the (triplex) coming into your weather head from the pole. At the house and transformer. A loose neutral will cause one leg to go high and the other low.

x2 on that I had that haapen one time got my pc, new stove, and freezer insurance company said the light company would have to pay for them becuase the in coming power belongs to them until it go through the meter.insurance wouldn't pay and could not get the power company to pay with out going to court.Didn't fight with the power company to much they can make it hard on you if they want if you try to carry them to court so I caulked it up as a lost.

x3 on loose neutral, if the wind has been kicking up, that is prolly what it is, also have someone check the neutral in the box.

House wiring can do some crazy siht sometimes.

A while back I had a wire (don't remember if it was the neutral or ground) come loose from neutral/ground strips in the breaker box. All the appliances on that circuit loop still worked as they normally did. But unnoticed was the fact that one wall outlet's Belkin surge protector "grounded" light was no longer lit up as it normally was.

There was no telling how long this wire had been loose in the breaker box. The only reason I finally found (or even knew of) the problem was one day I was turning down the water heater's thermostat & got shocked when I grabbed a copper water pipe. I knew right then something had to be wrong for that much power to be using the plumbing as the path back to earth vs the wiring path.

I found the loose wire & put it back in the strip & problem solved.......but to this day I am still kinda gun shy of grabbing any copper water pipes.

All our power is under ground but I will check my panel and call them about the outside connections. I have done lots of wiring in the past and have no problems getting in there if I know what to look for.

Check the neutral on the pole where it connects to the wire coming down the pole, prolly a loose connection, I would almost bet it is outside.

its funny this came up! I was dealing with the lights flickering for the past 2 days! Well tonight it got pretty bad. I got out the tools and opened up the panel box. I tested the line voltage..good 240 across the phases and 120 to 121 to ground/neutral
Right side of panel I was getting 120 on A phase and 118 on B phase..every other breaker. The left side I was getting 119 and 117 respectively. So I checked for lose terminations on the breakers and on the neutral and ground bars. even checked the terminations at the main breaker ( I am an Electrician of 21 years) don't try this at home..get a qualified person to check the main lugs/ breaker. Well the only thing i found was the ground to the ground rod outside was a little loose. Tightened it and everything is 100%

I seen where someone in one of the above posts said his was grounded to the water pipes, the shock he got was the reason our state code won't let us ground to water pipes any more, has to be a driven ground rod, if it is under ground has to be a fourth wire ran back to the transformer to the ground for bleed off.

'65 T-BOLT wrote:its funny this came up! I was dealing with the lights flickering for the past 2 days! Well tonight it got pretty bad. I got out the tools and opened up the panel box. I tested the line voltage..good 240 across the phases and 120 to 121 to ground/neutral
Right side of panel I was getting 120 on A phase and 118 on B phase..every other breaker. The left side I was getting 119 and 117 respectively. So I checked for lose terminations on the breakers and on the neutral and ground bars. even checked the terminations at the main breaker ( I am an Electrician of 21 years) don't try this at home..get a qualified person to check the main lugs/ breaker. Well the only thing i found was the ground to the ground rod outside was a little loose. Tightened it and everything is 100%

That is a perfect example of having to trace ground problems I tried to portray in the thread about battery cable grounds. Electronic equipment might work but as that voltage floats around they will act inconsistent and do random things making you want to pull your hair out.

'65 T-BOLT wrote:its funny this came up! I was dealing with the lights flickering for the past 2 days! Well tonight it got pretty bad. I got out the tools and opened up the panel box. I tested the line voltage..good 240 across the phases and 120 to 121 to ground/neutral
Right side of panel I was getting 120 on A phase and 118 on B phase..every other breaker. The left side I was getting 119 and 117 respectively. So I checked for lose terminations on the breakers and on the neutral and ground bars. even checked the terminations at the main breaker ( I am an Electrician of 21 years) don't try this at home..get a qualified person to check the main lugs/ breaker. Well the only thing i found was the ground to the ground rod outside was a little loose. Tightened it and everything is 100%

You still have a problem, as the main line neutral should have still carried the return current, it sounds like it relying on just your ground rod to get to earth instead of the system neutral.