One side of my breaker panel is hot and the other is dead. What could be a possible cause of this?
- posted
17 years ago
One side of my breaker panel is hot and the other is dead. What could be a possible cause of this?
Hi, First, sounds like one leg of 220V coming in is dead. If you have a meter check it out.
try reseting main breaker, ask neighbors one leg of 120 may be out from things like transformer failure
Or your main breaker is bad, or a wire has come loose. Won't know until you check to see where where you have voltage.
I'd agree with the others, that it sounds like you've 'lost a leg', but...
Do you reall mean "one side" as in "of the two rows of breakers, the one on the left/right works and the other doesn't", or that every other breaker doesn't work?
The latter would be a symptom of losing a leg. The former would be just weird...
-Tim
Lost a leg...... Damn, that sounds painful.
After you get your surgery and an artificial leg, you need to call an electrician. Do not touch anything electrical without a electricians license. Or you will die. You already lost a leg, dont risk the rest of your life.
It's possible. The breaker box I recently replaced (originally from the '60's) had all one leg on the left, the other on the right. It was the responsibility of the user to balance the load.
And how would you get 240v and meet code?
In this instance, the breakers fit across both busses, but there was only one (live) contact on the breaker. For 240, a dual breaker was used with alternating buss-grippers.
What does it mean to "balance the load"?
Should my fridge be on one leg and the furnace on the other?
I have two fridges, should I have them on opposite legs?
I have heard if you consistently run one leg more than the other your bill will be higher because of the effect on the meter. T or F?
False. You're paying for kw/h's and the meter will measure both legs.
-Tim
Ideally you should draw the same on each leg. A balanced system will have greater capacity and less voltage drop. Most 240v devices are self-balanced, and since they are typically your biggest loads, you would probably have to try to be off by enough to matter much.
The panel I have has a special area at the top where the two legs are next to each other, to be used for AC, dryer, range, etc. paired breakers. The rest of the way down it's one leg/side.
It's amazing the things ingenious people can fabricate with metal and insulators. :-)
"Tim Fischer" wrote in news:3Lednb7-V-
7A6YjYnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:
Tim,
In general and practically it is BS for Joe Homeowner.
Now, 30 yrs ago I was chatting with a guy who was the Electrical Engeneering dept head at tech college. This is an old and sketchy memory and not sure what I recall vs think I recall. But I do remember the point of the chat was that you can affect your power bill via capacitance balancing if I recall. But I think the equipment and whatever else needed would be cost more than you could save. More like an amusing hobby. Like some people keep their PC Jr. (with sidecar!) running. May have been something to do with you buy kwh's but on a lower level you buy sine waves. Something about the phase and/or capacitance. Bottom line is it is (was then) possible but not necessairly practical.
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news:1158982106.647048.206330 @k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
Until you find out what's goin on, kill the breakers on everything that uses 220. If it tries to run it could damage it.
Residential users don't generally pay extra for poor power factor (caused by reactive loads), which is likely what you're thinking of.
What is (are?) "it?"
CJT wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@prodigy.net:
Huh? Things that use 220... I'm missing something.
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