3-wire, 220v Electric Service with no Neutral Wire - How??

May 21, 2005 4 Replies
A

Was talking to one of the guys at my office who lives in the sticks. He said when they put in the electric to his place they told him to use 4 inch conduit because they needed to run 6 wires. Most houses only have 3 wires run to their meter, two black/hot wires and one white/neutral wire and that gives them 220 volt service. But the electric company told him the service in his area had no neutral so they had to run three wires into his meter and circuit box AND three wires back out. All the wires go to a transformer on a pole that's then connected to the hi-tension system. It's not a three phase system according to him.



So what's going on with this 3 in and 3 out? Why the 3 wires back out?


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S

Coming in two are hot and one is the ground. The Neutral is bonded to the ground at the main panel or main breaker. They must be running two wires in parallel for each conductor to reduce the wire size. I normally only see that in a very large service. I am not an electrician, only an HVAC contractor, but I have seen that done in large buildings.

Stretch

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R

Stretch has it pretty much correct, on a large ampacity service you can run real big wires or parallel wires larger than 1/0 which can be easier to pull. If it is a single phase 120-240 volt service two sets of wires would be hots for your 240 and the third set, which may be slightly smaller is the neutral, which is grounded by the utility company at the pole and by the electrician at his house. I think your friend just misunderstood

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A

It's just a house with a 200 or maybe 250 amp main service. They ran the line 150 feet in the conduit. Would that be enough of a run to need the extra wire??

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