Last night several of the lights and outlets went dark in the house. Then it mysteriously came back by itself for a few hours, and now these circuits went out again. All fuses tested ok (unless there is a failed circuit breaker somewhere). One of the dead circuits is an outlet that is right below the main panel (so it's not a fuse or breaker in a remote subpanel). Looking into this further, I tested the voltages going into a subpanel that is right next to the main panel.The difference between the two hot phases going into this subpanel show 110v. Between one of the hot phases and neutral it is 120v. Between the other hot phase and neutral it is only 12v!Last year the electric company came out to fix a broken neutral wire on the telephone pole, and this reminds me of the floating neutral problem I had back then, causing mysterious problems with some of the circuits. Because there is a major difference between the different phases and the neutral, I wonder if I should call out the electric company again, maybe their original repair failed?Or could this be due to a wiring problem inside the house that I should check first? Or perhaps a failed circuit breaker in this subpanel?

Call the Electrc Co now , I would caution against using anythingunless a V meter has pointed to show its ok, I had bad repairs onthe electric co

Floating neutral or wiring problem?

Mar 12, 2009 21 Replies

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Harry L 17 years ago

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To get that to work, you need to learn to pray at precisely 77.7Hz (although some say 66.6Hz works just as well).

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Rudy 17 years ago

My neighbor had that problem in his 20 YO house.. One or more neutrals in his Service box were loose. He "lost" half of the appliances in his home: stove fridge and micro got "cooked". The "fix" was to tighten all the neutrals with a screwdriver

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