What voltage do you have at the wall? If you only have 114 or so at the service point (ANSI C84 says 114 - 126 is OK for a nominal 120v service) and you drop another 5% (NEC recommended max) with 108.3 getting to the plug, you could be in trouble losing 2v more. That will be pretty unusual tho. I am seeing 124v in my shop in the back of the house most of the time. I can afford to lose some volts. YMMV on that and a good meter is the only way to know.
If " the neighbours are having the same issues " - what makes you think that you will diagnose the problem by going circuit-by-circuit in her house ? Call the utility., John T.
Likely a wonky neutral somewhere - outside the house is VERY possible.
A 2% difference? Really? And if so, then what about the fact that all circuits have some voltage drop and around 5% total is considered acceptable? That would be one shitty AC and I'll bet that warning not to use extension cords is on most or all of them.
That's not what I'm thinking.
For me it would be an interesting experiment to see what was happening in *her* house. I'm not trying to diagnose a city wide problem. In a house that has had circuits added at various times since the early 1900's, (including by me in 2021) it would be interesting to see if "vintage" played any part in this. Or workmanship. Or the number of devices an a given circuit.
I may do that. I won't assume what they will say but I will guess: Even if they give me a specific answer as to the cause of the city wide brown out, the first level customer service rep won't be able to tell me why some circuits act differently than others. Getting that answer might take more than one phone call and may not come from the utility.
As an example, I'm signed up for text alerts from my utility. (not the same as hers). One of the line items in the alerts is "Cause". I have never seen anything other than "Investigating" - even in the alert telling us that the power has been restored. Either they are really bad at determining root causes or they simply choose not to let us know.
Coincidentally, we were at my daughter's house this weekend, 3 hours away. Saturday afternoon I did some electrical work for her. At 1AM Sunday morning I got an alert that there was an outage at my house. Spooky!
That was my first thought. She recently bought this 1920-ish house (first summer there) and I was concerned that she had electrical issues, specifically the neutral. Either the storm caused it or made it evident.
When she eventually told me that her neighbors on both sides were having the same problems, i was relieved.
If it's overhead distribution circuit, you could try patrolling it back from your < & neighbours > homes. Looking < binoculars > and listening. Sometimes a floater <conductor hanging off the insulator> will behave - until the wind & rain comes. Trees growing up into the wires can also cause problems. Call the utility. John T.
If you are rea;lly curious you can borrow/rent a power line monitor and know what the PoCo is giving you. I have a Dranetz 626 I used at work. It will expose a multitude of problems.
You could start at the service disconnect enclosure with a meter and look at the balance between ungrounded conductors looking for a loose neutral and overall low voltage. The PoCo will usually respond to a bad neutral., Low voltage? probably not if it is over 114-115.
I think that's explained in NEC Article 440.
Wouldn't that test be specific to the house itself? In all 3 cases - 3 storms - it wasn't just her house that was experiencing flickering lights, it was at least the neighbors on both sides (that's the only 2 she spoke to).
Other houses in the general area had no power at all - thousands each time. Each time, as she heard the news that power was restored to the area, her flickering issue went away.
One hint. a regular Walmart window shaker is called "Multimotor and combination-load equipment used in one- and two-family dwellings,"
After a weather event all bets are off. They restore power on a fairly tight priority. Flickering lights doesn't attract that much attention if the guy down the road doesn't have lights and neither does the hospital.
My question was about your suggested loose neutral test, not the restoration sequence.
Would checking the balance between ungrounded conductors at my daughter's house during an event - when multiple houses are experiencing the same flickering issue - tell me anything useful?
The ground rod is not the place to look, but look at the neutral wire connections at the breaker/fuse box and then to the wires going to the transformer that feeds the house.
Right, you could disconnect the ground rod and you should still not have an unbalanced situation.
Either I'm not being clear or I'm not understanding. I'll try again...
This is a very specific situation that happens as follows:
1 - A storm occurs 2 - Multiple houses have flickering light issues 3 - Other houses (thousands) in the same area have no power at all 4 - When power is restored to the area, all flickering issues go awayIt seems that everyone keeps answering as if I am dealing with a single dwelling that has flickering lights all the time. That's not the case. She only has a problem when other houses in the area are having problems.
Does that change your answer at all?
Either I'm not being clear or I'm not understanding. I'll try again...
This is a very specific situation that happens as follows:
1 - A storm occurs 2 - Multiple houses have flickering light issues 3 - Other houses (thousands) in the same area have no power at all 4 - When power is restored to the area, all flickering issues go awayIt seems that everyone keeps answering as if I am dealing with a single dwelling that has flickering lights all the time. That's not the case. She only has a problem when other houses in the area are having problems.
Does that change your answer at all?
I always thought one leg up and one down meant the panties were already removed and she was ready. You're talking about in the back seat, right?
Not unless they were on the same transformer. Each transformer establishes it's own neutral.
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