Power surges

Hello. It's possible I can't give enough information here for a diffinitive answer, but I'm asking anyway. My lights and other electrical appliances have recently been experiencing surges of power; lights go brighter, refridgerator goes louder, etc. I'm afraid this is going to damage something, or cause a fire. I've called the power company and their annoying automated messages state that flickering lights (etc) are usually caused by interier wiring, yet others I've spoken to say that nothing can cause EXTRA power to be supplied to the affected appliances, diminished yes, extra (surges) no. It also doesn't effect one or two circuits, either, but pretty much the whole house. Should I contact an electrician, or have the power company come out and inspect? They say they'll charge me $80 for the visit if the problem isn't in their wiring, and they might not be able to resolve it for that price.

Reply to
Cheryl
Loading thread data ...

I have no difinitive answers, and am not an electrician by any means, however many years back I had an experience that also made no sense like getting power to circuits that were clearly turned off. The problem in our case was a new concrete footing settled onto the power line coming into the house and caused a short between the different phases of the line. So turning on a switch on one circuit caused appliances in another circuit to turn on!

Another possibility is that your appliances are actually continually running at low power and the "surges" you are experiencing are actually the appliances returning to normal.

As for how to decide if you want the power company to comeout or an electrician, check your neighbors and see if they are having the same problem. If they are all having the same problem, have the power company come out. If it is just your house (and there is no obvious damage to the wiring just outside your house) and electrician is probably the right answer.

RBV

Reply to
RBV

In the fine newsgroup "alt.home.repair", RBV artfully composed this message within on 02 Jun 2004:

Thank you. I'll check with the neighbors as you suggest. Yours sounds like a strange problem! Glad you got it worked out. If I may ask, who ended up being at "fault" for that and had to pay? I can sort of see it going either way, unless the wiring wasn't marked properly when the new footing was put in, or something. Even then... hhmmm...

Ya know, I thought this a few times. If this is the case, I like it better when the "surge" occurs. My kitchen has better lighting during those. Tonight is really bad which is prompting my query. It doesn't happen like this often which could possibly make it harder to diagnose? Tonight is making me want to turn off all electrical appliances.

Reply to
Cheryl

this isnt entirely true. although the types of things that need to happen to cause this situation are rare, they do exist.

it seems to me the first thing to do is talk with the neighbors. take a look at the wire where it connects up on the pole and find the people connected to the same line as you, as close to you as possible. if you're the only one, its probably your wiring. probably somewhere between the panel in the house and the line coming into the house.

randy

Reply to
xrongor

In the fine newsgroup "alt.home.repair", "xrongor" artfully composed this message within on 02 Jun 2004:

Thank you. I'll do this!

Reply to
Cheryl

Don't discount the power company either. We found, in our area, that we were experiencing "meter jumping" which was power surges that made the meters spin like a whirling dervish for a few seconds!! Sure, it made for some higher power bills too.

Come to find out, the power company will "surge" the lines as those quick surges will help burn off small branches that may be laying across wires. It's a dirty trick, but they do it.

Reply to
Lost-In-Translation

I think the power company said something like "The footing should not have been put here... " but paid for a new line anyway.

RBV

Reply to
RBV

You probably have a bad connection somewhere, most likely at the mains breaker panel.....

Feel the breaker switches for heat, could be one of the breakers is going bad and will melt down pretty soon ....

Have someone who knows what they are doing come look at it, poke around, jiggle wires and that sort of thing--a liscensed electrician would be a good person to do this....

There will likely be some heat and probably a discolored terminal from that heat wherever the problem is at.

Oh, and dont mess around waiting, the condition is dangerous as it is, and certainly isnt gonna improve with time.

Reply to
PrecisionMachinisT

Hi, May smell too around where the trouble is if there is one. Tony

Reply to
Tony Hwang

Sounds like an urban legend to me. Power surges will stress the line itself; at the right level it will heat up and stretch. A stretched power line is more dangerous.

Reply to
Dan Hartung

Its complete and utter nonsense--the first clue is to consider what kind of switchgear would need to be intalled on the utilities lines in order to accomplish such a thing......

Reply to
PrecisionMachinisT

I don't think it is a legend, that means several people believe it and nobody that knows anything about utilities would believe this. Any power company that did this would quickly go out of business from lawsuits.

Reply to
George E. Cawthon

Hi, I am just smiling. Over the years(~30 years or so) I have seen many sags but surge? Very seldom. I used to monitor power line a lot with monitor. Tony

Reply to
Tony Hwang

I really wish it were, but in South Florida, where FPL has a monopolistic choke hold on millions of customers - it's exactly what they do and they admitted it on a local news story as a "necessary maintenance proceedure" and that the "average" customer would only experience "pennies" added to their power bills to accomplish this. They just didn't say how many "pennies" over time, 5? 10? 100? 1,000,000,000? Who knows.

I've actually seen branches laying across utility lines in my neighborhood area, many lay they for a very long time then, for some reason, they start to burn and break off.

Reply to
Lost-In-Translation

We had to replace several small things like DVDs and VCRs after one particular very brief (like momentary) power outage and the subsequent surge. I am in FL where this happens often. Now all my small stuff and computers are on surge suppressers. I checked with power company and they recommend whole house surge suppressers and they will install - but the costs is very high.

One of my neighbors is an electrician for county and he said he has a whole house ss but had someone (private co) install it and it was cheaper.

It is a neighborhood problem around here.

Dorothy

Reply to
Dorot29701

Cheryl, I have a few questions. How old is your home? Is the electrical service underground or overhead? Can you correlate the flickering lights with thunderstorms and lightning somewhere in your area? Do any of your neighbors have the same experiences? What sort of major electric appliances do you have (Air conditioning, stove, water heater, etc.)? Do you have an emergency generator connected to your home? Did you make any changes to your home or install anything prior to the beginning of the flickering problem? Do you have a battery back up system for your home computer? Do you have a large copy machine or printer that is left on most of the time? How close is your home to the power company's nearest substation? Has there been any major construction in your area recently such as the opening of a new office building, shopping center, or housing development?

The power company has instruments that can monitor the power coming into your home. You can try and demand that they set something up at your location. Otherwise, contact an electrician who can rent the instruments and connect it to your service. That might provide you with tangible evidence as to the cause.

John Grabowski

formatting link

Reply to
John Grabowski

John Grabowski comes up with the most sensible solution:

There were problems at my house some time ago. Power company hooked up a recording voltmeter to the line and confirmed voltage spikes. After a lot of activity at the local substation, the problem was resolved, apparently a near to failure step down transformer. In resolving your situation, be sure to consider the possibility of inadequate grounding. If you install a surge suppressor this will a vital part of the system Cheers.

Joe

Reply to
Joe Bobst

Have you ever noticed in FL that right after major surge "problems" seem to damage all kinds of items in your home . . . next thing you know within a few days you are getting a mailing from FPL offering to sell you their "surge protection" insurance?

It's just an oddity that every time we have those problems around here, those mailers show up. But, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the power monopoly.

Reply to
Lost-In-Translation

How frequent are the surges? 1 per day or much more than that? Do the surges always come on at the same time, or at "rounded" times such as 9:00 PM, 10:30 PM, 11:45PM?

I had a friend who back in 1993 was running a small ISP from his basement. He said that every night at exactly 10:15 PM there was a power surge or sag or something that would screw up a couple of his modems, which he then had to reset. They had called the utility company who explained to them that at this specific time they did something to the power supply (can't remember what, but something like reduce the power generation of one of their power plants) for the night because the overall demand for power would always drop after

10:00 PM. Why was this only affecting him (i.e. why wasn't everybody with a modem at home getting screwed up?) I'm not sure, but perhaps because he was using up a lot more power than the average person (regular appliances + 4 servers, 4 monitors, 60 modems) that his house was more "sensitive" to fluctuations in power.
Reply to
Jonny R

What you describe is caused by a bad neutral circuit. It is probably the power company's fault, though if your aluminum lead-in wire was not installed properly the fault may be yours. It is a VERY dangerous condition. The neutral is bonded to the ground in your breaker box, so every ground circuit in your house may be carrying a lethal voltage.

If you are not able to troubleshoot this yourself, CALL AN ELECTRICIAN IMMEDIATELY! I would also be smoking the power company's lines about the stupid pencil pusher who couldn't tell there was a dangerous condition at your location. They should have had a crew on your doorstep within 2 hours.

Reply to
Larry Caldwell

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.