Wiring Simplified

[JC]

I guess it's not simplified enough for me. Would someone please read "Testing for Continuity" on page 127 of the 42nd Edition of "Wiring Simplified" and tell me if that's correct. I'm not really sure that I want to jump two incoming hot wires to an incoming neutral. I'm thinking it would be extremely "temporary".

I have narrowed my electrical problem down to an open neutral, but it only occurs at certain times and then goes back to normal. There is no rhythm to it, it's different times of day and for different lengths of time. And I've checked every appliance and have even had them all disconnected overnight to see if their coming on and going off might have something to do with it. The only thing I have not disconnected is the water well and I'm going to replace the regulator on that Friday just because the current one is 5 years old.

Tks

JC

[RBM]

Your open neutral can be in a splice in an overhead service, and occur sometimes when wind blows, or if it's more localized, it could be a loose connection in the panel or a poorly backstabbed outlet. Normal vibrations in a house can cause it to make and break at random times

[alarman]

Turn off the power.

[hallerb]

call power company, they may be at fault, and at minimum should take a look.

open neutrals can be dangerous

[Larry Fishel]

[metspitzer]

As some have already suggested, if you truly have an open neutral, the most likely place is the service.

Call the power company and they will send someone out to check for free.

Plan to open your panel and tighten your service connections while the power is off. You can borrow the service guys, Allen wrench if you don't have one. A half inch is not part of a typical set.

[Boden]

The power company will appear fast for an open neutral.

Last year an elderly widow happened to mention to me in passing that she had bought three refrigerators in the past year because they "burned out." I knew her home, circa 1850, and immediately called the volunteer fire chief since he is also an electrician and he went right over. She had an intermittently open neutral. When the neutral opened, and if there were other significant loads across the other phase the refrigerator was placed across close to 240 volts. The control circuitry (these three refrigerators were SubZero) then "burned out." To her, money is not an issue so she was sold three replacements by a stupid or corrupt appliance store.

Don't fool with an open neutral...they can be dangerous and very expensive.

Boden

[JC]

Not ours. They are way behind schedule due to Hurricane Ike.

I found what apparently was causing the problem. I had a loose connection in the box, neutral too, that I had somehow missed the last time I tightened them all up. So, I locked that sucker down. After that I decided to do a continuity check and discovered that a ground, the bare copper wire, was not continuous (sic???) so I started with the lights. I found where one of the connections (old house where they just twisted them together) had come loose. I repaired that and sewed everything up and (knocking on wood extremely vigorously) so far, so good. No flickering lights, no powere draw downs and life seems good.

Thanks for your response.

JC

PS: Sorry I didn't get to ya sooner but it appears my isp did something and sent out a message that we should reset the ngs and I just got around to doing that, so didn't see any responses to my post.