I do have a mains recorder, and yes I have had to use to get the REC stop supply me with 258 volts at times. I would suggest the OP takes a look at
Pah - baby stuff! I'm involved somehow with a preserved railway where the 'mains' voltage in the workshop is often up to 260+ on each phase.
The supply is from our own on-site transformer, so we can't really blame the 'leccy board, although the regulation of their supply isn't good at all.
Even high-power stuff using current transformers, AIR, still relies on a voltage feed to the meter/s.
D'you know, I've spent the last hour (sad - yes) searching the net for dodgy hacker wiring circuits for florescent lighting - I can't recall the exact details of that (does anyone wanna visit HMP?) but if you have mostly inductive loads, or the power circuits in some older TV sets, the power demand comprises of
- 1. energy used to work the item
- 2. energy wasted in rective (inductive / capacitive) storage.
Your electricity meter bills you only for the first. The second is delivered (at great expense) to your premises - you do nothing with it and send it back (via neutral) to the electric company. Now if you had some way of using the energy in 2 but kept it reactive .....
(the above may need correction)
-- convict #43434432 cell 7 'the clink'
Not really, as you're charged for the watts. They are sneaking more watts in. Bad for light blubs. My last house (near sub station) ate more in a year than elsewhere in the rest of my lifetime (so far).
We had meters at work reading KVAH, KVARH amd KWH. The billing could be on KVAH or KWH depending on what had been negotiated. A penalty was often imposed based on maximum demand in KVA.
We are 40 yards from a sub station & get through light bulbs at a rate of knots. Voltage regularly 252 ish,
Indeed. Not something I'd really want to try!
Also, to add to the list of things which have broken in this house - a small table lamp, which was only a few months old. The fuse (3A) had blown. I don't think I've ever ever had a small appliance like that break the fuse... (but bearing what someone else said about CHinese imported rubbish...!)
Notoriously unreliable and not worth a carrot IME - a colleage fits voltage recorders for a living.
I'll try that and get back to you if necessary, thank you!
The usual problem (if you can call it that) is that reactive loads don't generally dissipate energy - they just store it and give it back later.
Analogy:
You are riding a bike. The work you do pushing the pedals will accelerate you, overcome friction and wind resistance etc. The faster you pedal the less time you take to expend a given amount of work, and the more power you output. Now say someone comes along and fixes a large spring to the top of the seat post and one pedal. So that when you push down on that pedal you have to not only do the work overcoming losses making the bike go, you now have to stretch that spring as well. The extra effort involved is like the reactive current - it takes extra push from you to provide it, however when you push on the other pedal the spring is now working in your favour and you get the energy back. So the actual work you need to do is the same, and the power output is unchanged, however you have made the job of riding the bike somewhat harder.
We used to have a similar, though not as bad, problem round here. The leccy board admitted to a friend that the supply wasn't great, but was within limits. (I don't have the details now of what it was, I think it was under voltage)
Eventually something[1] went pop near the sub-station, and after that was replaced there were no problems at all.
Steve
[1] Large sausage shaped object, about 1.5 meters long, about 30cm diameter, wires at both ends
Sounds like an 11kV joint.
Sorry - I meant 33kV :-)
tony sayer explained :
Poor connections on either AC or DC are known to reduce lamp life due to the flicker caused by the poor connection. There is a variation in brightness, due to the variation in voltage across the lamp, which causes the lamps filament to suffer rapid heating and cooling - hence a much reduced life.
In article , Frank Erskine scribeth thus
What R U smokin man;?....
Can I get a better picture of the situation:
Are you in a suburban area, surrounded by lots of other homes? Do any of them have problems? Or are you in either a very rural area (possibly power supplied to just your home and surrounding farms), or perhaps very close to some sort of industrial location?
Does the installation in your house look modern (switch resetable circuit breakers) or older (rewirable fuses), do the sockets and fittings look old-fashioned?
Is there any obvious odd behaviours, light brighten and dim from time to time, or even have quite sudden dips - or possibly random flickering? Any particular pattern of failure or time of day when bulbs tend to go? Do several go close together, or just random?
Do you have any unusual heavy electrical loads, a welder, something with big electric motors?
Measuring that voltage is about as complicate as replacing a line fuse. Set the function switch to what you want to measure (250 volts AC) and stick its probes into the power receptable. Nothing dangerous about it.
Some numbers. Assume your power is supposed to be 230 volts. What happens when voltage rises to 241? Now your bulbs burn out twice as fast. If voltage is even higher, bulbs start faing exponentially faster.
Measuring with a volt meter is so simple that any electrician, with your problem description, should have immediately measured that line voltage. As demonstrated by numbers, very little voltage variation can cause a massive increas in premature light bulb failure. Therefore that votlage rise is not acceptable.
One finaly note. If you are having excessive voltage, it could also be a precursor to a far more serious human safety problem. You both want and need to have voltage measured - also because it is so easy and not even risky. Risky was installing a power cord on a new appliance. Meters are simple by comparison. But not getting that voltage checked could even be ignoring a human safety threat.
Not quite that straight forward here, we have shuttered power sockets. Hence one needs to first open the shutter by compressing the leaver in the earth pin socket[1] to allow the fist probe into the neutral (left). Once that is in place you can place the live probe in the right hand pin. A simpler way it to test on the end of a kettle style IEC mains lead since this has open contacts.
Its is generally supposed to be 240V. The spec however is harmonised with europe at 230V +10%/-4% so out typical supply voltage will meet the spec.
[1] This applies to most designs of socket, although some require simultaneous pressure on both live and neutral pins to open the shutter.
Yep
Don't know! It's difficult to ask when you never see anybody around. I can ask my neighbours...
There is an industrial estate about 0.5 mile away. There is also the Midland Mainline railway, and a general hospital, all within 0.5 mile, and the town centre within 0.25 miles!
The fuse box is one of these
And the meter (in the outside porch) is one of these
Had a bit of flickering, but not enough to have said it was noteable.
Random.
No.
I don't know if you saw another post of mine which said that since we moved in we also had a TV tube blow (and it was a good quality tv), a washing machine, (tripped the switch in the fusebox every time you tried to start it - has a fuse thingy next to the wall socket for it), and a 3A fused table lamp (only two months old) blew a fuse. I thought this was just bad luck - not so sure now!
It sounds like you may have an unacceptably high supply voltage. You need to get it measured, and possibly recorded for a few days.
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