Need an electrician and I need one ASAP

[smokin5s]

Can you explain the garage thing a bit more???

 

The wires come out of the meter to a junction box or something????? Then go underground to say a pole building???? To feed a panel out there????

 

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correct, it goes from the meter (pole) to a junction box on the outside of my house, that's where the pole, the house, and the garage all tie together. from there it either goes in the house, or into buried cable that goes out to the pole barn.

[smokin5s]

The state of Ohio has building codes, and AFCI are part of them. Morrow county just has no code beyond state code

on houses built after 2014... my house was built the end of 2010

 

And for the record, I'm not opposed to putting the working ones back in (the 2 that are fried aren't going back in my panel) but this was done as a troubleshooting step.

[SloSVTruck]

correct, it goes from the meter (pole) to a junction box on the outside of my house, that's where the pole, the house, and the garage all tie together. from there it either goes in the house, or into buried cable that goes out to the pole barn.

The meter is mounted on the actual pole and not on your house????

 

Hmmmm so.... aep tested the line to your house only and said that was good....

 

Now it does make sense..... if you could take a picture of the junction box im real curious to see what ut looks like..... there is no breaker in your house to shut the garage off?????

 

If there is no breaker protecting the line going out to the garage then this is more than likely the issue.... something has happened to that wire and is causing all your problems....

 

Pretty sure it should have a disconnect there at the house to be able to shut it down in case of any issues..... if it did you could shut it off and figure out if it was the issue or not very easily.....

 

In order to test it someone will have to pull the AEP meter disconnect power to the house and undo whatever kind of splice they have in that junction box.... then you can run resistance tests on that wire to see if it is ok or not.... or use a megger, unfortunately i dont have a megger but should be able to figure it out with my fluke meter.... or just leave it disconnected rehook the power to the house reinstall the meter and see if you get any more surges.

 

If not you'll have to run new wire to the garage and i would also install a disconnect at that same time.

 

 

 

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[LJ]

on houses built after 2014... my house was built the end of 2010

 

And for the record, I'm not opposed to putting the working ones back in (the 2 that are fried aren't going back in my panel) but this was done as a troubleshooting step.

You cant make changes that take your house below current code, regardless of the age of the house

[smokin5s]

The meter is mounted on the actual pole and not on your house????

 

Hmmmm so.... aep tested the line to your house only and said that was good....

 

Now it does make sense..... if you could take a picture of the junction box im real curious to see what ut looks like..... there is no breaker in your house to shut the garage off?????

 

If there is no breaker protecting the line going out to the garage then this is more than likely the issue.... something has happened to that wire and is causing all your problems....

 

Pretty sure it should have a disconnect there at the house to be able to shut it down in case of any issues..... if it did you could shut it off and figure out if it was the issue or not very easily.....

 

In order to test it someone will have to pull the AEP meter disconnect power to the house and undo whatever kind of splice they have in that junction box.... then you can run resistance tests on that wire to see if it is ok or not.... or use a megger, unfortunately i dont have a megger but should be able to figure it out with my fluke meter.... or just leave it disconnected rehook the power to the house reinstall the meter and see if you get any more surges.

 

If not you'll have to run new wire to the garage and i would also install a disconnect at that same time.

 

 

 

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Yes, meter is on the pole... remember I live in the country... no one has a meter on their house. Consolidated Electric took the meter off, hooked up equipment that tested the transformer, then they put the meter back, had me turn off the breakers at the house and garage and then tested the line again at the box on the side of my house... the tool adds 80 amps per leg to test resistance and load.

 

There is no breaker that shuts my house off except the main breaker at the pole which was by design with my electric company. If I change how the wires are ran, then I will have to go back to my electric company for approval.

 

Do you want a picture of inside the box, or just the box on the side of the house? I really hope that the line isn't bad as it's VERY expensive not only for material, but install costs.

[smokin5s]

You cant make changes that take your house below current code, regardless of the age of the house

electrician can't... I can do whatever I want to my house.

[SloSVTruck]

Yes, meter is on the pole... remember I live in the country... no one has a meter on their house. Consolidated Electric took the meter off, hooked up equipment that tested the transformer, then they put the meter back, had me turn off the breakers at the house and garage and then tested the line again at the box on the side of my house... the tool adds 80 amps per leg to test resistance and load.

 

There is no breaker that shuts my house off except the main breaker at the pole which was by design with my electric company. If I change how the wires are ran, then I will have to go back to my electric company for approval.

 

Do you want a picture of inside the box, or just the box on the side of the house? I really hope that the line isn't bad as it's VERY expensive not only for material, but install costs.

Yea i understand the meter on pole thing thats fine just wasn't sure which way they did it.

 

Hmmmmm so there is a main breaker at the pole?

 

Pics of inside and out would be good but if its to much trouble just the outside is better than nothing.

 

The garage feed, its coming from the junction box at the house? Or at the pole?

 

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[smokin5s]

junction box at the house.

[SloSVTruck]

Ah ok, yea it should definitely have its own breaker..... how far underground does it go from the jbox to the garage???

 

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[LJ]

electrician can't... I can do whatever I want to my house.

 

Your insurance will like that story if your house burns down

[smokin5s]

Ah ok, yea it should definitely have its own breaker..... how far underground does it go from the jbox to the garage???

 

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probably a couple hundred feet I would say. I honestly, can't remember.

[russian rocket]

not an electrician, but took some industrial electrical courses, i recall my instructor telling us about a problem that was somewhat similar to this, dont remember the details 100% but he ended up determining it as a "ground loop" problem. is this something that is possible SloSVTruck?

[SloSVTruck]

not an electrician, but took some industrial electrical courses, i recall my instructor telling us about a problem that was somewhat similar to this, dont remember the details 100% but he ended up determining it as a "ground loop" problem. is this something that is possible SloSVTruck?

Ground loops typically only effect control/low voltage things or electronic devices.

 

Normally on higher voltage things you really cant have too many grounds.... it all goes to the same place.

 

The other thing is that the house has been fine for so many years and now all the sudden the issue has happened, i dont think any of the recent installs would have created a ground loop or caused anything like this to happen.

 

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[smokin5s]

I'm still wondering if the issue surrounds that box and wiring that was replaced on the deck. I don't see how considering we even pulled the breakers and ground / neutral from the box but it all seems fishy to me.

[SloSVTruck]

I'm still wondering if the issue surrounds that box and wiring that was replaced on the deck. I don't see how considering we even pulled the breakers and ground / neutral from the box but it all seems fishy to me.

I thought the same..... being as it was the most recent thing and it seemed to happen right afterwards. But.... if you removed all wires and any connection to it with the main panel then It should have no effect.

 

Thats why i was asking if it was underground maybe he hit the service cable somehow.... but since its all ran through the house that really eliminates that as being an issue.

 

I've done some jobs/service calls before to fix a certain thing then a day or two later get a call saying a whole seperate thing isn't working now..... it had nothing to do with what i did but it sure was a hell of a coincidence that it messed up too. Just crazy timing.

 

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[smokin5s]

The electrician said he thinks that it's the neutral going to the pole from the house. He said the "linemen" don't know what they are talking about. He's going to bring over a neutral wire tomorrow that we can temporarily hook up to see if it fixes things or not.

[SloSVTruck]

The electrician said he thinks that it's the neutral going to the pole from the house. He said the "linemen" don't know what they are talking about. He's going to bring over a neutral wire tomorrow that we can temporarily hook up to see if it fixes things or not.

Sounds like a good plan, hope it works.

 

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[Mensan]

Ground loops typically only effect control/low voltage things or electronic devices.

 

Normally on higher voltage things you really cant have too many grounds.... it all goes to the same place.

 

I disagree. I had a ground loop on industrial equipment where we had 90A going through the (grounded) conduit because the neutral opened. If this was happening, and the path was resistive, it becomes a series resistive circuit that effects the load very much.

[SloSVTruck]

I disagree. I had a ground loop on industrial equipment where we had 90A going through the (grounded) conduit because the neutral opened. If this was happening, and the path was resistive, it becomes a series resistive circuit that effects the load very much.

 

Not exactly the same kind of ground loop im thinking of i guess.... im more thi king of having a ground at one end of a circuit then sending the same ground to the opposite end...

 

Yours is more of a case of just losing the neutral.... and the load then going through the grounded conduit just like you described....

 

Again just not the same sort of ground loop im thinking of...

 

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[smokin5s]

We put a temporary Neutral in today... it's only been in for about 2 hours abut so far, I haven't heard my fan change speeds at all and I have everything turned back on. We will see what the next few days brings. If this fixes it then the next battle will be pricing around for a new junction box and trenching new wire.

[DTA09]

Any updates?

[smokin5s]

Still waiting on it to rain... we've had a little sprinkle but that's about it. Electric has seemed to work fine since running the neutral wire, but without a good rain we don't know if this solves the problem or if there's another issue going on.

[smokin5s]

Electric company came out today and replaced my transformer. Said that the Voltage Recorder showed that I was pulling more power than the transformer could handle. We haven't had an breaker pops or electrical "burn-ups" since putting the neutral wire in, BUT we had had some light "brown out" type of scenarios a few times in the past few days... We also haven't had any rain either though so I'm not really sure if it's the neutral wire or if it's both or what's really going on.

[MattKatz]

Sounds like you have lost a neutral coming into the house to me.

 

post #5.....Just saying.

[smokin5s]

post #5.....Just saying.

it's actually leaning more towards the transformer was overheating... Voltage Recorder was showing that we were pulling significantly more voltage than the 15kw transformer that I had could handle. They installed a new one 25kw transformer yesterday and no more flickering lights. It's supposed to rain pretty good tonight, so I guess we'll see how that turns out... might not want to toot your horn just yet :-)