Flickering lights

[Bro. Noble]

The lights in my son's house have been dimming and flickering on occasoin recently.  Yesterday,  their TV was blinking in sync to their washing machine.Our house is on the same REA line and we've not noticed anything unusual.  Our milkbarn and his house share the same transformer.  Yesterday we were going to try to determine if the blinking was caused by the cooler or motors starting at the barn,  but couldn't get their light to flicker when we wanted them to.  There have never been any tripped breakers.  What do you reckon is going on?

[Larry]

Could be spirits...but I suspect a loose or dirty connection.  Sometimes a voltage surge will burn a connection.  Had any lightening lately?

[pigman]

It could be the cheap Chinese electrons the REA are importing, but I agree with Larry that is more than likely a loose or corroded wire conection.

[Norm]

Check for loose connections from the pole to the breaker box. Also a main breaker that's old will cause this as will moisture in any of these places. Be very careful though, these high amp lines are very unforgiving.

Merry Christmas

[Tom]

Loose lines in the breaker box, especially on Aluminum installations, can cause a lot of "Ghosts".  They can kill you too.

[Jeff]

Yep, I go along with checking the wires where they enter the lugs on the breaker box, but your going to need to have the power shut off to do it properly.  Many years ago we had the same issues, had the power company out repeatedly and nothing could be found. The breaker box at that time was in the garage, what is now part of the house. At that time I also smoked. I discovered the problem myself while out in the garage smoking. It was dark, and I noticed an ark come from the top of the box.  Problem turned out to be copper wire going into aluminum lugs on the box. the lugs had loosened and actually melted. We had to replace the whole service.

[Gary_C]

The other thing to check is the ground or neutral on the house. The lack of a good ground can cause that type of problem on the 120 volt circuits.

Most likely the problem is in the main box since you have it on more than one circuit. If you can, turn the power off outside the house and take a screwdriver or allen wrench and tighten the main lugs in the box. But take a meter and check to see the power is truly off before you check the connections.   

[sawman]

  I concur with the loose connection theory.
It could be at the breaker box or it could be between the transformer and the house. We had this occur several years ago, I checked everything on our side of the meter.  We had a disconnect switch at the meter so I could shut power off going to house.
After checking our side we called the coop and they came out and found a loose connection between the transformer and the meter loop.
  As already been stated, Be Careful when working with electricity.

[beenthere]

IMO, the safest way is to pull the meter out of its socket, and tighten the connections. Plug the meter back in and see if the problem goes away. Give the REA a call tomorrow and tell them the meter was pulled for a few minutes. Last time I did that, took them a couple years to come back and put a seal back on the meter....and then it was only because they changed to a new meter that could be read remotely from their vehicle while driving down the town road.

[Dave Shepard]

If you are on the same transformer as the barn, and you are having problems, you should look into stray voltage. In milder cases, it only affects the cows, in more severe cases, it can affect humans. We had stray voltage and had the house and barn on the same tranfomer, and had a WYE installation. There was nowhere for the ground to get back to the line, and it shocked the he!! out of our cows, among other things. Do your cows have behaviorial problems? Don't like to go in the parlour, or drink while inside the barn? Excessive kicking? If so, your electric company needs to do something about your service. We had a friend in NY that had this problem, and the power company came out that afternoon and fixed it. In MA, it took much more to fix the problem. >:( >:( >:(


Dave

[Furby]

They are Stoopid cows, they don't have behavioral problems! ;)

[Dave Shepard]

I knew someone was going to jump on that one, and I am not surprised who it was. :D :D :D


Dave

[Bro. Noble]

Thanks,  guys.  I have been thinking how awful it would be to be without this forum.

Well my son Tom and I took your advice and shut the main breaker off at the meter pole.  We checked all lugs there and then proceded to the service entrance panel.  Found a buncy of lugs that were a little loose and a couple that were more than a little loose.  Hopefully that is the end of the flickering lights

Furby,  the stoopid cows are also often behavorial problems :(  But,  it's not because of stray voltage,  it's just their nature.  When we built our barn,  stray voltage had just been idintified as a problem in dairy barns.  We built it so that the grates are grounded and also had it checked  later on.  It's amazing how much more sensitive cows are to electricity.  It's terrible milking during a thunderstorm.  All the cows in the barn will jump,  then you see a flash,  then you hear the thunder.

Thanks again,  and merry Christmas everbuddy.

[Don_Papenburg]

Bro No , did you put the anti oxidant grease on the wires befor you tightened them?


Cows are more suseptable to stray voltage because of the distance between their front and hind legs. Stoopid cows more so.   I was told that if you even suspect stray power on the ground do not step but shuffle your feet no more than 3/4 the length of your feet . This is because the resistance and the owies that it produces increaces with the distance of the contact points.

[ely]

lots of good info here in the trhead already. one more thing i can think of if it does not fix the problem, while the electric is blinking look to see if the wind is blowing outside. if it is the problem is most likely the neutral lug on the transformer up on the pole. they get loose over time , or sometimes those looser linemen forget to tighten them up properly. at any rate have the power company come out and check it over for you. most will tell you they found nothing wrong but the problem almost always goes away after the visit. should help with the life of your refrig. and freezers also.

one other note. when removeing the meter from the base be sure you know exactly what you are doing. any small mishap could cause an explosion of the meter itself. very small chance but also a big problem if it does happen. be aware folks.

[fstedy]

Another suspect area is the top of the service entrance cable where the braided neutral wires come out and are usually twisted to connect to the service wires from the transformer. Especialy if the braided wire is aluminum they corrode after a period of time. Be very careful when troubleshooting a bad neutral as you can have full voltage feedback thru the neutral wire.

[rebocardo]

> their TV was blinking in sync to their washing machine

I would think this would indicate a ground loop problem.

Since they probably have cable, I would check to see where or if the cable is grounded. I would ground it separate from the cold water pipe ground cable guys usually use (if they remember).

Sometimes they do not even use a clamp and just wrap and twist the ground wire around the pipe.

[SwampDonkey]

Nothing to do with the problem at hand. But, I have been keeping a log of my meter reading on the days the power company sends the meter man. I read the meter on the same day. I have only done this since the last bill. So far so good. But I told my brother to do it also. His previous month was $180 in a warmer month and 1100 kwh. His bill this month was $14, which couldn't have been more than 75 kwh. It doesn't look like it was read last month at all. So when ever the power company needs some extra cash, I guess they pad hours for that month and adjust for the next month or whenever I guess.  :

[Furby]

We've had them read the meter wrong before Donk, had to call and argue over the phone for a while and then they sent someone out to check, yup they were wrong! :

[Larry]

Gee SD, they always trusted us to read our own meter.  They also allowed us to trim brush out of the lines and I bet they would have let us set poles for em if we just asked. :D ;D :D ;D

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah I guess so Furby. They shouldn't even have to send anyone. The next month it can be corrected, but take the customer's word for it until the next reading. Saves a lot of headache for them doing checks.

[SwampDonkey]

Well a guy gets a bit concerned when his bill shoots up to $300, from $75 when all he is running different is a 1/2 HP motor to a furnace fan. It wouldn't even double in reality.  ;) If I owed them I'd get a bill for interest, what about a little interest on my money?  ;)

[Furby]

Well there was no way my folks were paying 2 or $300 extra that month, only to get a "credit" for it the next month. Bill would have only been like $60-70, don't really remember the amount, but you get the idea.
They wouldn't take our word for it over the phone even after they check the use history to show it was waaaaay off. :

[PineNut]

Had the local coop read out meter off by 1000kw one month. Called them up and gave them the current reading over the phone and they gave me a revised bill over the phone. Paid it and no problem. Seems that the meter reader's son was reading the meter for him and made a little mistake.

[Quartlow]

We get estimated bills all the time, I just send an estimated payment  :D