Any electricians on here?

[Dusty Stevens]

We only have one power company for the whole province.

Ill talk to someone about the ground wire and see if we can possibly get a new meter.

As for my own i was wondering if there were meters that could be connected between their meter and the panel? I believe some apartment buildings use similar. Is there any small devices i could even just plug in to a outlet that would log the voltage?

https://www.gordonelectricsupply.co...MOlWJSuEr_9LFDhoa81CmgTBre4Xf23BoCsqEQAvD_BwE

this one has the ct that will slip over your wires coming in if you have the ability to do this yourself. If youre not comfortable working this then please get an electrician to install it. A 200a service will create a fireball you wont survive if something goes haywire

 

[Deleted outa08]

Do any of you know if there is such thing as a meter that could be installed between my meter and panel that would log the incoming voltage and usage.?

Been having problems for years and the power company wont do a thing. Had a 2 days here where everyone was away for 2.5 hours and one day we used 10Kw in that time , the next day 0Kw. We also went 13 days using 300Kw then went 2 days and used 600Kw . Makes no sense as nothing different is being used. Its also very common for dimming lights in the house.

Thanks

Do any of you know if there is such thing as a meter that could be installed between my meter and panel that would log the incoming voltage and usage.?

Been having problems for years and the power company wont do a thing. Had a 2 days here where everyone was away for 2.5 hours and one day we used 10Kw in that time , the next day 0Kw. We also went 13 days using 300Kw then went 2 days and used 600Kw . Makes no sense as nothing different is being used. Its also very common for dimming lights in the house.

Thanks

TrxR A lot of good advice here. The power co. may need a little prodding. We always used a recording volt meter at the point of attachment at the house first. Usually for a week and then move it in to the customers panel and compare the charts. More times then not we found the customer had a problem. That being said, your issues could be a little bit your problem and a little bit the power co. problem. Without checking voltage on both phases at the same time it is hard to point to a problem. If you have low volts on both legs it would indicate line loss. That can be an issue if you are out near the end of the circuit. Someone mentioned line regulator, that would help if the co. will do it. If the voltage is high on one leg and low on the other that would lead me to change or at least inspect all neutral and ground connections. Odd usage can be a bad meter or something running you are not aware of. To check, turn off your main breaker and then check the meter to see if it is still recording usage. I hope some of this helps,this stuff will make you talk to yourself. No wonder I`m bald. I`ll keep an eye on this thread and if I think of anything else I`ll chime in. Jeff

 

[Walt Schmidlin]

How old is the meter? Was the meter pan and meter replaced when the new service entrance cable was installed?

 

[TrxR]

How old is the meter? Was the meter pan and meter replaced when the new service entrance cable was installed?

I believe its 2 or 3 years old now. We went from an old 100 amp entrance to a 200amp entrance. So the pan was and panel was replace but they might of reused the meter Im not sure. Its one of those digital meters that they can wirelessly check from the road.

 

[TrxR]

TrxR A lot of good advice here. The power co. may need a little prodding. We always used a recording volt meter at the point of attachment at the house first. Usually for a week and then move it in to the customers panel and compare the charts. More times then not we found the customer had a problem. That being said, your issues could be a little bit your problem and a little bit the power co. problem. Without checking voltage on both phases at the same time it is hard to point to a problem. If you have low volts on both legs it would indicate line loss. That can be an issue if you are out near the end of the circuit. Someone mentioned line regulator, that would help if the co. will do it. If the voltage is high on one leg and low on the other that would lead me to change or at least inspect all neutral and ground connections. Odd usage can be a bad meter or something running you are not aware of. To check, turn off your main breaker and then check the meter to see if it is still recording usage. I hope some of this helps,this stuff will make you talk to yourself. No wonder I`m bald. I`ll keep an eye on this thread and if I think of anything else I`ll chime in. Jeff

Going to do some checking with the breakers tomorrow including shutting the main breaker off and seeing if the meter still running.

Thanks everyone.

 

[ebb]

I did not read all of the posts here I will eventually. I have a friend that move to Tenn after he retired and had a house built. Had a lot of trouble with burnt up small appliances. He had the electrician out many times to see if he could find the problem. He came home from town after being gone about 40 minutes to find the house totally engulfed in flames. It burned to the ground. After much research and checking he found the voltage coming into the garage that was on the same drop from the meter showed voltage from 80 volts to 150 volts. When the power company changed the transformer at his request the ceramic lid was cracked and there were signs that the oil had been forced out of the can and had dripped down the side. The power company never admitted there equipment caused the fire and he was left to rebuild with only his homeowners payout. He said he was lucky many around where he lives had no home owners and would have been on there own. have someone who is more than just and electrician look at your house NOW.

 

[Acsr]

I saw an electric baseboard heater in a crawl space that had been left on one time. Check anything 240v. If you could get a volt meter with an AMP CLAMP that might help find the problem by process of elimination. Overhead or underground service from power co.?

 

[TrxR]

I saw an electric baseboard heater in a crawl space that had been left on one time. Check anything 240v. If you could get a volt meter with an AMP CLAMP that might help find the problem by process of elimination. Overhead or underground service from power co.?

Overhead line into the meter. The only 240 in the house would be Dryer, well pump, heat pump/ and oven. The oven hasn't worked in 6 months and is turned off, heat side of the heat pump off. No base board heaters. Last months bill was as high or higher than it was this winter with the heat on.

 

[dryhumor]

Loose connections in the house or on the utility transformer.

HVAC unit, well pump starting to fail.

Voltage sag due to long distance of the overhead from the substation to your house.

Another heavy user causing a sag. When voltage goes down current goes up. The more current used the higher the cost.

May be a damaged or aged wire allowing leakage current to ground. May be undersized wire. May be an inground circuit allowing leakage, particularly if in water. Enough to use the current not enough to trip a breaker.

Check your breakers for heat, warm to touch. Check your neutral wires for heat. Buy an IR gun for $30 at Home Depot. Check for loose connections at the breaker screws.

If you’re using a lot of electronics and LED lights, you WILL have high neutral currents.

Push the utility to verify the calibration of the meter and also that the conductors feeding the meter are not loose.

Wear safety glasses, pick up some 600v rated gloves and protectors. Have a second person with you, if you feel unsafe get a qualified person to check everything. You can always make more money. You can’t make more life; but can definitely shorten it.

 

[TrxR]

Loose connections in the house or on the utility transformer.

HVAC unit, well pump starting to fail.

Voltage sag due to long distance of the overhead from the substation to your house.

Another heavy user causing a sag. When voltage goes down current goes up. The more current used the higher the cost.

May be a damaged or aged wire allowing leakage current to ground. May be undersized wire. May be an inground circuit allowing leakage, particularly if in water. Enough to use the current not enough to trip a breaker.

Check your breakers for heat, warm to touch. Check your neutral wires for heat. Buy an IR gun for $30 at Home Depot. Check for loose connections at the breaker screws.

If you’re using a lot of electronics and LED lights, you WILL have high neutral currents.

Push the utility to verify the calibration of the meter and also that the conductors feeding the meter are not loose.

Wear safety glasses, pick up some 600v rated gloves and protectors. Have a second person with you, if you feel unsafe get a qualified person to check everything. You can always make more money. You can’t make more life; but can definitely shorten it.

No underground lines around here at all. Hvac and pump less than 4 years old. Still have the same issues with the hvac off. Now the neighbors before us do have heavy draw as it is a large summer camp for kids . it was once suggested that they are large enough that they should be fed with 3 phase but that doesn't exist in my area. The panel connections have all been checked a few times over the last few years.

 

[Dodge61]

Your best bet is to contact the power company and ask for an experienced serviceman/person to make a visit to your home and check. Needs to be an experienced person. Any voltage draw upline or downline has nothing whatsoever to do with your bill. You are billed on your usage not someone else's. Lights getting dim can stem from several different issues, but most likely a loose connection on a hot wire "not" a neutral wire. Lights that get very bright and then suddenly dim stem from most likely a loose neutral connection. Contrary to what some people believe the best way to check this is by loading/burdening one hot wire at a time in other words one of the 120 volt legs "not" the 240 combined. You can burden one 120 volt leg at a time by connecting something with a heavy amperage load to one leg at a time and checking the voltage with a good meter. You must check while the leg is under burden. The power company has such equipment that they can use to check on the source side of the meter. The best device for the homeowner is a simple handheld blow dryer such as your wife might use. Look on the side of the blow dryer it will most likely say anything from 1200 to 1800 watts, that is like having eighteen 100 watt bulbs on all at any one time, and that would be on one 120 volt circuit. That will burden the one hot leg so you can take a voltage reading under load. That would need to be checked on both hot legs, which you can not do if you don't know/understand how your house wiring works. Low voltage coming into the home will not cause a high power bill because it has nothing to do with power usage. Too low of source side voltage can cause equipment damage so it is an important factor to consider. Often times low voltage can be noticed when lights dim simultaneously as the heat pump or central ac comes on. It is not uncommon to see some voltage drop but too much can be a problem. Keep in mind that more often than not the average homeowner is using power when they don't realize it. For example your electric hot water heater is continuously working even when your not using hot water. Your freezer, and fridge is also. Take an amp meter and clip it around the different circuit wires in your breaker box and one can easily tell which circuits are using power even when one doesn't realize it. The power company will most likely not check anything on the homeowner's side of the meter due to liability reasons, but at least you can eliminate any problems on the source side by having them come out and check. Also, for a minimal fee they will usually do an independent meter test so any problems with the meter can be checked. Meters can be defective but it is rare and I mean VERY rare. One can have an additional meter installed in the line going to the breaker box but it will require a qualified electrician and a city/county inspection. The meter will belong to you the homeowner not the power company, therefore you can compare the two meters side by side. It's very unusual but it is done in extremely rare instances.
"Best bet" call and ask for an experienced service person. Sorry for such a long post but believe me when trying to explain this, it's actually a short one.

 

[flintcreek6412]

Do you have a utility regulatory commission or similar agency where you live? I've seen them work wonders lighting a fire under utilities to get them moving.

 

[TrxR]

Do you have a utility regulatory commission or similar agency where you live? I've seen them work wonders lighting a fire under utilities to get them moving.

Not really .

 

[TrxR]

Your best bet is to contact the power company and ask for an experienced serviceman/person to make a visit to your home and check. Needs to be an experienced person. Any voltage draw upline or downline has nothing whatsoever to do with your bill. You are billed on your usage not someone else's. Lights getting dim can stem from several different issues, but most likely a loose connection on a hot wire "not" a neutral wire. Lights that get very bright and then suddenly dim stem from most likely a loose neutral connection. Contrary to what some people believe the best way to check this is by loading/burdening one hot wire at a time in other words one of the 120 volt legs "not" the 240 combined. You can burden one 120 volt leg at a time by connecting something with a heavy amperage load to one leg at a time and checking the voltage with a good meter. You must check while the leg is under burden. The power company has such equipment that they can use to check on the source side of the meter. The best device for the homeowner is a simple handheld blow dryer such as your wife might use. Look on the side of the blow dryer it will most likely say anything from 1200 to 1800 watts, that is like having eighteen 100 watt bulbs on all at any one time, and that would be on one 120 volt circuit. That will burden the one hot leg so you can take a voltage reading under load. That would need to be checked on both hot legs, which you can not do if you don't know/understand how your house wiring works. Low voltage coming into the home will not cause a high power bill because it has nothing to do with power usage. Too low of source side voltage can cause equipment damage so it is an important factor to consider. Often times low voltage can be noticed when lights dim simultaneously as the heat pump or central ac comes on. It is not uncommon to see some voltage drop but too much can be a problem. Keep in mind that more often than not the average homeowner is using power when they don't realize it. For example your electric hot water heater is continuously working even when your not using hot water. Your freezer, and fridge is also. Take an amp meter and clip it around the different circuit wires in your breaker box and one can easily tell which circuits are using power even when one doesn't realize it. The power company will most likely not check anything on the homeowner's side of the meter due to liability reasons, but at least you can eliminate any problems on the source side by having them come out and check. Also, for a minimal fee they will usually do an independent meter test so any problems with the meter can be checked. Meters can be defective but it is rare and I mean VERY rare. One can have an additional meter installed in the line going to the breaker box but it will require a qualified electrician and a city/county inspection. The meter will belong to you the homeowner not the power company, therefore you can compare the two meters side by side. It's very unusual but it is done in extremely rare instances.
"Best bet" call and ask for an experienced service person. Sorry for such a long post but believe me when trying to explain this, it's actually a short one.

The power company is going to send out some forms for us to fill out to get the meter tested. Other than that they dont want to do squat. They just repeat that its impossible that their is any problem on their end.

 

[Jeffrey Tooker]

Re Dusty and others above. The utility should provide 240 VAC through two hot conductors. This is usually an aerial cable. The cable has a bare metal cable along with the two hot conductors. This bare metal cable is the actual physical support of the cable. PG&E out here in California is required to ground at the service pole. The ground is actually carried through the bare metal conductor in your aerial cable to the ground bar in your circuit breaker box. The ground rod at your circuit breaker box is also connected to the ground bar. The ground bar is then bonded to the neutral bar. This establishes the neutral bar at ground potential, (earth for those of you in the UK). This means that both grounds have to fail, for the neutral bar not to be at ground potential. So as others have said loose connections in the neutral system will result in erratic voltages and can burn up appliances in your house. As mentioned above National Electrical Code says 5% voltage variation. Also the incoming voltages from the utility in reference to ground and neutral, are determined by the center tap on the transformer on the power pole. If this tap does not properly split the voltages, the voltages coming into your house will not be approximately equal. I do not remember the actual numbers required, (old timers), but I always liked 120 V + or -
5 V.

I have known of line transformers having to be replaced by the utility because of improper voltages. Our small water company had the utility replace a 480V 3 phase transformer for our pump as the legs were not properly balanced. Other utilitys may vary as to requirements.

Jeffrey

 

[Old Navy]

If you live in an older home it is possible your ground is hooked to a water pipe. Should have gotten a new ground rod with your service.

 

[hoz53]

We only have one power company for the whole province.

Ill talk to someone about the ground wire and see if we can possibly get a new meter.

As for my own i was wondering if there were meters that could be connected between their meter and the panel? I believe some apartment buildings use similar. Is there any small devices i could even just plug in to a outlet that would log the voltage?

I had one a year ago where the neutral was corroded in the meter base probably because they didn’t use nolox and it was aluminum wiring. That was probably 30 years old though. That floating neutral messed up all kinds of stuff -( mostly electronics) in his house. That’s probably not happening in your case since your service is so new. I am in a rural area and we have had power companies lie about power problems in their system- it happens. They can regulate the voltage at their substations and sometimes when a lot of load is on the system it will cause the voltage to drop and they have to adjust for that. Then a lot of people have damage because of the brownout and the utility many times won’t admit it. You can buy recording volt meters that record the voltage constantly on a chart. That’s what I would get and record your voltage for a month or so - to see if there is a problem there. Like we have said you can also get recording kWh meters to check that to. If you have had damage I would contact your insurance company. Getting them involved in your corner Should help.

 

[abishai]

I am an electrical contractor. The ground rod / cold water bond / uffer ground are there for safety, not to transmit
electrical power back to the generation source . 98+ % of the unbalanced load returns on the neutral wire.
I would have a good electrician check it. In my 24 years at it, I have only seen the utility the culprit a few times

 

[PigButtons]

How old is your water heater? When they start to fail, or one of the elements starts to fail, they can wreak havoc on your electric usage. Also, you mention a well pump, which means you most likely have a pressure tank, and maybe even a water softener. Make sure all of the devices in that system are functioning properly and no leaks, as that can suck up energy like there is no tomorrow and since you don't have a water meter you won't notice anything unusual unless you monitor / inspect all of it. If they are in an out building there could be an underground leak that is dumping water into the ground and you won't notice it but the pump is running way more than it should. Ask me how I know!

 

[TrxR]

How old is your water heater? When they start to fail, or one of the elements starts to fail, they can wreak havoc on your electric usage. Also, you mention a well pump, which means you most likely have a pressure tank, and maybe even a water softener. Make sure all of the devices in that system are functioning properly and no leaks, as that can suck up energy like there is no tomorrow and since you don't have a water meter you won't notice anything unusual unless you monitor / inspect all of it. If they are in an out building there could be an underground leak that is dumping water into the ground and you won't notice it but the pump is running way more than it should. Ask me how I know!

Hot water tank is about 9 to 10 years old and owned by the power company . The whole well system is about 3 years old including all pressure tanks which is all in the basement and would be noticed immediately if it was leaking.

Been in touch with a local electrician thats been in the business a long time and was the one that installed the panel and entrance . He said get them to change the meter first as he has seen the ones around here go bad. If thats not it they have been known to have problems with their neutral. He said he would come over and check our side of things as well.

We had a problem years ago where our usage went from 1600kw to 2200kw , we complained then and then we seen power trucks up here for a few days and the techs said they were balancing the lines and our usage went back to normal but the power company denied they did anything or even had trucks in the area.

Thanks everyone .