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Old 08-26-2008, 08:28 AM   #1
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Question Bulbs, LEDs,cieling fans burning out

I wired a home around Christmas time 07 and now the homeowners are saying that the light bulbs in different lights around the home burn out quickly and also 3 LED step lights have burned out along with 2 ceiling fans. They also mentioned that the A/C breaker has tripped five different time but not lately. I had the power company put a voltage recorded on the home for one week and they said that the voltage stayed between 118 and 123??? I also checked the voltage in the home and on different circuits and found nothing wrong? Does anyone have any suggestion PLEASE and thank-you!
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Old 08-26-2008, 09:09 AM   #2
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Originally Posted by Voisinet View Post
I wired a home around Christmas time 07 and now the homeowners are saying that the light bulbs in different lights around the home burn out quickly and also 3 LED step lights have burned out along with 2 ceiling fans. They also mentioned that the A/C breaker has tripped five different time but not lately. I had the power company put a voltage recorded on the home for one week and they said that the voltage stayed between 118 and 123??? I also checked the voltage in the home and on different circuits and found nothing wrong? Does anyone have any suggestion PLEASE and thank-you!
This is a hard one could be a lot of things. First thing I would check is the feeder wires in the panel esp. the neutral , also a "swag"(silly wild a@@ guess) but is does the panel have a balanced load?
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Old 08-26-2008, 09:19 AM   #3
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Default Balenced well

Yes the power company said that the panel was balenced very well?
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Old 08-26-2008, 09:23 AM   #4
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Where did the power company record the voltage, at the panel buss or at the meter?

I'd look for a problem in the neutral and, are any of the "problem" areas multi-wire branch circuits which might be losing their neutral?
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Old 08-26-2008, 09:49 AM   #5
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Where did the power company record the voltage, at the panel buss or at the meter?

I'd look for a problem in the neutral and, are any of the "problem" areas multi-wire branch circuits which might be losing their neutral?
Good point. Was on a service call once where someone had ran a 3/wire from the panel to a j-box. Neutral was loose and one circuit had 220vand the other around 90v or so. HO was pretty well PO'ed that his brand new TV blew up!
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Old 08-26-2008, 11:04 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by Voisinet View Post
I wired a home around Christmas time 07 and now the homeowners are saying that the light bulbs in different lights around the home burn out quickly and also 3 LED step lights have burned out along with 2 ceiling fans. They also mentioned that the A/C breaker has tripped five different time but not lately. I had the power company put a voltage recorded on the home for one week and they said that the voltage stayed between 118 and 123??? I also checked the voltage in the home and on different circuits and found nothing wrong? Does anyone have any suggestion PLEASE and thank-you!
Have you checked the splice to the service? If its over head or underground check the pole. Perhaps the two hots are randomly arching each other?
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Old 08-27-2008, 12:26 AM   #7
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Ho, HO, HO... Drunken drivers cause a lot of localized power interuptions during the holiday season around here by managing to knock over poco poles. Weekends also. That fact according to the local Poco engineer I chatted with. That results in power surges once the problem is fixed and the power is restored. Power surges fry lots of unprotected equipment. They see it all the time.
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Old 08-27-2008, 06:15 AM   #8
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Ho, HO, HO... Drunken drivers cause a lot of localized power interuptions during the holiday season around here by managing to knock over poco poles. Weekends also. That fact according to the local Poco engineer I chatted with. That results in power surges once the problem is fixed and the power is restored. Power surges fry lots of unprotected equipment. They see it all the time.

Is that your serious answer?
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Old 08-29-2008, 08:56 PM   #9
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Default Floating Neutral

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I wired a home around Christmas time 07 and now the homeowners are saying that the light bulbs in different lights around the home burn out quickly and also 3 LED step lights have burned out along with 2 ceiling fans. They also mentioned that the A/C breaker has tripped five different time but not lately. I had the power company put a voltage recorded on the home for one week and they said that the voltage stayed between 118 and 123??? I also checked the voltage in the home and on different circuits and found nothing wrong? Does anyone have any suggestion PLEASE and thank-you!
The problem sounds like a "floating neutral". That is a condition in a multi-phase, grounded system where the neutral conductor is connected to 2 phases through the loads but is disconnected from the grounded neutral buss. Parallel circuits at the lower voltage, (for example, 120 volts in a 120/240 3 wire system) become series circuits at the higher potential. 120 volt lamps burn brightly for a short time and then burn out. 120 volt appliances start to smoke.
In your particular case, see if the circuits affected are on different phases with a shared neutral conductor. If this is the case, look for a junction box containing the circuits and look for a broken neutral splice. Also, check the breaker panel and verify that the neutral cnductor is solidly connected to the neutral buss.
I hope this helps.
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Old 08-29-2008, 10:12 PM   #10
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Is that your serious answer?
After Pittsburgh Steelers game,always at least 3 poles taken out by over the limit fans.Thursday night they had three.
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