The last few weeks, we have been experiencing electrical gremlins that seemed to be worsening. Whenever the well pump would kick on, the house's voltage would go all third worldly on us. Some lights flickered, others brightened. Our last CRT TV finally kicked the bucket.
Good riddance.
Anyhooo, the OL calls me a few days ago.....
OL- Some of the lights are out and there's no aqua.
Me- Fukkk. I'l check it out when I get home.
I figured that that fukking well pump went out and took someshit with it. I was pissed off at myself since from day one, after installing that pump, it would cause voltage fluctuations on start up. I knew that the proper fix would be to switch it over to 220. It is an easy enough job, but I'm a lazy fukk and the old pump was 110, so installing it on 110 was easy. I was hoping that the 220 winding was still good and I'd be back in business after a bit of homeowner 'lectrishun work.
I wired it to 220 in about 20 minutes. 1 jumper move at the pump and moving the neutral line at the box over to a 110 breaker that was out of phase with the other. The pump fired up, no problemo, without the slightest bit of light flickerage. Cool, looks like I got off easy....
Nope.
Turn the washer on. It tried running in slow mo. Same for the window AC.
Fukk me.
Yesterday, I got out my fluke multimeter and did some investigation. I measured voltage at the box. With minimal use, a TV, few lights, OL's plug in vibrator, I had a bit of an imbalance. 235VAC across the phases (good), 108/127 between each line and neutral. (Not so good).
When I would turn the AC on, it went to 60/175 to ground.
That's not even good in countries TGOF might refer to as shitholes.My next step was to plug the AC into an outlet on the other leg. Same thing, but the other way (175/60).
It would seem we have a bit of an issue with voltage float. I was maintaining a steady 235 across them, but they were floating all over with respect to neutral/ground. I was not getting any difference between ground and neutral.
So, I did a bit of investigating. Went out to the meter, the fluctuations were there, all the way back to the meter IP. I then looked up at the power head, or whatever it is they call where the incoming wires from the pole get to the house. Everything looked good. I then followed the line out to the pole and about half way there I see the problem. The fukking neutral line was snapped. This line, in addition to providing a center tap for the transformer out at the pole, so it knows where the fukk ground is, is also meant to carry the weight of the line. This isn't good.
A normal, sane, responsible homeowner would immediately call the power company.
I decided I didn't want to wait a day or two and was curious, so I parked my RV under the break in the line, got out a set of jumper cables and my meter and climbed up to "fix" it.
Having a healthy respect for electricity, well most days anyway, I put my meter across the open neutral line first as I really had no idea what was on the pole side of it. It measured 3 VAC. OK, close enough. I clamped the leads across the open neutral and went back into the house.
117.7 VAC, both sides. Rack the local electric company for providing nice steady power.
Turned the AC on. It went to 117.5 for a moment. I'll take it.
Pictures to follow.
