Electricians: Cooking surge strips and Devices

[Don Plumley]

Earlier in the morning there were two short brownouts. Came home later from errands with igniters on our gas range firing continuously and smell of arc welding/carbon. No Breakers tripped.

Turned off breakers, found a bunch of cooked surge strips - evidence of carbon deposits under. This is on various circuits in house / different rooms.

Turned breakers on, stove igniters working fine. Surge strips still deliver power, but smell bad.

Discovered a fried printer, pc, and amplifier - was on surge strips, now cooked - won't power on when plugged into a good outlet.

Happened again in the late afternoon, fried the surge strip that used to replace the (now) dead UPS I use for the cable modem/router.

PG&E (power company) came out, said I was describing a "high-low". Attached a huge thing call "The Beast" to the main panel and said that the power being delivered to the house is fine. They will order a recorder next week, but said it will take me at least two weeks to get an answer.

I've lost $1K of devices and need to be back in business on Tuesday - but I'm gun shy to plug anything in.

Looking back, we lost a surge strip weeks ago that was not charging my wife's laptop. This was before I replaced all the outlets in the master bedroom, so I don't think anything I did to replace the outlets was a cause, but want to provide full information.

Electrical system should be relatively new (~2000); we don't have lightning (NorCal).

Ideas? Kinda nervous about all these surge strips going south...

[dad911]

Check the neutral line. If one side has a higher load (like 120 A/C & Fridges) and the neutral is bad feeding the house, the other leg will spike. In other words, feed to house is 240ish. If one side goes down to 90v, without a neutral the other will be 150v.

Happened to my son. Burning out light bulbs because of a bad neutral at the pole.

[Don Plumley]

Thanks for the quick reply. How do I check the neutral?

[dad911]

We were able to measure it while the lights were flickering. He was getting over 130v on 1 leg, about 90 on the other.

Three wires coming in the panel. Two carry 240v, the third is connected to neutral bar (white wires)
On the panel below, power is red&black, neutral white(marked with colored electric tape.)


Voltage between R&W should equal B&W(110-120vAC), and measuring R&B should be about double (220-240v)

Your problem is likely outside, and their problem.....

[john70t]

because of a bad neutral at the pole.

Without having the house on a ..[cough certified].. data recorder which 'witnessed' the event, how does someone recover damages from a bad public utility power supply?

[Don Plumley]

Damn, it just happened again. Brownout, then fridge stopped, and bam, fried another surge supressor. No breakers tripped, none of them warm. Wife is freaked out, figures our house is about to burn down.

[FPB111]

This happened to my sister in NJ. She has underground utilities and the neutral went bad somewhere underground between the house and in ground box near the curb it fried her fridge, computers, and damaged her microwave.
She was hosting Christmas for the family, 12 of us. Every time the furnace came on 1/2 of the house would brown out and her fiber optic UPS would squeal.

[908/930]

I am not a expert but it does sound like a faulty neutral line.

[Don Plumley]

and again while I was on the phone with PGE. Now I've cut power to the house, lights in ceiling smoked, igniters went off. Fun times...

[Don Plumley]

Originally Posted by dad911

because of a bad neutral at the pole.

Winner winner Chicken dinner!

Guy came back out under protest. When I met him walking up my driveway he immediately said, "I have to apologize. I went up and was cleaning the connection at the transformer and it started to spark. Bad connector. I replaced it and you should be fine."

Now to tally the damages and submit a claim...