Author Topic: Odd power situation (Read 345 times)

Wolfala · « **on:** January 01, 2006, 08:03:34 PM »

OK so here's the scoop. On the west coast of the US we had I guess the WC version of a hurricane every 2 days for the last 3 weeks. This morning a 80 kt gust took out a 5 KV feed going into my apartment complex. But the 3 remaining feeders function.

But here's the hitch. The electric sockets work - but NONE of the lights function, i.e. those in the kitchen or on the ceiling fan or the bathroom. Recycling the breaker box doesn't work either.

This place was built in the early 60s, and maybe its some EMP protection for a nuclear blast, but this is just plain weird.

Thoughts?

Wolf

capt. apathy · « **Reply #1 on:** January 01, 2006, 09:48:30 PM »

did you just reset the main or the individual breakers?

if you've reset them all and still have the problem you may just have a bad breaker. try swapping the bad one out for one of the others and see if it fixes it.

or the best solution (unless you are the owner and not the tenant) is just to call maintenance and tell them to come fix your lights.

Wolfala · « **Reply #2 on:** January 02, 2006, 12:30:27 AM »

Electric company came. Its on a 3 phase circut - long short of it is they need to repair the feed before anythin is restored. Cest la vi...

JCLerch · « **Reply #3 on:** January 02, 2006, 07:33:40 AM »

Interesting that they feed Three Phase into the complex and that it can affect a single phase user in a single apartment.

I would have thought you'd have all or nothing (or maybe half, IE you could loose 1 leg of the 220 line, so half your 110v outlets would work, but not the other half (assuming they load balanced the outlets against both 220v legs in the circuit breaker panel.)

I'll never forget the oddest thing I ever saw as an apartment maintenance super. One resident had a failing connection on the neutral line at their meter panel. Every time they ran the vacuum sweeper or the refrigerator cycled on, half the lights in the house would get very dim, while the other half looked like they were going super nova :0

It was particularily funny when the fridge kicked in, as it had a high start up load, but once running it's load decreased. The effect was a very extreme intensity change of the light bulbs, that would settle down after a while.

The apartment actually looked like it was 'Haunted' OH, and yes, the problem did destroy every piece of 110v electronics they had plugged in and turned on (whooops).

WhiteHawk · « **Reply #4 on:** January 02, 2006, 08:48:59 AM »

i think losing 1 leg of 3 phase would reduce the overall voltage to 77VAC or something like that. It wouldnt just affect the ceiling lights. Your cieling lights have to be on somebody elses circuit. Which prolly means you are paying for your nighbers cileing lighting and so on and so forth.

eagl · « **Reply #5 on:** January 02, 2006, 08:49:47 AM »

The house I'm renting has a similiar problem. The lightbulbs in 2 rooms were blowing out every week or so, usually when turning on the light. I "fixed" the problem by putting in flourescent lightbulbs, but the whole wiring in this house is pretty much ghetto. In the kitchen, I have 3 appliances on one circuit, the dishwasher, clotheswasher, and dryer. I get to run 2 out of the 3 at any one time, otherwise the breaker pops.

For a refit probably done 30 years ago into a 100+ yr old house, it isn't bad. Then again, a friend of mine tried to move into a house that had just been completely renovated, and the first time he plugged something in the appliance caught fire and then the whole house lost power. It turns out that the electrical contractor had no clue what he was doing, and the owner had to re-contract about $15,000 worth of electrical work since every single bit of wiring had to be torn out and replaced. In these older UK houses, that often means some serious masonry and plaster work has to be done and redone, and that's darn expensive.

I guess it's a balance... Yea the house will stand 200 years, but doing almost any work on them costs about 10 times what it would cost in the states. Contrast tearing out some drywall in the states against trying to reinforce, tear down, repair, and replace a load bearing interior stone, brick, or concrete block wall... Everything is harder here except for complete new-builds, and even then the build volume is so low, prices for "modern" building materials and techniques are sky high assuming you can find a builder willing to use newer techniques. In some areas, the council has forbidden build techniques that don't match the rest of the village/town/city, so you're stuck with load bearing stone/brick/concrete walls instead of framing and sheeting.

The houses will probably last darn near forever but you can forget about inexpensive renovations or power/water/heating/cooling upgrades.

My landlady has a poorly fitting garage door... I asked why she doesn't replace it, and she said that the contractor wanted 5000 pounds to do the job. That's around $9,000 for a simple garage door. Crazy. A custom sized roll-up door in the US would probably cost $500-$1000 to make and another $200 to install, tops.

capt. apathy · « **Reply #6 on:** January 02, 2006, 10:28:03 AM »

light bulbs that burn out quickly are usually just a bad connection in the outlet.

if the connection between wires and outlet are sound you can usually fix the problem by cleaning the center contact in the outlet with fine sandpaper, and bending it up a bit so it fits tighter against the bulb.

lasersailor184 · « **Reply #7 on:** January 04, 2006, 07:01:48 PM »

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Interesting that they feed Three Phase into the complex and that it can affect a single phase user in a single apartment.

Hey lerch, I'm actually learning stuff in school!

Anyway, a feeder to the each apartment's panelboard is 3 phase. If one phase is out on the apartment's main panelboard, that phase will be out on all feeder panelboards.

So most connections coming off of the fed panelboard are 1 phase. That means anything connected to the outed phase will not work at all. But now that I'm reading your post again, I believe you are saying that.

Quote

I'll never forget the oddest thing I ever saw as an apartment maintenance super. One resident had a failing connection on the neutral line at their meter panel. Every time they ran the vacuum sweeper or the refrigerator cycled on, half the lights in the house would get very dim, while the other half looked like they were going super nova :0

I forget how he proved it, but my EE professor wrote on the board that lights run in parallel get brighter when you run more lights in parellel. So I would assume the opposite would be true as well.

Quote

The house I'm renting has a similiar problem. The lightbulbs in 2 rooms were blowing out every week or so, usually when turning on the light. I "fixed" the problem by putting in flourescent lightbulbs, but the whole wiring in this house is pretty much ghetto. In the kitchen, I have 3 appliances on one circuit, the dishwasher, clotheswasher, and dryer. I get to run 2 out of the 3 at any one time, otherwise the breaker pops.

Again, just going off of what I've been told, if they are burning out too soon, that usually means they are running at a higher wattage then they are designed for.

Skilless · « **Reply #8 on:** January 04, 2006, 07:42:08 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by WhiteHawk
i think losing 1 leg of 3 phase would reduce the overall voltage to 77VAC or something like that. It wouldnt just affect the ceiling lights. Your cieling lights have to be on somebody elses circuit. Which prolly means you are paying for your nighbers cileing lighting and so on and so forth.

Losing one leg of a 3 phase (220) would absolutely cause what he is describing. What 3 phase is, is 2 110 legs and a common nuetral leg. If the plugs are on one leg and the light fixtures are on another (lights and plugs should never be on the same breaker), and you lose one leg, what ever is hooked to that leg will not work while the other will.