William R. Walsh wrote:
Hi!

I've on occasion wondered what would happen if we lost the neutral line.

(speaking from a 110V perspective as I'm in the US where power is delivered
as 2x110 volt hot leads with one neutral)

The voltage between the two fluctuates wildly, that's what. The more heavily
loaded of the two will have a voltage drop while the lightly loaded one goes
up.

CRT computer monitors get the jitters even when things are relatively
normal. I don't know why this is. Damage can occur to devices when they get
nailed with high voltage.

It won't be a huge issue up to a point for simple devices, or those with
autoranging power supplies that may try to compensate. Everything else will
suffer--motors, transformer type power supplies, etc...and your electrican
*should* know that. A fire could start depending upon how badly something
reacts to the over or under voltage.

William (had it happen here some years ago - one TV and a few surge
protectors got burnt. Curiously, the TV was not completely dead afterwards,
just temperamental about turning on when warm.)


I witnessed potentially expensive neutral problems twice, once while
living in Hawaii, and once at my present location
in North Carolina. In Hawaii the house I was staying in had to be
fumigated and while the workers were tenting the house,
they managed to break a partially corroded-thru neutral wire coming
from the power pole, which no one noticed. Upon moving back into the
house, the recently-new refrigerator died a quick death upon being
plugged back in, upon which an electrician was called in, who quickly
located the broken neutral.

The second time was when I'd been living where I am now, and I'd
recently bought a new fridge - after a few months having it
working fine I noticed it was sounding like it was struggling to start
and at the same time some of the lights would get brighter (I guess
they were on the other half of the 240V supply). Not wanting to have
to deal with a dead fridge again, I investigated the incoming power
panel and found the neutral to be rather lose, so I coated it and the
other 2 incoming wires with some Noalox (an anti-aluminum oxidation
compound) and tightened 'em all goot-n-tite. That was about 7 years
ago, no more problems so far.

Mike