Do any of you electricians recall the OLD way of wiring a double
pole switch from the knob and tube days. Yup, fellows, there
actually is an alternate way to wire a DP circuit.

Nonny


"Andrew Erickson" wrote in message
...
In article ,
dpb wrote:

Leon wrote:
...
Hey It is hard to tell what the voltage is any more. LOL. 2
weeks ago
"after" having 3 new leads run underground to my home, I lost
electricity
in
1/2 of my house and had no 240? ;!) I started having issues
with lights
diming.

Bad neutral is different that my reference altho can be
entertaining set
of symptoms (unfortunately, which may also turn into
expensive)...

Loss of one hot at the breaker panel can also be entertaining,
although
generally not as destructive. I've had that happen once or
twice,
mainly at a house with an older distribution panel that used
individual
cartridge fuses for the main rather than a ganged circuit
breaker. Have
one wear out or go pop or whatever, and suddenly you have one
phase
powered normally, and one phase powered through any 220V things
that
happen to be on--mainly the water heater, in my case. Small
loads
worked fine on that leg, but anything that drew any current
would cause
the voltage to go down dramatically. The microwave clock, for
instance,
ran fine, until actual cooking was attempted....

...

BTW, on that 240V circuit, I'd presume it is more than likely
ok but it
might not hurt to double check did actually hook the ground
conductor to
the ground buss in the box rather than to the neutral buss if
really
were thinking neutral as opposed to ground way back
then...nothing is
going to happen but it really ought to be on ground, not
neutral per Code.

It depends where you're talking about checking. There is one
point in
the system, typically at the main disconnect (the main breaker
box),
where neutral and ground are bonded together, and at that point
the
neutral buss is the ground buss and vice-versa.

For separate outbuildings, I think (but I'm not sure about this,
not
being an electrician) the usual practice is to have a separate
ground
rod and bond that to the neutral bus at the outbuilding's main
panel,
omitting a separate safety ground wire between the buildings.
In other
words, the outbuilding is wired as though it were an isolated
installation, not as a subpanel in the main building. In this
case, for
the main panel in the outbuilding, neutral and ground would
again share
the same bus bar(s). Any difference in ground potential between
the
house ground and the outbuilding ground would, of course, result
in a
current flow over the neutral wire; the assumption, I guess, is
that
there shouldn't be a large potential difference and hence not
too great
of a current flow.

--
Andrew Erickson

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which
he cannot
lose." -- Jim Elliot


--
Nonny

What does it mean when drool runs
out of both sides of a drunken
Congressman’s mouth?

The floor is level.