Limp Arbor wrote:
So the ice storm the othe day took down many trees in our area. My
BIL called me because a branch fell and knocked his neutral wire loose
from the weatherhead. Some things worked others didn't, biggest
problem was when the fridge kicked on the whole house went dim.

I asked him about a ground rod and he was sure he didn't have one.
Until he could get a guy to climb up there I told him to go get a
ground rod at the Borg and pound it in as far as he could and connect
it to the ground/neutral bar in his panel. He was able to get the
ground rod about 5' down with a hammer and connected two 12ga copper
wires from the rod to his panel. After he did this there was no
improvement at all.

An hour later an electrician he knows showed up and reconnected the
neutral to the weaterhead and all was better. Neither of his hot
leads at the weatherhead were loose or needed to be touched. So why
wouldn't going directly to ground from the panel have helped his
problem?

'Cuz the neutral bus that was disconnected was/is isolated.

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