On Tue, 05 Aug 2003 13:51:19 GMT, L. M. Rappaport
wrote:

On 5 Aug 2003 05:32:28 -0700, (Andre Courchesne
- Consultant) wrote (with possible editing):

Sounds interesting. But would'nt the complete house be down if the the
main connection would be open?

One other thing I forgot to mention is that the circuits that shut-off
have 0v and the breaker does not open. Yesterday when it happened I
tried to close and then open the affected breakers and it did nothing.
I even closed and open the main switch and it changed nothing. But
after about 20 minutes the power returned...

I don't have an AC so I don't know what happen to it. When it happens
the dryer works but now the stove (both on 220v).

If it is a missing phase would be all outlets be affacted and wouldn't
I measure around 60-65v with my multimeter? Now I read 0v on affected
circuits and 110v on the others...

No, Rich is most likely correct. Houses are normally fed from the
secondary side of a distribution transformer, otherwise known as a
"pole pig". They output 220 - 240 vac center-tapped, yielding 110 -
120 vac on each side or 220 - 240vac across the two phases. If a
phase leg is interrupted (as in a bad connection), that side will have
0 volts and the other side will be fine.

Call your electric company.

In that case, if you have any 240V appliances on, they will "bridge"
from the live leg, to the dead one, providing some voltage.