On Friday, 18 October 2019 06:06:32 UTC+1, ehsjr wrote:
On 10/17/2019 4:08 PM, wrote:
My power comes from a line that is about 2000 feet long and my drop
comes from about the middle. It is just two wires, hot up high and
the neutral lower. About a month ago one of my trees took out the
neutral before my drop. Nevertheless I still had power. What gives?
Eric



The neutral wire is grounded at the power utility transformer,
typically at the pole on which the transformer is mounted.
At your house, the neutral wire from the transformer is connected
to the neutral bus in your circuit breaker/fuse panel. Inside
that panel there is a connection between the neutral bus and the
ground bus. That connection is required by the NEC (National
Electrical Code). The ground bus is also required to be connected
to the "electrode grounding system" - typically referred to by
homeowners as the "ground rod". So with a broken neutral wire
you still have a complete circuit from hot to the panel by the
unbroken wire, and from neutral at the transformer to ground,
through the ground to your "grounding electrode system" which
is connected inside your service panel to the ground AND the
neutral bus.

Ed

required in US yet not allowed in UK. Funny world


NT