In article ,
lionslair at consolidated dot net "lionslair at consolidated dot net" wrote:
Robert Bonomi wrote:

[[.. munch ..]]

It's a matter of history. The "standard" -- for what was expected at the
outlet in a residence -- changed over the years as power distribution got
better.

[[.. munch ..]]

Your Honda is probably at claimed 125V because of *lousy* voltage regulation.
125V at 'no load', dropping to 120V (or lower) as the load increases.

Our house in the mountains of No. Ca. was a few miles from a swinging
transformer.
Under low load, the transformer was at one voltage, as the current increased,
the transformer switched in another set of windings up until it hit an end.
The swinging transformer had massive make-before-break contacts that always rang
(voltage hits) as it moved. I called the power company when it started hitting
my lines heavy (I was logging them on my APC's) and they found a burnt contact.


At one point I lived "across the parking lot" from the local sub-station.
the feed came out of the substation, down *one* pole, with the transformer
and the drop to the 6 apartment building I was living in. the building
was turn-of-the-century construction, with -- I think -- still original
wiring. I could get an *nine* volt drop at the wall, by kicking on one
of my pieces of electronic test gear -- one that drew about 8 amps. *OUCH*.

Anyway, I'm across the street from a school, 2 blocks from a *big* hospital,
And had several other sizable 'commercial' users within a few blocks.
A line-voltage monitor showed as high as 133V in early AM, with it slowly and
somewhat erratically falling to about 127V by somewhere after 9AM on a
week-day.

*THAT* led to a call/complaint to the electric company, Demanding that
they get the voltage down to the 'proper' level. (That degree of excess
voltage _is_ hard on equipment, and other things. Reduces the effective
life of incandescent bulbs by about _half_, in fact.)

For some reason, customer service didn't want to believe me -- I guess
complaints about "too much power" are *really* rare.

They suggested that what I was reporting "couldn't be happening".
That whatever I was using to read the voltage must be 'in error'.

I pointed out that I had _five_ separate pieces of test equipment, by five
different manufacturers, that were all telling the _same_ story, within about
2V (analog readout uncertainty on some of the meters). That all were
industrial- and/or lab-grade gear. That the precision-reading unit (readable
to 1/4v or finer) had been used for 'reference checks' at half-a-dozen other
locations around the city, and registered 118.5 - 121.5 at *every* other
location. (About the only thing I didn't have was a _recording_ meter / data-
logger.

They _grudgingly_ agreed to send an engineer out to see me. He took
one look at my 'bench', and said "Hell, you've got better equipment there
than _I_ do." Then, looked at my readings and said "that's not right!"
(He didn't even bother to cross-check with his own gear.) Borrowed my phone,
called in to the office, and ordered an _immediate_ roll of a maintenance
team to the substation, and goes outside to wait for the crew to show up.
Which they did, in less than 15 minutes. Less than half an hour later,
my instrumentation is showing a "respectable" 117V. rising all the way
to 123V when the rest of the neighborhood shut down.

I even got a credit on my bill -- where they went back an re-figured what the
kilowatt-hours _should_ have been if they had not been delivering 'too high'
voltage. I'd only lived there a few months, but they back-credited to the
date I moved in. It was about 15% of everything I'd paid.