I've got a newly-built house (well, actually, it's 2/3 new, 1/3 existing)
with new wiring from the panel in. It's got a 200 amp rating at the panel.
But whenever the air conditioning comes on, the lights dim and power dips
much more than I've ever seen in another house, even ones with lower amps
and older wiring. Sometimes it's enough to shut down my computer or TV.

The wire coming in from the pole is what was here when only the existing
house was here. How likely is it that a problem like this is on the city's
side of the breaker panel?

Jim Beaver

"Jim Beaver" writes:
I've got a newly-built house (well, actually, it's 2/3 new, 1/3 existing)
with new wiring from the panel in. It's got a 200 amp rating at the panel.
But whenever the air conditioning comes on, the lights dim and power dips
much more than I've ever seen in another house, even ones with lower amps
and older wiring. Sometimes it's enough to shut down my computer or TV.

The wire coming in from the pole is what was here when only the existing
house was here. How likely is it that a problem like this is on the city's
side of the breaker panel?

One more option, that I'd consider as more likely than a panel or
wiring issue: the air conditioning compressor's start up current may
be unusually large (perhaps out of spec) and exceeding the rating of
the service momentarily.

However, I'd call the electric company and put the onus on them--their
transformer may not be doing its job and might be the root cause of
your house voltage wilting under teh start up load of your A/C
compressor. They should have a voltage recorder that you can use in
your home that can quantify the problem.

This can be tricky to diagnose though, and fingerpointing will surely
be involved, and perhaps a visit from an electrician and/or an HVAC
guy.

In the mean time, I'd check into the an APC Smart UPS with
brownout/sag protection for that computer in a hurry. It's nice to
have, regardless.

Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

Jim Beaver wrote:

I've got a newly-built house (well, actually, it's 2/3 new, 1/3 existing)
with new wiring from the panel in. It's got a 200 amp rating at the
panel. But whenever the air conditioning comes on, the lights dim and
power dips much more than I've ever seen in another house, even ones with
lower amps
and older wiring. Sometimes it's enough to shut down my computer or TV.

The wire coming in from the pole is what was here when only the existing
house was here. How likely is it that a problem like this is on the
city's side of the breaker panel?

Jim Beaver
You might want to verify the various wire connections in the panel are tight
and well connected (but only if you are comfortable with things electrical)
A bad connection will cause a voltage drop under load.
begin sidebar
By any chance... are you using Aluminum wire? If so, i highly recommend you
rip it all out and get what you can for scrap price out of it. AL is ok in
very large sizes (as long as its correctly installed with proper torque and
an anti-oxidant on good clean connections), oh say above 00 but even still,
I'd go all copper if i possibly could.
end sidebar
I really doubt its a utility transformer problem, but I'll bet dimes to
donuts its either a bad main breaker or a bad connection in your panel,
either at the mains, the meter or one of the bus bars in the panel.
Eric

Jim Beaver wrote:
I've got a newly-built house (well, actually, it's 2/3 new, 1/3 existing)
with new wiring from the panel in. It's got a 200 amp rating at the panel.
But whenever the air conditioning comes on, the lights dim and power dips
much more than I've ever seen in another house, even ones with lower amps
and older wiring. Sometimes it's enough to shut down my computer or TV.

The wire coming in from the pole is what was here when only the existing
house was here. How likely is it that a problem like this is on the city's
side of the breaker panel?

Jim Beaver



Are those lights on the same circuit as the A/C? If your a/c was
drawing unusually high current I would expect occasional breaker trips.
Anything that does not trip the breaker should be suppliable by the
transformer. I would call power company. Also high chance of loose
connection, which is dangerous.

--
Respectfully,


CL Gilbert

"Jim Beaver" wrote in message
...
I've got a newly-built house (well, actually, it's 2/3 new, 1/3 existing)
with new wiring from the panel in. It's got a 200 amp rating at the
panel.
But whenever the air conditioning comes on, the lights dim and power dips
much more than I've ever seen in another house, even ones with lower amps
and older wiring. Sometimes it's enough to shut down my computer or TV.

The wire coming in from the pole is what was here when only the existing
house was here. How likely is it that a problem like this is on the
city's
side of the breaker panel?

Jim Beaver

Hard to point you in a direction.
Can you measure the voltage at the panel? What is it? What is it when the
a/c starts?
I would do this before you call the utility. They will be not surprisingly
SLOW to respond to something vague like this.

Other poster have suggested that checking the connections in the panel would
be a good idea. I concur.

Was the panel changed/moved for the remodel? Was any work done near the
grounding of the panel? Water/gas bond still connected? Is the ground still
connected?

If your the only load on the transformer then MAYBE it is unique to your
home. Odds are it is on your side.

"SQLit" wrote in message
...

"Jim Beaver" wrote in message
...
I've got a newly-built house (well, actually, it's 2/3 new, 1/3 existing)
with new wiring from the panel in. It's got a 200 amp rating at the
panel.
But whenever the air conditioning comes on, the lights dim and power dips
much more than I've ever seen in another house, even ones with lower amps
and older wiring. Sometimes it's enough to shut down my computer or TV.

The wire coming in from the pole is what was here when only the existing
house was here. How likely is it that a problem like this is on the
city's
side of the breaker panel?

Jim Beaver

Hard to point you in a direction.
Can you measure the voltage at the panel? What is it? What is it when the
a/c starts?
I would do this before you call the utility. They will be not
surprisingly
SLOW to respond to something vague like this.

Other poster have suggested that checking the connections in the panel
would
be a good idea. I concur.

Was the panel changed/moved for the remodel? Was any work done near the
grounding of the panel? Water/gas bond still connected? Is the ground
still
connected?

If your the only load on the transformer then MAYBE it is unique to your
home. Odds are it is on your side.


Normally, when you have this, dimming when the AC comes on, the lights that
are dimming are on a loose neutral.

"Jim Beaver" wrote in message
...
I've got a newly-built house (well, actually, it's 2/3 new, 1/3 existing) with
new wiring from the panel in. It's got a 200 amp rating at the panel. But
whenever the air conditioning comes on, the lights dim and power dips much
more than I've ever seen in another house, even ones with lower amps and older
wiring. Sometimes it's enough to shut down my computer or TV.

The wire coming in from the pole is what was here when only the existing house
was here. How likely is it that a problem like this is on the city's side of
the breaker panel?

Jim Beaver

This is Turtle.

In this age and time , anything is possible.

Check the voltage at the service pannel and if you see this dip in the voltage
there. Call the power company. If you don't see any dip in the voltage at the
pannel . You have a problem inside your house. call a electricial to come fix
it.

The Cheapest might be to call the power company and let them see as to the low
volage when the A/C comes on. If there is a drop of voltage at the meter pan.
It's their problem. If not , it's your to fix inside your house.

TURTLE

In alt.home.repair on Fri, 29 Jul 2005 21:21:49 -0700 Eric
posted:

Jim Beaver wrote:

I've got a newly-built house (well, actually, it's 2/3 new, 1/3 existing)
with new wiring from the panel in. It's got a 200 amp rating at the
panel. But whenever the air conditioning comes on, the lights dim and
power dips much more than I've ever seen in another house, even ones with
lower amps
and older wiring. Sometimes it's enough to shut down my computer or TV.

The wire coming in from the pole is what was here when only the existing
house was here. How likely is it that a problem like this is on the
city's side of the breaker panel?

Jim Beaver
You might want to verify the various wire connections in the panel are tight
and well connected (but only if you are comfortable with things electrical)
A bad connection will cause a voltage drop under load.

This sounds right to me. If the AC and the lights are on different
circuits, and they almost certainly are, that would mean the bad
connection is at the junction or closer to the street than the
junction of them. That is, where the main enters and connects to the
fusebox.

I've done this with my car battery with my bare hand, but I think
doing it with a bare hand in a fuse box would kill me, literally (and
literally doesn't mean figuratively, like people seem to use it.)

But... Is there any sort of rubber glove that the OP could wear that
would insulate from the electricity, but allow him to feel if the
connection is hot, physcially. That's how I could tell where the bad
connection was on the car battery. The good one was cold, the bad one
was almost too hot to touch. Of course that was a really bad
connection, so bad the car stalled and wouldn't crank fast enough to
restart. The op's connection is still working, but I think it would
be warm all the time, and a bit hotter right after the AC starts up.

Or is it too dangerous and he should just tighten that connection with
a well insulated screw driver and gloves?



begin sidebar
By any chance... are you using Aluminum wire? If so, i highly recommend you
rip it all out and get what you can for scrap price out of it. AL is ok in
very large sizes (as long as its correctly installed with proper torque and
an anti-oxidant on good clean connections), oh say above 00 but even still,
I'd go all copper if i possibly could.
end sidebar
I really doubt its a utility transformer problem, but I'll bet dimes to
donuts its either a bad main breaker or a bad connection in your panel,
either at the mains, the meter or one of the bus bars in the panel.
Eric


Meirman
--
If emailing, please let me know whether
or not you are posting the same letter.
Change domain to erols.com, if necessary.

meirman wrote:

In alt.home.repair on Fri, 29 Jul 2005 21:21:49 -0700 Eric
posted:

Jim Beaver wrote:

I've got a newly-built house (well, actually, it's 2/3 new, 1/3
existing)
with new wiring from the panel in. It's got a 200 amp rating at the
panel. But whenever the air conditioning comes on, the lights dim and
power dips much more than I've ever seen in another house, even ones
with lower amps
and older wiring. Sometimes it's enough to shut down my computer or TV.

The wire coming in from the pole is what was here when only the existing
house was here. How likely is it that a problem like this is on the
city's side of the breaker panel?

Jim Beaver
You might want to verify the various wire connections in the panel are
tight and well connected (but only if you are comfortable with things
electrical) A bad connection will cause a voltage drop under load.

This sounds right to me. If the AC and the lights are on different
circuits, and they almost certainly are, that would mean the bad
connection is at the junction or closer to the street than the
junction of them. That is, where the main enters and connects to the
fusebox.

I've done this with my car battery with my bare hand, but I think
doing it with a bare hand in a fuse box would kill me, literally (and
literally doesn't mean figuratively, like people seem to use it.)

But... Is there any sort of rubber glove that the OP could wear that
would insulate from the electricity, but allow him to feel if the
connection is hot, physcially. That's how I could tell where the bad
connection was on the car battery. The good one was cold, the bad one
was almost too hot to touch. Of course that was a really bad
connection, so bad the car stalled and wouldn't crank fast enough to
restart. The op's connection is still working, but I think it would
be warm all the time, and a bit hotter right after the AC starts up.

Or is it too dangerous and he should just tighten that connection with
a well insulated screw driver and gloves?



begin sidebar
By any chance... are you using Aluminum wire? If so, i highly recommend
you rip it all out and get what you can for scrap price out of it. AL is
ok in very large sizes (as long as its correctly installed with proper
torque and an anti-oxidant on good clean connections), oh say above 00 but
even still, I'd go all copper if i possibly could.
end sidebar
I really doubt its a utility transformer problem, but I'll bet dimes to
donuts its either a bad main breaker or a bad connection in your panel,
either at the mains, the meter or one of the bus bars in the panel.
Eric


Meirman
--
If emailing, please let me know whether
or not you are posting the same letter.
Change domain to erols.com, if necessary.

FIRST: dont be doing that kind of crap on electrical equipment.
Use the proper tools. Do it right and get good results with no
damage to the equipment or injuries to yourself or others.

OK:
Its easier and much safer to just measure the voltage drop across the
connection with a voltmeter, here's a sample of measuring the drop across
the L2 connection.
--------@------- L1
-----------@---- N
-------@-------- L2
^ ^
| voltmeter|

notice I'm measuring NOT line to line or line to neutral? I'm measuring
across the connection on a single line. The idea is to see how much voltage
is dropped across the connection and thus to gain an idea of how good the
connection is. Ideally you would read Zero volts if the connection were
perfect. Of course this all has to be measured with a fair amount of
current flowing through the connection - I'd recommend at least 25% of its
rated load if its possible and 100% of its "normal" (not rated, but normal
- what it usually runs at) load is great. If you know the exact amps then
measuring the drop will allow you to calculate the actual connection
resistance. But barring that, if you put a decent load on it and measure
anything more than a few volts its a problem. Also, just cuz your measuring
on a single line dont forget it can kill you in a heartbeat. Be Carefull!
Think about keeping yourself out of contact with the line wires and bus
bars etc, put on shoes with rubber soles, dont do it in your garage in bare
feet.
Eric

"Eric" wrote in message
...
meirman wrote:

In alt.home.repair on Fri, 29 Jul 2005 21:21:49 -0700 Eric
posted:

Jim Beaver wrote:

I've got a newly-built house (well, actually, it's 2/3 new, 1/3
existing)
with new wiring from the panel in. It's got a 200 amp rating at the
panel. But whenever the air conditioning comes on, the lights dim and
power dips much more than I've ever seen in another house, even ones
with lower amps
and older wiring. Sometimes it's enough to shut down my computer or
TV.

The wire coming in from the pole is what was here when only the
existing
house was here. How likely is it that a problem like this is on the
city's side of the breaker panel?

Jim Beaver
You might want to verify the various wire connections in the panel are
tight and well connected (but only if you are comfortable with things
electrical) A bad connection will cause a voltage drop under load.

This sounds right to me. If the AC and the lights are on different
circuits, and they almost certainly are, that would mean the bad
connection is at the junction or closer to the street than the
junction of them. That is, where the main enters and connects to the
fusebox.

I've done this with my car battery with my bare hand, but I think
doing it with a bare hand in a fuse box would kill me, literally (and
literally doesn't mean figuratively, like people seem to use it.)

But... Is there any sort of rubber glove that the OP could wear that
would insulate from the electricity, but allow him to feel if the
connection is hot, physcially. That's how I could tell where the bad
connection was on the car battery. The good one was cold, the bad one
was almost too hot to touch. Of course that was a really bad
connection, so bad the car stalled and wouldn't crank fast enough to
restart. The op's connection is still working, but I think it would
be warm all the time, and a bit hotter right after the AC starts up.

Or is it too dangerous and he should just tighten that connection with
a well insulated screw driver and gloves?



begin sidebar
By any chance... are you using Aluminum wire? If so, i highly recommend
you rip it all out and get what you can for scrap price out of it. AL is
ok in very large sizes (as long as its correctly installed with proper
torque and an anti-oxidant on good clean connections), oh say above 00
but
even still, I'd go all copper if i possibly could.
end sidebar
I really doubt its a utility transformer problem, but I'll bet dimes to
donuts its either a bad main breaker or a bad connection in your panel,
either at the mains, the meter or one of the bus bars in the panel.
Eric


Meirman
--
If emailing, please let me know whether
or not you are posting the same letter.
Change domain to erols.com, if necessary.

FIRST: dont be doing that kind of crap on electrical equipment.
Use the proper tools. Do it right and get good results with no
damage to the equipment or injuries to yourself or others.

OK:
Its easier and much safer to just measure the voltage drop across the
connection with a voltmeter, here's a sample of measuring the drop across
the L2 connection.
--------@------- L1
-----------@---- N
-------@-------- L2
^ ^
| voltmeter|

notice I'm measuring NOT line to line or line to neutral? I'm measuring
across the connection on a single line. The idea is to see how much
voltage
is dropped across the connection and thus to gain an idea of how good the
connection is. Ideally you would read Zero volts if the connection were
perfect. Of course this all has to be measured with a fair amount of
current flowing through the connection - I'd recommend at least 25% of its
rated load if its possible and 100% of its "normal" (not rated, but normal
- what it usually runs at) load is great. If you know the exact amps then
measuring the drop will allow you to calculate the actual connection
resistance. But barring that, if you put a decent load on it and measure
anything more than a few volts its a problem. Also, just cuz your
measuring
on a single line dont forget it can kill you in a heartbeat. Be Carefull!
Think about keeping yourself out of contact with the line wires and bus
bars etc, put on shoes with rubber soles, dont do it in your garage in
bare
feet.
Eric


Second that...some dont have a clue how many MILIamps it takes to kill a
person.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Wed, 3 Aug 2005 03:55:28 -0400, "Carolina Breeze HVAC"
wrote:

...some dont have a clue how many MILIamps it takes to kill a
person.

How about 6 AMPS?
http://image04.webshots.com/4/8/61/7...2kvWLzu_ph.jpg


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 7.1

iQA/AwUBQvCKxAIk7T39FC4ZEQLrUwCePCUEKotc3LO0OiUs4Dj3GN 5dTQMAoLDq
GMUCsGHcxrP8a8ZdIdsqQYjh
=v7KO
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--
-john
wide-open at throttle dot info

~^Johnny^~ wrote:


On Wed, 3 Aug 2005 03:55:28 -0400, "Carolina Breeze HVAC"
wrote:


...some dont have a clue how many MILIamps it takes to kill a
person.


How about 6 AMPS?


How about 100mA (0.1A) for 3 seconds. At 16mA you may not be able to let go.

Bud--

According to Bud :
~^Johnny^~ wrote:


On Wed, 3 Aug 2005 03:55:28 -0400, "Carolina Breeze HVAC"
wrote:


...some dont have a clue how many MILIamps it takes to kill a
person.

How about 6 AMPS?


How about 100mA (0.1A) for 3 seconds. At 16mA you may not be able to let go.

20ma under reasonably ordinary conditions is quite lethal. The question
is how much of the current flow actually goes through your body (versus
somewhere else) and how long it happens. Skin resistance, parallel paths,
etc. etc. etc.

Under extra-ordinary conditions, MUCH lower currents can be lethal. In
surgery, currents on the order of a few _microamps_ can be fatal.
--
Chris Lewis, Una confibula non set est
It's not just anyone who gets a Starship Cruiser class named after them.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Wed, 03 Aug 2005 10:54:10 -0500, Bud
wrote:

~^Johnny^~ wrote:


On Wed, 3 Aug 2005 03:55:28 -0400, "Carolina Breeze HVAC"
wrote:


...some dont have a clue how many MILIamps it takes to kill a
person.


How about 6 AMPS?


How about 100mA (0.1A) for 3 seconds. At 16mA you may not be able to
let go.

=whoosh!=

I guess you didn't click the link.
If you did, you would see I was being facetious.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 7.1

iQA/AwUBQvEmfgIk7T39FC4ZEQLRvgCg5tBkBZhc2PWIZV0UEydKTf PeOqcAoMzJ
T9mZ10xgxO5tmmEBJtiKzWku
=K+l3
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--
-john
wide-open at throttle dot info