"Boden" wrote in message
...
JC wrote:

I guess it's not simplified enough for me. Would someone please
read "Testing for Continuity" on page 127 of the 42nd Edition of
"Wiring Simplified" and tell me if that's correct. I'm not really
sure that I want to jump two incoming hot wires to an incoming
neutral. I'm thinking it would be extremely "temporary". G


I have narrowed my electrical problem down to an open neutral, but
it only occurs at certain times and then goes back to normal. There
is no rhythm to it, it's different times of day and for different
lengths of time. And I've checked every appliance and have even had
them all disconnected overnight to see if their coming on and going
off might have something to do with it. The only thing I have not
disconnected is the water well and I'm going to replace the
regulator on that Friday just because the current one is 5 years
old.

Tks

JC
The power company will appear fast for an open neutral.

Not ours. They are way behind schedule due to Hurricane Ike.


Last year an elderly widow happened to mention to me in passing that
she had bought three refrigerators in the past year because they
"burned out." I knew her home, circa 1850, and immediately called
the volunteer fire chief since he is also an electrician and he went
right over. She had an intermittently open neutral. When the
neutral opened, and if there were other significant loads across the
other phase the refrigerator was placed across close to 240 volts.
The control circuitry (these three refrigerators were SubZero) then
"burned out." To her, money is not an issue so she was sold three
replacements by a stupid or corrupt appliance store.

Don't fool with an open neutral...they can be dangerous and very
expensive.

Boden

I found what apparently was causing the problem. I had a loose
connection in the box, neutral too, that I had somehow missed the last
time I tightened them all up. So, I locked that sucker down. After
that I decided to do a continuity check and discovered that a ground,
the bare copper wire, was not continuous (sic???) so I started with
the lights. I found where one of the connections (old house where they
just twisted them together) had come loose. I repaired that and sewed
everything up and (knocking on wood extremely vigorously) so far, so
good. No flickering lights, no powere draw downs and life seems good.

Thanks for your response.

JC


PS: Sorry I didn't get to ya sooner but it appears my isp did
something and sent out a message that we should reset the ngs and I
just got around to doing that, so didn't see any responses to my post.