Partial loss of electricity in my home

[ddhiggins]

gophers-true enough,but it is the only panel.

 

[ddhiggins]

sagor1-I guess what confounds me is this:the fact that the breaker only controls 2 ceiling lights makes me believe that this circuit is partially dead,and partially hot....the same notion applies to the breaker that controls only one socket...I always thought that a circuit is either dead,or hot-never partially dead and hot at the same time.....I wonder how this can be?

 

[ddhiggins]

sagor1-I know that broken connections-wires within circuits can cause circuits to be partially dead and hot at the same time,but this happened suddenly,and it happened to more than one circuit at the same time.....it confounds me.

 

[ddhiggins]

The possibility of a faulty leg connection is certainly back on the table,and if this is true,could it cause these partially hot-dead circuits?

 

[unclejed613]

to reset a breaker, you have to turn it full off first

 

[Reloadron]

This is where it is nice to know how things are wired. Not unusual to find a branch circuit with several additional outlets "daisy chained" off of it. All it takes is for a single wire to open (come loose) and everything downstream stops working. Then there is as was mentioned:

to reset a breaker, you have to turn it full off first

There are also some useful tools which are nice to have. Things like a non-contact voltage detector will tell you if a non working outlet does or does not have a "Hot" so on a non-working outlet you then know if you have for example an open neutral upstream.

Ron

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

3 wires from the pole would generally mean 2 hots and a neutral. The pole usually grounds the neutral at the base of the pole. The main panel ground the neutral. The main panel is the ONLY panel that grounds the neutral for an attached structure. All other panels in the attached structure maintain independent grounds and neutrals.

A bad ground/neutral connection or neutral/neutral connection means the 240 stuff works.
The neutral in an installation handles the unbalanced current and it does have different directions. In a perfectly balanced 120/240 system there is no neutral current.

problems can be loose connections (Typical places are the main box, main breaker, splices,)

There can be some poorly understood cases where a ground/neutral connection can accidently come from a neigbor because yours is open.

Example: Your neighbor has a good ground/neutral and ground comes from a water pipe,

Your ground/water pipe connection is good, but you have a bad neutral at the pole or entrance. Your neutral gets picked up as your neighbors neutral through your water pipe and ground.

It does look like the power company needs to do some trimming.

Your main measuremnts should be taken at your main panel. It's not a safe place to worl

It's hard to tell you what you have to do because you will be doing stuff that is not part of the mainstream like measuring between a wire and a terminal.

You have L1, L2, Earth and Neutral and you know what the various voltages should be.

You'd be look at:
At the actual wires
At the lugs

Then across the main breakers. You want to see how much voltage is dropped ACRSS the breaker to eliminate the breaker.

Most problems are usually at the mast head though,

 

[gophert]

means the 240 stuff works.

It doesn't look like there are any 240 v circuits - all breakers are singles. Some small AC units (window size) are 120vAC and that might be the case here.

 

[ddhiggins]

I want to thank everyone for their input,it was a great help to me to get some kind of understanding of all this....the electrician came out,and diagnosed-fixed the problem in less than an hour!....two of the breakers were faulty,they were arcing at their connections.....once he replaced them,I was back in business!

 

[ddhiggins]

I live in Mexico,and I do not speak Spanish,so I had to put my total trust in this guy,and I am glad that I did!

 

[nsaspook]

I want to thank everyone for their input,it was a great help to me to get some kind of understanding of all this....the electrician came out,and diagnosed-fixed the problem in less than an hour!....two of the breakers were faulty,they were arcing at their connections.....once he replaced them,I was back in business!

Great. Breakers, who would've thunk it.

 

[Reloadron]

Glad it is all fixed. Yay!

Ron

 

[MaxHeadRoom78]

I live in Mexico,and I do not speak Spanish,!

Live in Mexico and have not learnt Spanish yet?
Where is Henry, he did wonders for Eliza!
Max.

 

[ddhiggins]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

 

[hyedenny]

I flip it on and off,but it never gets all the way back up..

Make sure you flip it all the way off FIRST!

 

[gophert]

Make sure you flip it all the way off FIRST!

That only works on breakers that are not faulty and arcing. Read post 29.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

It's hard to wrap your head around "measuring the voltage across the breaker" when the test points are not even obvious. That would have found the problem.