Thread: What is normal for house voltage?

So tonight my APC backup for my PC was switching to battery over and over. The voltage reading on it shows we're getting 139 volts coming in. This seems way too high. We had a power outage the other day and I'm guessing the power company messed up somehow. Anyone else ever deal with this? I have visions of all my appliances lighting on fire.

Is the reading fluctuating or steady?

When the refrigerator or AC switches on, do half the lights in your house get brighter, and the other half get dimmer?

Reading is steady. Lights flicker when stuff comes on.

I am pretty sure it's advres' fault.

Originally Posted by rideit

I am pretty sure it's advres' fault.

Well, there are, unfortunately, a ton of hipsters in my neighborhood. So that's entirely possible.

Power company is supposed to fix the issue today. We'll see.

Normal is 120V but I've seen up to 130V at my house. 139 is a little high. Local step down transformers have taps to tweak the voltage. If you're near an industrial area the voltage can vary a lot based on time of day.

Typical voltage on a single phase residential service is 120/240v. 139 is a lil high but you'll be fine. Sometimes power co will spike the voltage to accommodate the usage this time of year. They also will brown the power out during the day but that's not a prob for you. Your electronics will be fine. They have the investors to handle it. Everything else should be alright they are usually rated to 140v

Originally Posted by bern43

Reading is steady. Lights flicker when stuff comes on.

Get an electrician to come out.
Time to spend some coin.

Originally Posted by bern43

Reading is steady. Lights flicker when stuff comes on.

If you feeling ballsy. Take the cover off and tight all the screws on the neutral bar. That can help with the lights flickering. You may have a large draw on not a large enough service, that would brown everything out in the house though.

^^^ lol, personally I'd want to make sure I have a really good understanding of what's going on in the box before sticking tools in there. Not saying the above isn't good advice, but it's potentially your life at stake.

Originally Posted by 1000-oaks

^^^ lol, personally I'd want to make sure I have a really good understanding of what's going on in the box before sticking tools in there. Not saying the above isn't good advice, but it's potentially your life at stake.

Yeah it can give you a lil shock and you can make some fireworks if you slip up. If its a newer panel every thing is separated nicely and shouldn't be a problem. You just tighten all the screws on the buss bar that the white wires land on. If its a rats nest in there then you have a prob. It's always better to play it safe when you don't know what's up

It could very well be a loose neutral, but messing around in a panel is not something for a noob to be doing.

Sent from my PantechP8000 using TGR Forums

Originally Posted by 1000-oaks

^^^ lol, personally I'd want to make sure I have a really good understanding of what's going on in the box before sticking tools in there. Not saying the above isn't good advice, but it's potentially your life at stake.

Not to worry, the Supreme Court just upheld Obamacare, he should be fine

Sounds like a loose neutral. I had the same problem, it took two visits from the power co and two electricians to solve it. It should have been solved the first time out as it was a loose neutral on the power pole that was missed. Then a bastard electrician told me I needed a whole new house panel, at $1,500, fuck that!. The next told me everything was fine but there was a loose neutral on the pole so he made the power co come back out...problem solved.

Originally Posted by hutash

Not to worry, the Supreme Court just upheld Obamacare, he should be fine

I am laughing that I just learned this from TGR because I haven't looked at a news site yet this morning. You should have put **SPOILERS** at the top of your post.

Sounds like a loose neutral. I had the same problem, it took two visits from the power co and two electricians to solve it. It should have been solved the first time out as it was a loose neutral on the power pole that was missed. Then a bastard electrician told me I needed a whole new house panel, at $1,500, fuck that!. The next told me everything was fine but there was a loose neutral on the pole so he made the power co come back out...problem solved.

My parents once had a fully floating neutral. For those of you who aren't electrinerds: that means when the fridge would come on, the load pulled the neutral over to one side of the split phase power, so all the circuits on one phase, between neutral and one hot wire, saw more voltage and the other side saw less. That is why I asked about the lights getting brighter and dimmer. They called the power company - who came fast because that's a serious problem. (It turned out to be tree damage to the line.)

Normal humans should not put screwdrivers into the panel IMO.

I know way back in the day we had low power in a mall mess with the data on a disk drive on a controler at a food store but it was on one of those big old controlers the size of a freezer with plastic disc enclosures you can see thru that have platters the size of an LP running 220V

SO does wierd power get dealt with on the PS in a modern LT or desk top or is it going to do bad things to the data ??

Originally Posted by XXX-er

SO does wierd power get dealt with on the PS in a modern LT or desk top or is it going to do bad things to the data ??

Modern power supplies are generally capable of dealing with the fluctuations & isolating/protecting the internal components of the PC. It'll shut down on overvoltage, and either reboot the pc or shut it down with undervoltage.

I know from a trip to Italy last year that my laptop work fine on their 50 htz 220v. Jgb your right the modern supplies can deal with the fluctuation.

Those having issues with the fluctuations it's most likely cause all residential power is "dirty" unlike places that need clean power for their business purposes.

Originally Posted by coldfeet

I am laughing that I just learned this from TGR because I haven't looked at a news site yet this morning. You should have put **SPOILERS** at the top of your post.

My bad, I didn't realize you Tivo'ed SC hearings

Normal humans should not put screwdrivers into the panel IMO.

Where do you think superhero powers come from, spider bites?

try sticking your schlong in the electrical box, it'll give it special powers.

Power company came out. They set something too high when part of the street lost power last week. Everything is back to 120ish volts now.

Do the lights still flicker when loads come on?

If so, you NEED to get an electrician out.

that or dedicated circuits

Originally Posted by doughboyshredder

Do the lights still flicker when loads come on?

If so, you NEED to get an electrician out.

Or an exorcist.

Originally Posted by XXX-er

I know way back in the day we had low power in a mall mess with the data on a disk drive on a controler at a food store but it was on one of those big old controlers the size of a freezer with plastic disc enclosures you can see thru that have platters the size of an LP running 220V

SO does wierd power get dealt with on the PS in a modern LT or desk top or is it going to do bad things to the data ??

It can do bad things with data- things like you tell it to save the info to disk and it acts like it does, but does not (had that happen before from a portable space heater that was blowing a circuit- hours of working on the computer and no data. The biggest thing about dirty power and a computer is there is no predicting what will happen if it is more than 10% over or under the rated DC power. Could just cause the display to be unstable- or could be much worst. It also can depend on the power supply and how good of a design the manufacturer does building the unit. Just never know- but even modern computers still like stable power (maybe some laptops with their batteries that allow them to continue to run without AC), but the OP states he has a UPS which should help greatly if it is working right. First thing I do if a customer is having strange computer problems that go away when they bring it in for diagnostics and there is no problem found- ask about their power and if they have any big motors on the same circuit like a refrigerator, pump, etc or worst at a business some industrial equipment of some sort.

Originally Posted by spook

that or dedicated circuits

Ehh, no.
Lights aren't flickering because they are on the same circuit.

If there is too much of a load on the panel the additional load can draw the voltage down across the entire panel. Too much of a load, can be caused by a loose neutral, or too small of a service for how much of a load there is at the house.