Acceptable voltage in home.

Austin68 · Jun 16, 2022

Not sure this is the best area for this question but here it goes. I have a fairly long run of wire (300ft round trip) to my inverter and the voltage from the grid is at 115v. Since the inverter is matching the grid voltage and then having to send that back to the house my drop is a tad bit higher then I had figured (with 9000w load we were around 113v). I talked to the power company and they said that they may be able to adjust the taps on the transformer to bring the voltage up, but they were a little concerned that in fall when the grid demand is lower that the voltage would be too high. So my question is, what is too high of voltage for a home? Mainly I'm concerned with appliances and what not.

sunshine_eggo · Jun 16, 2022

Check some of your appliances. They may give a range. Something that's sticking in my head is 108-130VAC.

Ampster · Jun 16, 2022

Where are you that you have 120 volts from the grid? The standard for US is 240 volt split phase.

BentleyJ · Jun 16, 2022

Even at 130V its only 8.3%, not sure but don't think a typical appliance would be that sensitive.

sunshine_eggo · Jun 16, 2022

BentleyJ said:
Even at 130V its only 8.3%, not sure but don't think a typical appliance would be that sensitive.

I can say that I had voltage happy fun time in my motorhome once. Generator regulator failed, so voltage depended solely on load. At no-load, it was outputting 163VAC. That was enough to damage the 55A converter to the point that it would only output 3A, but it still worked. Neither modern-ish LCD TV (vintage of motorhome means it was designed for CRT) or the household microwave or anything else that might have been on AC was damaged.

acdoctor · Jun 16, 2022

In the heating and air conditioning industry circuit boards start flaking out at 256 volts or 128 per leg. I have had the power company replace several transformers. Most motors are designed to run on 208 to 240. Specs usually says 198 volts minimum.

Lt.Dan · Jun 16, 2022

You might be surprised to find a lot of appliances and even electronics might run at a wider range than you think. My Dell PC in my office has a tag on the power supply that says 100-250v. The monitor is the same way! I even put 240v to my monitor when testing one of the crypto miners I have (it was the only voltage nearby and all my c13/c14 cables are plugged into a 240v PDU), and it really doesn't mind!

Edit: Always look at labels before you plug it in though!

Austin68 · Jun 17, 2022

Ampster said:
Where are you that you have 120 volts from the grid? The standard for US is 240 volt split phase.

iI appoligize, iI was referring to voltage per leg.

curiouscarbon · Jun 17, 2022

sunshine_eggo said:
I can say that I had voltage happy fun time in my motorhome once. Generator regulator failed, so voltage depended solely on load. At no-load, it was outputting 163VAC. That was enough to damage the 55A converter to the point that it would only output 3A, but it still worked. Neither modern-ish LCD TV (vintage of motorhome means it was designed for CRT) or the household microwave or anything else that might have been on AC was damaged.

"voltage happy fun time"

thanks, this made my day

curiouscarbon · Jun 17, 2022

wishing original poster a good time, no constructive input, thanks

Austin68 · Jun 17, 2022

Lt.Dan said:
You might be surprised to find a lot of appliances and even electronics might run at a wider range than you think. My Dell PC in my office has a tag on the power supply that says 100-250v. The monitor is the same way! I even put 240v to my monitor when testing one of the crypto miners I have (it was the only voltage nearby and all my c13/c14 cables are plugged into a 240v PDU), and it really doesn't mind!

Edit: Always look at labels before you plug it in

I noticed that on my computer is that way but then my fridge just says 115 volts

tigerwillow1 · Jun 17, 2022

Voltage Tolerance Boundary - PGE

Austin68 · Jun 18, 2022

tigerwillow1 said:
Voltage Tolerance Boundary - PGE

I dont get the range A and range B. Is that saying those are the type ranges that could be coming into a house?

tigerwillow1 · Jun 18, 2022

Service voltage is what's measured at your utility connection. I assume that's the meter in most cases.
Utilization voltage is what's supplied to your electrical equipment, taking the wiring from the utility connection to the equipment into account.
It says that range B voltages can happen occasionally, and if too frequently, must be fixed. I interpret that as saying your equipment must be able to tolerate occasional excursions to the range B extremes.

Mike 134 · Jul 28, 2022

Austin68 said:
I dont get the range A and range B. Is that saying those are the type ranges that could be coming into a house?

yes.

Acceptable voltage in home.

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