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diy solar

diy solar

Cable was going off and on, bad reason and fix.

Jmhai3

Solar Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 28, 2023
Messages
257
Location
Asheville N.C.
After hurricane Helene (WNC North Carolina, /Asheville) my power was out for 15 days.
A group out of Ohio was in my area doing all the repairs. After it was finished, we had a slow flicker or pulsing LEDs that would come and go. Thought it could be the fact everything around was all in repair in the area and it would stop eventually.

It took another week to finally get cable back and it seemed fine for a few days, and it started connecting and disconnecting for no reason we could tell. I let this go for a couple weeks or so for the same reason above. Both the cable and power were still inconsistent. I finally called the cable company, and they reported I did show an issue on my end and would send someone out to check my line in. A day later the service tech showed up and didn't take long to call me out to the box where he showed me the cable line was melting in the box, and it show 7amps running thru it. He said I must have lost my neutral for the house and it was using the cable line and melting it because it would not handle the load for much longer. He reported the issue to the company and left saying I needed to call the power company to come out and look to see where the issue was. My house could burn down if the cable line fails or blowup appliances or electronics.

I called the power company, and the Service tech showed up that evening. I told him the issue which he then said yep, I can see from here (standing on the ground) that your neutral is not tied in at the pole. After 20mins in his bucket he came back down and said should be good to go and that my next-door neighbor was not tied in either. I called my neighbors to let them know and they said they didn't know why the lights were flicker but thought the same as me that repairs eventually would be completed, and it would stop.

So, this was a big lesson for me on making sure repairs are done correctly and question issues quickly and not wait to see if things get better over time.

Luckly all my sensitive electronics and appliances (120-volt) run thru my UPS system and was isolated from the grid in that way but the 240 stuff and everything else was grid tied directly.
 
There was a case a few years back in Wales (UK) when a row of cottages was obliterated by a gas explosion (I don't recall if there were deaths or injuries).

The investigation revealed that the primary cause was an open supply neutral (actually a PEN as the supply was TNC-S). The return current from the cottages was going via a conveniently earthed gas pipe. Electrolytic action at a joint did the rest!!
 
Seen a lot of the destruction in your area on YouTube, and I'm sure what I saw was nothing compared to actually being there. Hope you and yours come out ok, and recover as quickly as possible.
Thank you.
We are lucky in that we are not dealing with the flooding damage at our home just the local aftermath. We had the neighborhood closed off for 3-days as some many trees came down across the road and on houses it took that long for us to clear one road for in and out. I had six trees (5-oaks and 1-locust, could not wrap my arms around them, except the locust) in my back yard and now down to 3 with no tops, they will need to be dropped too. The sound during the storm was the worst part the wind was like a train and the sound of falling trees went on for hours. I was born and raised in South Florida and been thru many hurricanes and this was the worst I been thru to date.
 

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