CTB16 acting up

[k6ccc]

I’m with The Ducks.  Get an electrician out there.  If you have a crappy neutral, you can end up with MAJOR problems.  You should not have anywhere close to that much variation between outlets.

 

[a31ford]

 

 

I'm with Ducks, and K6ccc (Jim) there is something not right...

I'm also gona add this.. couple of years back, I was having weird problems of my own with one controller... turned out (fluke I found it) that the fencer for our south pasture was affecting the controllers (in the north pasture, over 1000 feet away) the one controller was in a low point on the property (but on dry land)... key there land.... ground effect was causing the "click, click, click" of the fencer, to blink lights in that one controller... all I did was put the controller up on the snow, and the problem quit.

I put terminators on the control cat5 cable, and have never had weird problems since......

 

AS well.... a year or so ago, I did an educational video on "OPEN NEUTRAL"   I's boring to watch, but infomative

Greg

Edited December 16, 2018 by a31ford

[TheDucks]

I've seen 2 of these in my life. The first was an old Army barracks (Ft Baker,now  part of the GGNRA), and later my Department manager called me.  His was a broken wire in the PG&E drop to his house..

(I've also seen a missing 480V phase caused by a failed 3000A disconnect for our building. Easy way to ruin  3 phase motor driven equipment)

Edited December 16, 2018 by TheDucks
spelling

[Orville]

Had that neutral issue in my late mother in laws home before she passed away, we found that issue, she got that fixed and then when I replaced the new front outdoor outlet {NON-GFCI} next to the garage door for the sprinkler system she had installed with a GFCI, found out the outlet was wired backwards, Neutral and Hot reversed, then come to find out after changing it out, and doing some testing of outlets inside the house.

I figured since the new outside outlet was wired in reverse, better check ALL the interior and backdoor outdoor outlet to make sure they were wired properly, they were ALL, every one of them wired in REVERSE!  

So I had to turn off the power and re-wire every single outlet correctly in the home.  

Some electrician she hired sure had no idea what he was doing as she had had the house re-wired with a new circuit breaker and wiring, after finding out the CB she had was prone to catch fire!   I had never seen an entire home miswired like that before either.   Fortunately the CB Panel was installed and wired correctly, but having to take apart and swap wires on over 100 outlets in the home and attic was a royal pain in the backside!

Video on the Neutral too me was not boring, that was quite interesting actually.

I know old thread, but sometimes you don't see these until a lot later than when the thread started.

[TheDucks]

5 hours ago, Orville said:

Had that neutral issue in my late mother in laws home before she passed away, we found that issue, she got that fixed and then when I replaced the new front outdoor outlet {NON-GFCI} next to the garage door for the sprinkler system she had installed with a GFCI, found out the outlet was wired backwards, Neutral and Hot reversed, then come to find out after changing it out, and doing some testing of outlets inside the house.

I figured since the new outside outlet was wired in reverse, better check ALL the interior and backdoor outdoor outlet to make sure they were wired properly, they were ALL, every one of them wired in REVERSE!  

So I had to turn off the power and re-wire every single outlet correctly in the home.  

Some electrician she hired sure had no idea what he was doing as she had had the house re-wired with a new circuit breaker and wiring, after finding out the CB she had was prone to catch fire!   I had never seen an entire home miswired like that before either.   Fortunately the CB Panel was installed and wired correctly, but having to take apart and swap wires on over 100 outlets in the home and attic was a royal pain in the backside!

Video on the Neutral too me was not boring, that was quite interesting actually.

I know old thread, but sometimes you don't see these until a lot later than when the thread started.

Once upon a time (a bit before I was born 😛 )  white was HOT (and 2 prong outlets were NOT even polarized).

Those places were (also) Knob and Tube era.  (FWIW properly done, these were really GOOD, SOLID wiring. Connections were mechanically strong, every joint soldered. Critters and humans messing with it, were the biggest issues.). Some 'handy' folk did not get the message 😕 "White is now COMMON"  (I had a whole addition that was on the house, done backwards. AND those were U-ground outlets, with an afterthought ground wire (was not green nor bare ) to the closest water pipe.

 

[dibblejr]

9 minutes ago, TheDucks said:

Once upon a time (a bit before I was born 😛 )  white was HOT (and 2 prong outlets were NOT even polarized).

Those places were (also) Knob and Tube era.  (FWIW properly done, these were really GOOD, SOLID wiring. Connections were mechanically strong, every joint soldered. Critters and humans messing with it, were the biggest issues.). Some 'handy' folk did not get the message 😕 "White is now COMMON"  (I had a whole addition that was on the house, done backwards. AND those were U-ground outlets, with an afterthought ground wire (was not green nor bare ) to the closest water pipe.

 

Gotta love the old knob and tube system. My home in Watertown built in 1823 had that. The home didn't have any receptacle's at all. It still had the lantern holders in every corner. I rewired the entire home and it was a pita to pull wire through lath and plaster. Only about 1/4" spacing between the walls. I found a lot of old stuff in the ceiling that made it even more fun. 

Home even came with the ghosts.

JR

[Mr. P]

3 minutes ago, dibblejr said:

Gotta love the old knob and tube system. My home in Watertown built in 1823 had that. The home didn't have any receptacle's at all. It still had the lantern holders in every corner. I rewired the entire home and it was a pita to pull wire through lath and plaster. Only about 1/4" spacing between the walls. I found a lot of old stuff in the ceiling that made it even more fun. 

Home even came with the ghosts.

JR

As a teen in the late 70's we moved into an old farm house built in the 1860's. The original house was a one story and a two story house was built around and over the original house in 1910. We had a coal/wood furnace we had to feed for heat and hot water. There was a three foot crawl space between the first and second floor where you could see the original wooden shake roof in the first floor ceiling. I climbed up in there and there were thousands of old empty whiskey bottles piled up between the rafters which I guess they were using for insulation.

[dibblejr]

Just now, Mr. P said:

As a teen in the late 70's we moved into an old farm house built in the 1860's. The original house was a one story and a two story house was built around and over the original house in 1910. We had a coal/wood furnace we had to feed for heat and hot water. There was a three foot crawl space between the first and second floor where you could see the original wooden shake roof in the first floor ceiling. I climbed up in there and there were thousands of old empty whiskey bottles piled up between the rafters which I guess they were using for insulation.

I found old newspapers but as I tried to open they would crumble. There was also the copper plated Victorian ceiling. This was the master plantation home the only brick 2 story in the square block. Bottles like you said.

My favorite find was a hand drawn photo of when horses and carriages would stop and tie up to the post. There was also a block in front. That picture showed me what the block was. It was for short people getting on and off the coaches. I had always wondered why someone would put a block in front by the home.

I installed modern electricity, baseboard heaters, a nice crystal chandelier and more. Sold the home for much more than what we paid. When we pcs'd a guy came up and asked to see the home. After some questioning we discovered he was a great grandchild of one of the owners and he used to play in the home. He loved what we did to it.

Interesting enough while rewiring it I discovered a hidden room. It was shaped like an old military shelter half. The roof lines were used as the walls of the room. It was painted red on the inside and beautiful hardwood floors. We called it the "red room". My wife was scared to go in it. After all the home had all sorts of spirits in it.

JR 

[Orville]

4 hours ago, TheDucks said:

Once upon a time (a bit before I was born 😛 )  white was HOT (and 2 prong outlets were NOT even polarized).

Those places were (also) Knob and Tube era.  (FWIW properly done, these were really GOOD, SOLID wiring. Connections were mechanically strong, every joint soldered. Critters and humans messing with it, were the biggest issues.). Some 'handy' folk did not get the message 😕 "White is now COMMON"  (I had a whole addition that was on the house, done backwards. AND those were U-ground outlets, with an afterthought ground wire (was not green nor bare ) to the closest water pipe.

 

I remember those outlets, that's what was in just about every home I grew up in, 2 prong outlet, no wide side and no grounding area to plug in any type of 3 prong grounded plug unless you had to have one installed for something that required one.  Nowdays water pipes are all PVC, so that sure ain't going to work for a ground!  White is common now, so does that mean the white neutral wire can be called either one today?  

I always thought neutral was always white and that common was what they called the ground {green}wire.  I know that's how it is with electronics, but the ground is also the negative side in electronics and black, where red is the positive, I know there is a red wire in the electricity side of things and it is sometimes tied to a hot {black wire} on a switch, but don't recall what its exact name is.  Know I've heard it, read on it, but just can't remember what its exact name is, just know it's also a hot wire, but not exactly like the black hot wire.  I know some things require both the black and red to be connected to some items, and again, I have seen them tied together on some things.

But anytime I'm going to work on anything electrical in my home, I go and research info on what I'm going to do, also get advice from a couple of the guys at church that work with electrical criteria all the time and ask lots of questions, write down info, do some more research, and then if I feel I can do it, change out or add a new electrical outlet or switch to something where its needed, but didn't have a switch that may have been needed {off/on or dimmer type} or an outlet where I thought one should have been in the first place.

[TheDucks]

Ground or Earth is Green (yellow stripe is optional)

Never confuse Common/(Neutral for 120/240) WITH ground. In the US, Common is ONLY connected to Ground (only at the Main service panel. All others need to run a separate green back to the Main GROUND BUS).

US Navy ships outlets were 55V to Ground from either prong