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View Full Version : 109v at my panel; do I have a legitimate complaint?



Wade Lippman
09-09-2015, 12:04 PM
Since an outage a couple weeks ago, I have been watching my voltage at a box 1' away from the panel with nothing else on it. It varies from 115v to 119v; seems to follow the temperature, so I presume it is due to air conditioners. Saturday it got down to 109v and that seems excessively low.

Today at 11am it measured 116v with nothing on in the house. I turned the AC on and it went down to 115v. I turned my cyclone and jointer on (about the only other heavy loads in the house) and it went down to 114v. That leads me to think that had I turned the AC off on Saturday it would have shown 110v delivered to the house. It isn't it supposed to be 115-125v?

So, do I have a legitimate complaint at the power company? Seems to me that if they cranked my transformer up a bit I could get 115-124v instead of 110-119v.

At my old house I got 120v all the time, but that probably isn't relevant.

Dennis Peacock
09-09-2015, 12:17 PM
Even here where I live, power can fluctuate 10% up or down but not really normal, just extremes. My power will do like yours at peak draw times and we even experience some minor brown-outs from time to time. It gets better as temps here get cooler. :)

John Lanciani
09-09-2015, 12:35 PM
ANSI standard for minimum utilization voltage (ANSI C84.1-2011) is 108/216v for a 120/240 volt nominal system.

Wade Lippman
09-09-2015, 12:48 PM
ANSI standard for minimum utilization voltage (ANSI C84.1-2011) is 108/216v for a 120/240 volt nominal system.

I googled on your standard. What I read said that service voltage minimization is 114v; utilization is the user's responsibility, so I presume it is after all voltage drop in the house.
I could easily be confused, but that is how I read it.

Robert Engel
09-09-2015, 1:51 PM
Why don't you just call the power company instead of asking us?

Larry Browning
09-09-2015, 3:31 PM
The activity of checking the household voltage at different times of the day seems like an odd thing to do unless there is something strange happening with your appliances or lights. Why would you even think to do this? Am I missing something?

Wade Lippman
09-09-2015, 3:37 PM
Why don't you just call the power company instead of asking us?

They are going to tell me it is fine; so there is not much point to calling them. If I determine before calling them it is not fine, then I will not accept them telling me it is fine.

2 weeks ago we had an outage. On generator, my UPS kept tripping on. I plugged a killawat in and left it plugged in after we got power back. Then I noticed some low voltages, and have been tracking it since.

John Lanciani
09-09-2015, 3:50 PM
Service voltage is at the demark point (usually the meter base for a residential service), utilization voltage is at the outlet or device.

Also, unless you're using a true rms voltage meter with a valid up to date calibration report you're just whistling in the wind as far as the utility is concerned.

Lee Schierer
09-09-2015, 4:50 PM
With the near record heat the past few days in the Northeast, I imagine the demand for power has been pretty high with everyone running A/C 24/7. A simple call to the utility would answer your question. They might pat you on the head and say don't worry or they might actually come check your power. It could be a sign of a problem in your power feed.