Interesting Electrical Phenomena

[Justin McCurdy]

Ok, this is the second time this has happened and I am at a point where I need to know why it is going on. I have lighting circuits set up in my house that have half of my basement on 1 breaker, and the other half of the basement on another breaker along with the garage lighting. Every light is in parallel, and the fixtures are 2 bulb(4 ft.) flourescents. Most of the lighting is set up on 3 way switches (except the garage). The lights and circuits have been in for 3-4 years now and the following issue has occurred twice.

Two days ago, I wnt into the basement to find that turning on the lights on one side of the basement caused all the flourescents to turn on and off at different rates, even within the same fixture. I made sure that all of the switches in the house were either all the way on or off. Still, the blinking. I tried everything from moving bulbs around, unplugging some of the lights, making sure all electrical items in the house were off except for the air conditioner. All to no avail. Yesterday, when I went home to check, all of the blinking lights are now back to normal.

A problem still exists on one side of the basement where all of the lights will not turn on. This seems wierd to me because the garage is after the basement in the circuit's series and there is no hint of a problem in the garage. When I detected the issue on the blinking side of the basement, this side had lights half on and half off which has now changed to all off.


What could be causing these random issues? I have a 200Amp service so power shouldn't be a problem and loads are equally dispersed acording to consumption and concurrent usage. The power has not been out for weeks. Could this be surge related, or could the drought we are experiencing cause a faulty "hard" ground on the outside of the house?

Another interesting tid-bit is even though we had no blinking lights or clocks, the UPS (uninterruptible power supply) on the upstairs computer (different circuit) had shut itself off with an error code of "faulty ground". By resetting the UPS, everything went back to normal. Just to see if it affected the lights, I now have the UPS unplugged completely from the house wiring.


Any help would be much appreciated...

Thanks,
Justin

[Steven Wilson]

I think your EPS diagnosed the problem. It sounds like the ground is floating (could be ground wire or neutural), something is definately wrong. Be careful as something unexpected may be hot.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Just stabbing in the dark here but - - -
My Guess: There is something on those circuits that is causing an intermittent ground fault.

Look back and re-examine everything you have done on those circuits. Something was done wrong or some piece of equipment you added is faulty. Process of elimination cutting one item at a time out of the loop may solve your issue.

Meanwhile check all the junction boxes (outlets and switch boxes too) making sure that all the wire nuts are secure and all the wires are in contact with each other or their respective contacts. This of course means pulling the wire nuts off to ensure you have full connections.

[Justin McCurdy]

Just stabbing in the dark here but - - -
Something was done wrong or some piece of equipment you added is faulty.


Nothing has recently been added or subtracted from the system. I think I would see the problem more often then 2 times out of 4 years. I know heat type issues can cause problems to rear their ugly heads, but the problem tends to go away after a little time.

[Randy Denby]

Sounds like it could be a bad ground/neutral to me as well. Altho, a friend had a similiar experience and found where either a rat or squirrel had gnawd on his wiring causing a shunted circuit.
Could also be a bad 3 way switch....do they feel solid when switching? In other words....snap firmly? Since a 3 way is a single pole double throw switch, a pitted/ corroded contact on the traveler (hot) side of one of the switches could cause the intermittent problem.



now....since I am editing this post....I am gonna try and hit the dang "save" button instead o the "edit" this time. Arrrgh, I hate retyping stuff

[Kent Fitzgerald]

Hmmm. So it sounds like only fluorescent fixtures are exhibiting problems?

I have a few thoughts. Some fluorescent fixtures rely on their ground connection for the tubes to light. Intermittent grounds could cause stating problems.

Also, if you search Google groups, there are other reports of fluorescent lights on three-way switches blinking when turned off, presumably due to coupling between the traveler wires.

[David G Baker]

Justin,
I don't know if this could be the cause of your problem; last year I was having weird electrical things happening on several of my circuits. Every time my HP laser printer would warm up I noticed that lights in my work area would dim and some times would stop glowing at all. I checked all of my breakers, tightened all of the wire on my breakers, checked the leads going to the plug that the printer was plugged into, everything checked out fine. I put up with the problem for several weeks. Finally I gave up and called my utility company and asked them the send out a technician. He checked everything out like I did and couldn't find any problem. He decided to try one more thing, he killed power at the pole, pulled the meter and checked the lugs to see how tight they were. The lug on neutral wire from the pole was so loose that it was a miracle that I had any functioning circuits in the house. He tightened the lug and every thing was fine after that.

[Joe Tonich]

Twice in 4 years.....Spookables...http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b156/jt6089/ghost-skll.gif

"Who ya gonna call??????"

"GHOSTBUSTERS!!!!!!!!!!!"























Sorry...........:o

[Randy Denby]

Davids post reminded me of a problem I had a few years ago as well. Seems a squirrel was sharpening his teeth on my aluminium ground wire feeding the house.. I had lights and things flickering periodically from that,read my voltage and ....:eek: Running 180 instead of 120 with spkikes close to 200.

[Justin McCurdy]

Thanks for the comments so far everyone. I have a lot to take a look at this weekend.

[jeremy levine]

Ground fault..... Wires can come loose over time, oxidation and movement due to heat and humity.

[James A. Wolfe]

Since you are experiencing problems on two separate circuits, you can eliminate anything not common to both. The only places these circuits should have in common are from the breaker panel back to the incoming utility lines. Are both circuits fed from the same bus or are they on opposing legs? The items you're describing sounds like a floating ground situation and could be caused by dry or insufficient grounding rod. Check to see if your panel is also grounded to the incoming water line. Also, after pulling the meter, you can check all the connections on the breaker box bus bars. DO NOT TRY THIS IF YOU'RE NOT SURE HOW.

Jim

[Justin McCurdy]

Since you are experiencing problems on two separate circuits, you can eliminate anything not common to both. The only places these circuits should have in common are from the breaker panel back to the incoming utility lines. Are both circuits fed from the same bus or are they on opposing legs? The items you're describing sounds like a floating ground situation and could be caused by dry or insufficient grounding rod. Check to see if your panel is also grounded to the incoming water line. Also, after pulling the meter, you can check all the connections on the breaker box bus bars. DO NOT TRY THIS IF YOU'RE NOT SURE HOW.

Jim


Jim,

There are light circuits on both legs of the breaker panel. I have checked each outlet that the lights are plugged into with an outlet checker and everything says the circuit is fine. Since the circuits are in the basement, I do not think there has been any expansion or contraction due to heat. Each outlet reads 123 volts between hot and neutral. Since everything has been so dry recently, I will go outside and wet the grounding rod to see if that helps. I will also check the grounding to the water line.

At this point, I would tend to think that maybe there was some small surge without the power going out and these circuits were the path of least resistence for the current spike. Since these are not high dollar ballasts/fixtures, they might not have been able to take the spike.

Best Regards,
Justin

[Dennis Peacock]

Jim,

There are light circuits on both legs of the breaker panel. I have checked each outlet that the lights are plugged into with an outlet checker and everything says the circuit is fine. Since the circuits are in the basement, I do not think there has been any expansion or contraction due to heat. Each outlet reads 123 volts between hot and neutral. Since everything has been so dry recently, I will go outside and wet the grounding rod to see if that helps. I will also check the grounding to the water line.

At this point, I would tend to think that maybe there was some small surge without the power going out and these circuits were the path of least resistence for the current spike. Since these are not high dollar ballasts/fixtures, they might not have been able to take the spike.

Best Regards,
Justin


Justin,
It not necessarily going to be "outside ambient air temperature" that I would be talking about. Electrical wiring heats up and cools down with "load". The wire heats up, expands, load goes away, wire cools down and contracts. When I first started reading this thread I immediately thought...loose neutral...
Make sure all your connections are good and tight...all the way to the panel. If it was a lack of ground at your ground rod, you'd experience this problem to some degree throughout your entire house and not just your basement.