Square D > Me

J

JayteeBates

[H]ard|Poof
Joined
Jul 21, 2007
Messages
5,104
Power has been the root of my problems - I need to vent.

So I have been tinkering with PC's a long time. I'm a fairly decent admin and yada yada just like a lot of you folks here. What I lack though is more than a basic appreciation for electricity. While I know Ohm's law and the basics - that is it and have no practical experience with wiring. So I am trying to learn more. I rent a house built in 1950. It has an extremely old Square D panel which does not have a main disconnect and nothing in the house is grounded - not even the breaker box. So needless to say it isn't the best situation for high performance computing.

Previously I had been running a BFG ES-800 powering my oldrig a Asus P6T Deluxe/i7-920/6GB Corsair/XFX 5870/HDDs etc. Everything ran fine until the BFG died. Replaced with a Corsair TX850 everything still ran ok. Then came Christmas 2010...wife spoils me with 3x Acer 120Hz monitors. So I have to run them that day and buy som GTX 460's from Worst Buy. Again everything ran ok all 3 monitors were good. I then go out and upgrade to a Thermaltake Toughpower 1200 and SLI GTX 580's.

Everything went to shit. I was going insane. Nothing I did made the least difference. It would work random amounts of time - couple hours - 5 minutes - sometimes not boot for a while - just totally unpredictable. Went down to one 580 and it got better but still had inconsistancies. Tried 3 different sets of Corsair 1600, two of them brand new. Although I already had everything on UPS units, I went and bought a brand new APC 1500VA UPS unit and an Antec HCP-1200. It was better but still had issues.

Finally I said #)(*$# _)(&#@ _@(&%^T and took both the Antec HCP and the Thermaltake Toughpower and used them both on different circuits with their own UPS unit. Put the Thermaltake on as the Motherboard power supply and the HCP as the Video Card supply. Even went back to SLI and had no problems gaming for 4 hours last night on all 3 monitors.

I have an electrician from work coming out and see about putting at least one grounded outlet into the house if at all possible. I'm not even bothering trying to get the landlord to do it, I need it done now and professionally. I now have a much greater appreciation for the need for good clean power.

Oddly the entire house has been nicely maintained and even updated in some ways but they didn't touch the wiring. The landlord grew up here (rural Mississippi) which is probably why.

Cliffs:

Rent Old House (1950)
Wiring is from 1950 - Nothing grounded at all and no main disconnect
i7 SLI system > my house wiring
Going to get a professional electrician at my own expense to put in one outlet
I fail at electricity but hope to get better
 
Ground the main circuit panel with a ground rod. It'll help keep line side probs out of the house.
 
I am not an electrician but since you're already going to the trouble of having one come out perhaps you should have him run one new dedicated grounded 20A circuit for just your computer and be done with it for as long as you live there.
 
Ultima99 said:
I am not an electrician but since you're already going to the trouble of having one come out perhaps you should have him run one new dedicated grounded 20A circuit for just your computer and be done with it for as long as you live there.
Click to expand...

That is the plan.
 
Yea you definitely need a ground. Without one surge protection isn't possible.
 
Well had some electricians from work come out and within about 3 hours total they had installed a 8' grounding rod, ran the cable and replaced every breaker in my box (at my request). It was funny when they drilled up from the floor into the wall for the run to go up to the breaker box. When they started to push the cable up they said they might have to cut away some of the drywall to guide the wire into the box. There was only 1 hole in the bottom of the breaker box and it already had a wire in it. Wouldn't you know it - they pushed it up right beside the old wire by sheer dumb luck. They started laughing saying that was one in a million.

Everything is working good and I have a ground on that plug now. The only negativething is that the ground and neutral are still tied together in the box but I can't reqire a rented house so I will have to live with it for now.

Maybe some of you electrical folks can explain something to me. How is it that you can touch the neutral side of the box and not get shocked? I thought current had to flow from one side to the other for things to run. Wouldn't that make the neutral "hot" too? Bare with me I am trying to learn.
 
JayteeBates said:
Maybe some of you electrical folks can explain something to me. How is it that you can touch the neutral side of the box and not get shocked? I thought current had to flow from one side to the other for things to run. Wouldn't that make the neutral "hot" too? Bare with me I am trying to learn.
Click to expand...
The neutral line is 0V (hence why it's called neutral; the other two phases are 120V RMS with one having a waveform that is the inverse of the other's). If you just touch the neutral line and nothing else, you're not making a circuit so no current will flow. If you did make a circuit between it and another conductive object that also has no voltage, no current will flow since there is no potential difference (there has to be a difference in voltage between two connected points for current to flow between them).
 
I'm still a bit cloudy on that - so an outlet has a hot, neutral and gnd pins. If the hot touches the neutral current will flow correct? So if current is flowing I still don't get why the neutral isn't "hot". I'm thinking along the lines of a water pipe. So if I have a source and it is capped (unplugged) nothing is flowing but there is pressure (voltage) in the source (hot). Once I connect the source (hot) to something (neutral) water will flow from the source to the other point (neutral). I.E. Why isn't there water (voltage) at the neutral.
 
The neutral is grounded at the power panel. Loads are supposed to connect across hot and neutral to control where active current usually flows, as you point out. Near to heavy loads the neutral can become elevated due to voltage drop along the cable run. The ground is connected throughout the system as a safety feature. Three prong appliances connect ground to cases, usually, and modern electrical systems have all conduits and junction boxes grounded "just in case". Polarized two prong loads treat neutral and ground equivalently and the keying of the plug is to ensure that neutral is always connected to the expected prong.

If the neutral wasn't grounded at the power panel there would be no circuit to complete between hot and true ground either until you work back to pole transformers or something which may be grounded. The grounding of neutral at the panel ties ground and neutral to the same potential at the box, making "ground" a sink for electrical potential applied to the "hot".

I could believe that your 1950s dwelling may not have had any 3 prong outlets, but I have a hard time believing that NOTHING was grounded at all, including the panel. Shocking. (pun intended)
 
JayteeBates said:
I'm still a bit cloudy on that - so an outlet has a hot, neutral and gnd pins. If the hot touches the neutral current will flow correct? So if current is flowing I still don't get why the neutral isn't "hot". I'm thinking along the lines of a water pipe. So if I have a source and it is capped (unplugged) nothing is flowing but there is pressure (voltage) in the source (hot). Once I connect the source (hot) to something (neutral) water will flow from the source to the other point (neutral). I.E. Why isn't there water (voltage) at the neutral.
Click to expand...
If you touch a metal fork, does current flow? No, because the fork doesn't have any voltage. If you wired that fork into a circuit with a battery and a light bulb, will current flow through it? Yes. The neutral wire doesn't inherently have any voltage. However, connect it to a source of voltage and current will flow through it, because there is a potential difference between it and the voltage source. If you touch it without touching something else that has a nonzero voltage, then there will be nothing to create a current through your body.
 
I understand what you are saying there - however I have lights on so something is connected to both that neutral and the hot side or I wouldn't have any lights on. So because I have a light on isn't current flowing to the neutral bar in the box? That's what I am not understanding, I do understand that if nothing is on no current is flowing.

Thank you for responding, I really do appreciate it.
 
JayteeBates said:
I understand what you are saying there - however I have lights on so something is connected to both that neutral and the hot side or I wouldn't have any lights on. So because I have a light on isn't current flowing to the neutral bar in the box? That's what I am not understanding, I do understand that if nothing is on no current is flowing.

Thank you for responding, I really do appreciate it.
Click to expand...

Current is flowing but that doesn't mean that there is significant potential (voltage) at the neutral. The load is powered by the voltage drop across the load multiplied by the current flowing. The voltage/potential you measure at the neutral terminal is already dropped across the load thus doing work. There will be voltage drop between the neutral terminal on the load and the panel neutral as well which can be calculated by I^2*R (I is current, R is the resistance of the wire - typically very near 0). Only large loads (or crappy wiring) will cause the neutral terminal at the load to elevate due to I^2*R losses in the wiring. To use your water analogy, the water on the neutral is dribbling down the drain, not spraying from the shower head. Or another water analogy: the water in the "hot" is at the top of Niagara falls and the water at the neutral and ground are at the bottom. When the water falls it can spin a generator, grain mill, or whatever really fast (doing work like a load) but once it's at the bottom (voltage drop) there's no more potential there.

Because the neutral is grounded at the panel this defines the neutral to be at or very near "ground potential" which is the average potential in the environment. This is why the neutral seems to carry "no voltage" and you can touch it without completing a circuit with objects in your environment.

As an added fun fact, note that generally a residential neutral terminal is actually the center tap of a 240VAC transformer. Again, tying neutral to ground determines that you end up with 2 120VAC opposing "phases" for practical purposes. This is related to why you must attempt to equally load the two phases or the voltage will start to become unbalanced.
 
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Surly73 said:
Or another water analogy: the water in the "hot" is at the top of Niagara falls and the water at the neutral and ground are at the bottom. When the water falls it can spin a generator, grain mill, or whatever really fast (doing work like a load) but once it's at the bottom (voltage drop) there's no more potential there.
Click to expand...

I get it now - thank you. That makes sense, the current is used up doing whatever is being done. Sometimes it helps so much to have someone put it in terms you are already thinking.
 
Surly73 said:
I could believe that your 1950s dwelling may not have had any 3 prong outlets, but I have a hard time believing that NOTHING was grounded at all, including the panel. Shocking. (pun intended)
Click to expand...

According to the electricians who came out the neutral in the breaker box was connected to the incomming neutral from the meter. On the outside they added a copper wire running from the incomming neutral line (from the pole before it entered the meter base) to the 8' ground rod they installed.

One of them said they didn't like tying ground and neutral together like that but it was really the only choice short of rewiring everything which is not an option as we rent.
 
JayteeBates said:
I get it now - thank you. That makes sense, the current is used up doing whatever is being done. Sometimes it helps so much to have someone put it in terms you are already thinking.
Click to expand...

Not so much used up, as much as it just has no reason to go any where else. The current that goes in has to come back out.

JayteeBates said:
According to the electricians who came out the neutral in the breaker box was connected to the incomming neutral from the meter. On the outside they added a copper wire running from the incomming neutral line (from the pole before it entered the meter base) to the 8' ground rod they installed.

One of them said they didn't like tying ground and neutral together like that but it was really the only choice short of rewiring everything which is not an option as we rent.
Click to expand...

I don't know why they wouldn't like it. That's the way modern boxes are wired. There's a bar that connects the ground bus to the neutral bus to prevent the neutral from "floating".
 
I asked them about it and apparently I didn't totally understand what they were getting at. The issue he said being that if for example the hot wire in an appliance came loose and touched the metal case of the device it wouldn't pop the breaker as there are no ground wires on all my plugs except the one he just installed. (the wiring is old 1950's two wire cabling).
 
JayteeBates said:
I asked them about it and apparently I didn't totally understand what they were getting at. The issue he said being that if for example the hot wire in an appliance came loose and touched the metal case of the device it wouldn't pop the breaker as there are no ground wires on all my plugs except the one he just installed. (the wiring is old 1950's two wire cabling).
Click to expand...

Wait he tied the ground to the neutral at the new plug? Yeah, that creates the potential for an extremely dangerous condition then. If for reason the neutral in your house disconnect in the breaker box (not unheard of at all), then everything in your house is now liable to be energized if there was a ground fault in something plugged into that outlet.
 
No he didn't tie them together at the plug, the new plug is wired normally with the ground and neutral both going back to the neutral bar back in the box. I must not be explaining it right - in short he said it isn't an imminent problem but isn't the way he would do a job normally.
 
I would expect a 1950's house to use BX cable, the BX sheathing grounding the outlet boxes. This was why the old three prong to two prong adapter plugs had a wire to attach to the outlet center screw.
Boxes were supposed to be grounded to eight foot posts, though usually galvinized steel or aluminum wire was used. Or so I remember. Sometimes the ground wire ran to the copper water line. A lot of depression era do it yourself still around. At least you have plastic coated wires instead of cloth.
I would expect to see fuses in a 1950's house at least an early 1950's one.
I would be inclined to check polarity on your outlets, as attention was not always paid to this.
Are your wires BX or Romex?
Why am I thinking early 50's?
 
JayteeBates said:
Power has been the root of my problems - I need to vent.

So I have been tinkering with PC's a long time. I'm a fairly decent admin and yada yada just like a lot of you folks here. What I lack though is more than a basic appreciation for electricity. While I know Ohm's law and the basics - that is it and have no practical experience with wiring. So I am trying to learn more. I rent a house built in 1950. It has an extremely old Square D panel which does not have a main disconnect and nothing in the house is grounded - not even the breaker box. So needless to say it isn't the best situation for high performance computing.

Previously I had been running a BFG ES-800 powering my oldrig a Asus P6T Deluxe/i7-920/6GB Corsair/XFX 5870/HDDs etc. Everything ran fine until the BFG died. Replaced with a Corsair TX850 everything still ran ok. Then came Christmas 2010...wife spoils me with 3x Acer 120Hz monitors. So I have to run them that day and buy som GTX 460's from Worst Buy. Again everything ran ok all 3 monitors were good. I then go out and upgrade to a Thermaltake Toughpower 1200 and SLI GTX 580's.

Everything went to shit. I was going insane. Nothing I did made the least difference. It would work random amounts of time - couple hours - 5 minutes - sometimes not boot for a while - just totally unpredictable. Went down to one 580 and it got better but still had inconsistancies. Tried 3 different sets of Corsair 1600, two of them brand new. Although I already had everything on UPS units, I went and bought a brand new APC 1500VA UPS unit and an Antec HCP-1200. It was better but still had issues.

Finally I said #)(*$# _)(&#@ _@(&%^T and took both the Antec HCP and the Thermaltake Toughpower and used them both on different circuits with their own UPS unit. Put the Thermaltake on as the Motherboard power supply and the HCP as the Video Card supply. Even went back to SLI and had no problems gaming for 4 hours last night on all 3 monitors.

I have an electrician from work coming out and see about putting at least one grounded outlet into the house if at all possible. I'm not even bothering trying to get the landlord to do it, I need it done now and professionally. I now have a much greater appreciation for the need for good clean power.

Oddly the entire house has been nicely maintained and even updated in some ways but they didn't touch the wiring. The landlord grew up here (rural Mississippi) which is probably why.

Cliffs:

Rent Old House (1950)
Wiring is from 1950 - Nothing grounded at all and no main disconnect
i7 SLI system > my house wiring
Going to get a professional electrician at my own expense to put in one outlet
I fail at electricity but hope to get better
Click to expand...

Hi, JayteeBates,

I feel your pain. I'm in a small town in Se Mississippi in a house built in the 1870s and rewired in the 1980s by an electrician in his 70s who didn't think anything would change ... ever! The ceiling lights were zoned into two zone the north side and the southside and the wall plugs were zoned into three zones of 2 to three rooms each all in a 100 Amp box.

No problems until the age of multiple refrigerators and freezers, five ceiling fans, big screen t.v.s, and computers. Then breakers started tripping on a regular basis.

Try to find a professional electrician. then try to get him to show up. It took me two and half years to find someone. Luckily he was a true professional and had the rezoning, etc. completed in three days.

He he install a 200 Amp box, rezoned everything, made sure all the wall plug worked and were properly grounded, installed an outside box with a Master Breaker (we didn't have one), and an outside surge suppressor. As the caregiver for my 80+ year old parents I can tell you I sleep more comfortably at night ... :D

Chuklr
 
JayteeBates said:
Power has been the root of my problems - I need to vent.

So I have been tinkering with PC's a long time. I'm a fairly decent admin and yada yada just like a lot of you folks here. What I lack though is more than a basic appreciation for electricity. While I know Ohm's law and the basics - that is it and have no practical experience with wiring. So I am trying to learn more. I rent a house built in 1950. It has an extremely old Square D panel which does not have a main disconnect and nothing in the house is grounded - not even the breaker box. So needless to say it isn't the best situation for high performance computing.

Previously I had been running a BFG ES-800 powering my oldrig a Asus P6T Deluxe/i7-920/6GB Corsair/XFX 5870/HDDs etc. Everything ran fine until the BFG died. Replaced with a Corsair TX850 everything still ran ok. Then came Christmas 2010...wife spoils me with 3x Acer 120Hz monitors. So I have to run them that day and buy som GTX 460's from Worst Buy. Again everything ran ok all 3 monitors were good. I then go out and upgrade to a Thermaltake Toughpower 1200 and SLI GTX 580's.

Everything went to shit. I was going insane. Nothing I did made the least difference. It would work random amounts of time - couple hours - 5 minutes - sometimes not boot for a while - just totally unpredictable. Went down to one 580 and it got better but still had inconsistancies. Tried 3 different sets of Corsair 1600, two of them brand new. Although I already had everything on UPS units, I went and bought a brand new APC 1500VA UPS unit and an Antec HCP-1200. It was better but still had issues.

Finally I said #)(*$# _)(&#@ _@(&%^T and took both the Antec HCP and the Thermaltake Toughpower and used them both on different circuits with their own UPS unit. Put the Thermaltake on as the Motherboard power supply and the HCP as the Video Card supply. Even went back to SLI and had no problems gaming for 4 hours last night on all 3 monitors.

I have an electrician from work coming out and see about putting at least one grounded outlet into the house if at all possible. I'm not even bothering trying to get the landlord to do it, I need it done now and professionally. I now have a much greater appreciation for the need for good clean power.

Oddly the entire house has been nicely maintained and even updated in some ways but they didn't touch the wiring. The landlord grew up here (rural Mississippi) which is probably why.

Cliffs:

Rent Old House (1950)
Wiring is from 1950 - Nothing grounded at all and no main disconnect
i7 SLI system > my house wiring
Going to get a professional electrician at my own expense to put in one outlet
I fail at electricity but hope to get better
Click to expand...

Hi, JayteeBates,

I feel your pain. I'm in a small town in SE Mississippi in a house built in the 1870s and rewired in the 1980s by an electrician in his 70s who didn't think anything would change ... ever! The ceiling lights were zoned into two zones the north side and the southside and the wall plugs were zoned into three zones of 2 to three rooms each all in a 100 Amp box.

No problems until the age of multiple refrigerators and freezers, five ceiling fans, big screen t.v.s, and computers. Then breakers started tripping on a regular basis.

Try to find a professional electrician. then try to get him to show up. It took me two and half years to find someone. Luckily he was a true professional and had the rezoning, etc. completed in three days.

He he install a 200 Amp box, rezoned everything, made sure all the wall plug worked and were properly grounded, installed an outside box with a Master Breaker (we didn't have one), and an outside surge suppressor. As the caregiver for my 80+ year old parents I can tell you I sleep more comfortably at night ... :D

Chuklr
 
Surly73 said:
The neutral is grounded at the power panel.
Click to expand...

No the neutral should be bonded (grounded) at the first point of disconnect which might be in the meter. There has to be a main breaker somewhere.

JayteeBates said:
I get it now - thank you. That makes sense, the current is used up doing whatever is being done. Sometimes it helps so much to have someone put it in terms you are already thinking.
Click to expand...

Thats not necessarily true. Break the neutral on a circuit with a load and grab both ends of the wire, you'll get a nasty shock. The neutral can be more dangerous than the hot wire if there is a load on the circuit. It's the amperage that kills.

wtourist said:
I would expect a 1950's house to use BX cable, the BX sheathing grounding the outlet boxes. This was why the old three prong to two prong adapter plugs had a wire to attach to the outlet center screw.
Boxes were supposed to be grounded to eight foot posts, though usually galvinized steel or aluminum wire was used. Or so I remember. Sometimes the ground wire ran to the copper water line. A lot of depression era do it yourself still around. At least you have plastic coated wires instead of cloth.
I would expect to see fuses in a 1950's house at least an early 1950's one.
I would be inclined to check polarity on your outlets, as attention was not always paid to this.
Are your wires BX or Romex?
Why am I thinking early 50's?
Click to expand...

When I heard 1950s I had also assumed that the house had BX. The jacket on armored cable or BX acts as a bond. Is there any chance that the main feed that comes from the meter is BX cable?
 
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There is no main breaker within the Square D box, the meter would have to be removed to disconnect power from what I was told.
 
JayteeBates said:
There is no main breaker within the Square D box, the meter would have to be removed to disconnect power from what I was told.
Click to expand...

Well, thats pretty dangerous. That is without a doubt an illegal install. A service change or at least a panel swap might not be a bad idea.
 
I would definitely get a main installed, either a separate cut off switch, or replace the whole panel. Not to mention save yourself the expense of having the meter pulled.

I personally prefer having a cut off switch so if I need to do work in the panel I can cut the power before it even enters the panel. The main on the panel does isolate the bus bar, but I just like to play it safe.
 
Well the fact that there is no form of overcurrent protection on the panel is a bit dangerous. If you need to kill the main to do a little work in your panel it's probably best that you don't touch any wiring. I've seen a lot of nasty homeowner shoemaking.
 
Thing is the OP rents a house and it doesnt sound like he is anxious to deal with the landlord over this. With all he needs done to the house I think the best answer is to move! :p
 
It is otherwise a great place for $500 a month. I got the new plug I needed installed and it works great. I should take a pic for you guys of the panel. It was installed in 1950. It didn't have to meet any of the new codes.
 
JayteeBates said:
It is otherwise a great place for $500 a month. I got the new plug I needed installed and it works great. I should take a pic for you guys of the panel. It was installed in 1950. It didn't have to meet any of the new codes.
Click to expand...

A main breaker in the panel or the meter if it is more than a certain distance from the panel is not a new code. Believe it or not that isn't too old for a service as long as it is done well. Yeah, it wouldn't be enough of an issue for me to move especially at that price.
 
You could always have your meter box changed to one that includes a main breaker.


BababooeyHTJ said:
A main breaker in the panel or the meter if it is more than a certain distance from the panel is not a new code. Believe it or not that isn't too old for a service as long as it is done well. Yeah, it wouldn't be enough of an issue for me to move especially at that price.
Click to expand...

The thing about code is that it's not law. Any region can adopt any part of it they want, or none of it at all. In 1950 rural MS, his house may very well have surpassed any code requirement they had at the time.
 
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ryan_975 said:
You could always have your meter box changed to one that includes a main breaker.
Click to expand...

You would then need to swap the service cable going from the meter to the panel from a two wire to a three wire and move the ground wire to the meter and who knows what other problems you might run into. You might as well do a full service change at that point.

ryan_975 said:
The thing about code is that it's not law. Any region can adopt any part of it they want, or none of it at all. In 1950 rural MS, his house may very well have surpassed any code requirement they had at the time.
Click to expand...

It is done by state normally. For example here in CT we use the 2005 NEC. Services on the other hand can vary based on what the local utility company requires.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
You would then need to swap the service cable going from the meter to the panel from a two wire to a three wire and move the ground wire to the meter and who knows what other problems you might run into. You might as well do a full service change at that point.
Click to expand...

Why in the world would there only be two wires from the meter to the panel?
 
ryan_975 said:
Why in the world would there only be two wires from the meter to the panel?
Click to expand...

You normally don't count the ground/neutral (in this case) in an SEU cable. If you have your main in the meter you need a separate ground and neutral going to the panel, in this case you would use an SER cable. Thats if you are using a cable and not a conduit for the feed.

Go to a supply house or even a home depot and ask for some 14/2 or 12/2 romex, you don't normally count the ground.
 
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BababooeyHTJ said:
You normally don't count the ground/neutran in an SEU cable. If you have your main in the meter you need a separate ground and neutral going to the panel, in this case you would use an SER cable. Thats if you are using a cable and not a conduit for the feed.

Go to a supply house or even a home depot and ask for some 14/2 or 12/2 romex, you don't normally count the ground.
Click to expand...

I knew you didn't count the ground, but 14/2 and 12/2 do count the neutral. I didn't know the neutral didn't count with service entrance cables..
 
ryan_975 said:
I knew you didn't count the ground, but 14/2 and 12/2 do count the neutral. I didn't know the neutral didn't count with service entrance cables..
Click to expand...

There is no separate neutral and ground before the first point of disconnect (the main breaker). SEU is a strange wire, its a bit hard to describe but the neutral is actually just some bare strands of wire that wrap around the two ungrounded conductors (hot wires). You actually need to twist them together yourself.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
There is no separate neutral and ground before the first point of disconnect (the main breaker). SEU is a strange wire, its a bit hard to describe but the neutral is actually just some bare strands of wire that wrap around the two ungrounded conductors (hot wires). You actually need to twist them together yourself.
Click to expand...

The wiring in my house isn''t like that. We've got three separate cables (twisted around each other) going from the meter box to the breaker box.. But the boxes are right beside each other, so that may be why it's like that.
 
Check the condition of the insulation on the wires to the meter. The climate may be milder but its not unusual to have insolation that leaks in wet weather here when it gets that old.
In this state, at least used to be, the power company was responsible for the wires from the pole to the house. Take a good look and ask. I think that means into the box not just the meter but I don't know.
 
ryan_975 said:
The wiring in my house isn''t like that. We've got three separate cables (twisted around each other) going from the meter box to the breaker box.. But the boxes are right beside each other, so that may be why it's like that.
Click to expand...

Strange, that sounds like the cable that is rated for open air like you would see going from the pole to your house. Is there a jacket on the cable?
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
Strange, that sounds like the cable that is rated for open air like you would see going from the pole to your house. Is there a jacket on the cable?
Click to expand...

nope. It's almost just like the cable coming in from the pole to the meter, except the neutral is also insulated. My dad's house is the same way, and I remember the underground pull they did for a house we built when I was younger was also the same (the meter was on the pole about 30' behind the house).


it's just like this one (the wires coming in, not the actual load center).
http://bellsouthpwp2.net/c/i/cieszynskib/LoadCenter.jpg
 
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Has to be multiwire usually attached to a weight bearing wire. Sixty years would be a long time for plastic in "sun and wind and weather" . Just know my parents line peeled, damp and a little wind effected power quality then. Tree branches with snow may have helped but still.
I remember two fuses in the meter box. Got to admit most of my experience was submarines and shop three phase.
 
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