Dealing with Electrical Brownouts....?

[AJMD429]

.
Our rural homestead has three houses and two barns, coming from one pole transformer and one pad transformer. We had the usual twice-a-year flood this week, but nothing unusual.

However, I noticed that one bathroom light fixture seemed unusually dim this morning. It has a couple new (3-6 month old) LED bulbs that are the yellow-hue type.

The other fixtures with incandescent bulbs looked pretty normal. I thought perhaps there was a chance we were having low voltage so I unplugged the humidifier (it was the main motor driven appliance that would be running and might get burnt out with the voltage drop) but didn't do anything else.

When I got home this evening I noticed the same thing and it was definite this time, plus it was also happening with another light fixture using similar bulbs. I thought it would be the bulbs but there's no reason all of the bulbs would work well for several months and then all of a sudden all fail like that.

So I measured the voltage at an electrical outlet and it looks like it's about a hundred and six volts with an electrical meter and I get the same voltage in the light sockets, and outlets throughout the house. I tried using those bulbs in other light fixtures that were clearly on other circuits and they also are very dim there.

The other interesting thing is that they (all, simultaneously) brighten up after they've been on a few seconds sometimes but not always. Then they may get dim after a minute or so. This has not happened to any of these bulbs in the six months or so they've been installed and all begin today.

So I take a voltmeter and one of the bulbs to three of the other buildings, including ones on a different transformer, and all have the same situation with the bulb being dim and the voltage I think fairly low at 106 or so, although I don't know what this meter would show normally on a nominal 120 volt AC circuit.

I got nervous that there may be a low voltage that would mess up electrical motors so I temporarily unplugged freezers and pumps, but after doing a little research I realized our wells is shallow (20 ft) and has a 240 volt pump which is designed for 300 ft or more wells, so I'm assuming those pumps can take quite a bit of line droppage. From what I'm reading it looks like freezers can tolerate voltage down to about 102 or so. So I plug everything back in for the night. 3 hours ago I left a message for the power company to have a technician call but of course they didn't...

Any thoughts? Have any of you guys lived in situations where they were brownouts? Not sure how to detect them, or what leverage we have to get the power company to address them, if we can even prove that they are the problem.

[JimT]

I lived in Mozambique for 6 years where everything is 220. We had 170 to 180 coming into the base the first year. It burned up fridge and freezer motors, compressors on A/C and burned out florescent lights. The only light bulb that worked through it all with no issues were the incandescent bulbs.

We bought transformers that stepped up the voltage to the proper amount. They would cut off power if it got too low or too high. That saved all our appliances. The 5000 watt transformer for the A/c was expensive but cheaper than replacing the compressor or buying a new A/C.

Low voltage is as damaging as high voltage. Here in Texas we are using tools that monitor the voltage, amperage and measure the hertz.

[gcs]

I'm not an electrician, so even my guess's would be suspect, But I'd think the power company needs to check what voltage is coming in, and out of the transformers. with the whole complex affected the problem is probably on their end, only other thing is check your grounds.... On my place I used to have trouble with the lights dimming and flickering, found that whoever moved this house never reconnected the ground wire.

[GunnyMack]

Long shot but could be rodent damage. In one building I could see this but not all of your buildings.
For years I had an issue with reversed polarity. Electrician couldn't find the problem. What was also strange was if a bulb burned out the breaker would trip. Not that big a deal until one day the breaker would not reset. All said and done I had to gut the room to find the problem- mice chewed wires to the point that there was no insulation on the wires! A fire waiting to happen.
I was able to run new BX armored wires and put new insulation in the walls and put up new sheetrock. Before the walls were closed up I made sure to put a whole lot of mouse bait in the attic and part of the floor I cut open.

20230508_143839.jpg

[AJMD429]

.
I have OCD and so I framed, plumbed, a wired my house, and all the wiring is in metal conduit, so I’m sure no rodent damage there…!

With all buildings affected it has to be at the power company end.

[stretch]

Call your power company.

Low voltage situations are more common than you might think.

The power company is obligated to give you relatively clean power of the
correct voltage. If they fry your appliances with low or incorrect voltage,
they are usually on the hook for replacements.

-Stretch

[Grizz]

.
I have OCD and so I framed, plumbed, a wired my house, and all the wiring is in metal conduit, so I’m sure no rodent damage there…!

With all buildings affected it has to be at the power company end.

look at the voltage on the main breaker panel ahead of the breaker where the power enters the main panel, that will measure the incoming voltage. if you can flip off that breaker, (to isolate, but you might not want to), you will get the unloaded voltage. take photos and post to the power company's web site maybe ? my guess is that they know exactly what your downstream supply measures

[marlinman93]

First thing you need to do is to check voltage at the main leads in your service panel. If you have the same readings at those incoming leads then the issue isn't in your electrical service, it's at the power supplied by your utility.
Once you determine the issue is on the utility end you need to call them and get them to investigate what's wrong at their equipment. Since you have a transformer it may be possible they have a multiple tap setting, and can simply change the taps to raise voltage to 115v. per leg inside your home. If the transformer isn't adjustable they might need to look at the high voltage side of their feeders, or replace the transformer.
This does need to be addressed as it will likely reduce the life of any electrical components inside your home over time if ignored.

[AJMD429]

My meters (one digital one analog) both read 104-106 v AC last night and 112 v this morning.

I didn’t take photos but if happens again I sure will.

I was surprised that the LED bulbs seemed more obviously dim with a 10% voltage drop than the incandescents.

I’m tempted to get a voltage meter to permanently install at the breaker box that would record low and high readings, but they’re probably pretty expensive.

[marlinman93]

My meters (one digital one analog) both read 104-106 v AC last night and 112 v this morning.

I didn’t take photos but if happens again I sure will.

I was surprised that the LED bulbs seemed more obviously dim with a 10% voltage drop than the incandescents.

I’m tempted to get a voltage meter to permanently install at the breaker box that would record low and high readings, but they’re probably pretty expensive.

LED's are more sensitive because they are electronic and actually operate at a much lower voltage than the normal 120 volts they're fed with. They have internal circuitry that cuts them way down to operate. Incandescent lights are just a filament and will run at much lower levels, and they simply get dimmer, but never fail from too low voltage. They will fail from too high, and they make a nice brilliant poof when they reach a certain level!

Is there a reason you aren't just calling your power company? They fix these issues for free everyplace I've ever worked, so a call usually gets it taken care of quickly and no charge.

[AJMD429]

.
“…Is there a reason you aren't just calling your power company? They fix these issues for free everyplace I've ever worked, so a call usually gets it taken care of quickly and no charge...”

Yeah I called three times and no call back.

Third time I called the “life threatening emergency” line since a motor stalled due to low voltage could be dangerous, and still no response. I specifically asked for a technician to call me back, too.

One of the things I did when I built our house was ran a separate conduit system for installation of low-voltage wiring later on when LEDs would be taking over at least the lighting portion of home electricity. But for comparability during upgrades, instead of running low voltage wiring for lighting, the common way is still to wind up putting a transformer and voltage reduction circuitry in every lightbulb so they cost a whole bunch of money (and cannot possibly be environmentally as sensible as they are portrayed, since each one is so complicated). At least they do seem to last a long time - most of the time that is. Someday maybe we will get there to where the bulbs are cheap and environmentally sound.

What you say makes sense though, and while I suppose that 5 to 10% voltage reduction, resulting in a 5 to 10% reduction in lumens from my incandescents which was too subtle to notice, probably the LED bulbs with the less stable voltage regulator circuitry started to malfunction, whereas ones with better circuitry did better. I don’t know the difference internally, but the ones that are attempting to have the old-fashioned look and sort of yellowish hue with visible ‘filaments’ were the ones to destabilize.

No sure how to approach the power company when they don’t return calls. I guess I’ll deal with it on my next weekday off when their office staff might pick up the phone.

If things get really bad, I’ll sic the WIFE on them…!
God help them if she gets on the phone; she can do more with mere words than I could do with an M1A and Model 29 combined…

(…are all women like that…??? )

[Grizz]

Doc, could you possibly walk into the office with some photos, even though they should know the exact voltage at the drop? My guess is there is no one there who can make phone calls, or the que is a hundred cubits long . . . ): The low voltage could kill pumps and other motors . . .

[AJMD429]

.
Office 75 miles away so I’ll try phone first.

[Grizz]

.
Office 75 miles away so I’ll try phone first. !

32 minutes, Ja?
.
.
.

[marlinman93]

The LED voltage is usually only 6-7 VDC, so the circuitry cuts down the AC voltage, plus converts it to DC. Operating at such low voltage already, any low voltage on the AC 120v. side can cause them to drop out as only certain LED lights are dimmable, and others simply flicker or drop out.
Too bad the utility is so poor about responding! Around here if they don't respond within 24 hrs. they're in trouble with the public utilities commission.

[KWK]

... the common way is still to wind up putting a transformer and voltage reduction circuitry in every lightbulb so they cost a whole bunch of money (and cannot possibly be environmentally as sensible as they are portrayed, since each one is so complicated).

The circuit inside an LED bulb requires no transformer and is obviously fairly cheap or they couldn't sell them for $1. For small, low power bulbs, the circuit can be as simple as a diode and capacitor, if I recall.