[ikes]

Woke up this morning and a bunch of circuits had no power. Other circuits are just fine. My wife tried to use the electric stove not realizing that it didn't have power either and found that when she just barely turned it on, the microwave above it started clicking as if it was trying to turn on. The digital display did not turn on but continued clicking. Soon after the printer then turned on too! But when turning the stove any further "up" than this then everything went off again. We also have a completely separate electric oven. Turns out...same thing. Just barely turn it on and microwave and printer start working. But no more than just barely. So I'm thinking the problem is with the 240Vs but I have no idea what it could be! No idea where to even start looking.

Any suggestions?

Thanks much!
Dan

 

[ikes]

Also, none of the fuses on the circuit breaker panel tripped.

 

[Daniel Holzman]

Start by calling the power company and reporting the outage. Could be on their end. If not the POCO, hire an electrician to figure out where the problem is.

 

[joed]

You are describing the the problem of one of your hot line being open. Either blown fuse or lose connection.
If you have fuses then check the mains. If not then call the POCO. You could measure the incoming power for 240 volts across the hots. With the main off you could also measure each line to neutral. With the mains on you will probably still get 120 volts on each side as the voltage feeds through 240 volt devices. But you won't get 240 volts across them.

 

[Desertdrifter]

Where are you located? People from all over post questions here. Some countries have different voltages as norm.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ikes]

Solution

Thanks for the replies everyone! I'm in Pennsylvania.

After talking to an electrician, I measured the voltage across each circuit and found that every other circuit on each leg of the panel was dead. I expected only the left or only the right to be dead but as I later found out, horizontal pairs of circuits alternate left and right. So I had lost one leg of my 120V. Sure enough, I measured across the feed from the town and only got 120V. From one leg to ground was 120V but the other was zero. So I knew the problem was outside. The electrician suggested asking neighbors if they were having a similar problem but they were not. So I knew the problem was from the pole to my house. So I called PECO and they sent a crew out within the hour. Immediately they saw a branch over the line to the house had been rubbing the line and wore away one of the 120V lines! So they cut the branch and fixed the line and I'm good to go!

Learned more about how my house works than I have in a long time! Thanks again!

Dan

 

[mikegp]

Don't have time to read it all, but sounds like you lost a leg. Probably on the power company's end. They'll probably fix it before you complain.