home not getting 220v

Question

The power company turned off power due to late payment.

The power is now on. Lights, tv, etc work.

What's not working is the water pump, dryer, ac/heater.

Called the power company and their side is good.

So here is what I have done so far:

• Checked the inside house breakers, none tripped or bad.
• Went outside of house to breakers for ac/heater and ones for water pump. None are tripped or bad.

That leaves the 100amp box/breaker just after the meter box. I have 110v and 99v coming from each leg thru the 100a breaker, checked between legs for amps and i get 20a+-. I should be getting 220-240a, right? So maybe the 100a breaker has a bad leg?

Next I checked the 100a breaker where the meter box wires screw into the 100a breaker. Now here is where I'm a little confused. I checked for the volts from meter wires and the ground wire from meterbox. One leg is 120v(good), the other leg reads 0v(no power?). The eletric company says all is fine on their side. Am I testing wrong?

Answer 1

You are mixing amps (a) and volts (v) in your description so I can't tell what you have measured from that. I seriously doubt you are measuring amps, so assuming you are measuring volts, having a 20V difference between the two legs indicates a serious problem with something; either your skill-set or the equipment. I agree that you should exercise the main breaker a couple of times; a bug may have crawled into it while it was off, and now its squished carcass is causing a resistance. After that, it's time to call an electrician.

Answer 2

Check 'leg to leg' across the main feeders (just after the meter). It can be:
a>0V [less than 50V] (this case the two legs are connected to the same tap on the transformer -> call power company),
b>110V [between 90 and 130] (one leg is connected to the neutral -> call power company),
c>220V [greater than 180](all should work properly) -> call an electrician (failure is on your side)

Anyway, if you don't get 220V hot to hot just after the meter (a qualified electrician can sign a paper as proof), fill a written complain to your power company and ask them to fix and for a compensation on next bill because of the annoyance. (suggest you to ask for half the duty as you get only half the voltage.)

Answer 3

It sounds like they ether pulled the meter or there is a meter disconnecting switch in the meter base. In both cases it sounds like one leg is not making concact. If you turn all the home 240 breakers off , the low voltage on the one leg may disappear as the voltage from the one leg is traveling through the load and showing up on the leg that is not connected. There should be full voltage 120 or close from each leg to ground at the meter and 240 leg to leg after the meter. In the old days we used to pull meters and I have had both issues with a bad connection from the meter socket or meter disconnect. Not having proper voltage prior to the main disconnect needs to be repaired by the utility as most don't allow electricians to do this any longer except in an emergency.