Can anyone help with my problem?

[Tim Bolser]

I recently lost power to half of my mobile home, but no breakers were tripped. The park sent their electrician who ended up replacing the main electric line, from the meter on a meter box a few trailers down,to my trailer. Now all of the lights that were previously out blow as soon as I screw in a bulb and all of the 110v outlets that were previously out blow anything plugged in to them. I took a reading with a multi meter and they are reading 240v. What did they do and what needs to be done to fix it? Thank you

 

[Pommie]

Sounds like you're in America and they've connected two phases rather than one phase and neutral. Perhaps a USA based poster could explain in better terms than me.

Mike.

 

[Kart31]

So only your mobile home was affected in the aforementioned situation?

Household panels are fed with two 110V hot wires and one neutral. Sounds like the electrician swapped one of the hot legs with the neutral. You should find some circuits have 110V and other have 220V.

Typical panels have I worked with look like this on one side:

H1 - N
H2 - N
H1 - N
H2 - N

If you swap H2 and N you get:
H1 - H2
N- H2
H1 - H2
N - H2

The circuits connect to the first and third breaker read 220V, the second and fourth read 110V (albeit the line is on the wrong side of the breaker).

Not to make you day worse, but this could have also burned out you refrigerator and other non-switched appliances. 110V things don't take well to 220V. Hope you park electrician is insured.

 

[ClydeCrashKop]

It could be that neutral is disconnected.

 

[Reloadron]

The park sent their electrician who ended up replacing the main electric line, from the meter on a meter box a few trailers down,to my trailer.

This is where you call park maintenance and they send the electrician back. My guess and without seeing things is that the 240 VAC split phase feed was incorrectly wired. Should that be the case the problem is not really yours but the parks.

Ron

 

[Kart31]

It could be that neutral is disconnected.

How would disconnecting one of two terminals result in any voltage (ie., measuring from hot to floating)?

But that does make me wonder, OP, I presume you measured at the outlet from the left slot to the right slot in the receptacle. What does the left slot to ground and right slot to ground measure? When working on house wiring, I find it best to check everything (ie., every combination).

 

[Tim Bolser]

Ok. Yes it was only my trailer affected. It was about half or more of the lights and outlet plugs that zero power whatsoever. Then after they ran the new line from the meter and attached it to the trailer and turned it on, the light outlets that were previously off and had no power, were blowing as soon as I hit the switch, some even smoking. There are a list of things that were plugged in to those wall outlets throughout the home that were fried and no longer work. Thank God the refrigerator was plugged in to an outlet that stayed on the entire time and never lost power,so I am hoping that once everything is done correctly it will have not been effected. All of the wall outlets that were affected and lost power, when they were turned back on were all of the sudden 240v instead of 120v. The park office opens soon and I have to go explain this and have them fix the situation. Yeah it's been like this all weekend with no one to get a hold of. I appreciate your time and consideration in this matter. Any knowledge is helpful for me to get this done without getting bamboozled.

 

[ClydeCrashKop]

How would disconnecting one of two terminals result in any voltage (ie., measuring from hot to floating)?

Picture a heating element on leg 1 to neutral. Then a light bulb on leg 2 to neutral.

If neutral is disconnected, power goes from leg 2 through the bulb, through the heating element to leg 1.
220 volts straight across.

 

[Tim Bolser]

I also might mention that nobody ever came inside and nothing was ever done in the breaker box.

 

[Tim Bolser]

Left slot to ground reads 120 as does the right slot to ground.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Left slot to ground reads 120 as does the right slot to ground.

Which is 240 v between the slots, one of the slots should read very little voltage to ground (the neutral slot).

It's blindingly obvious what he's done, and it doesn't sound much like he's a real electrician?.

No such problems with civilised 240V mains single phase with three pin fused plugs and all sockets earthed

Having said that, if there was three phase available in the distibution box, an EXTREMELY incompetent 'bodger' could wire two lives instead of live and neutral (giving 440V), but it would be difficult to do by accident - and as far as I'm aware three phase wouldn't be available in an individual box?.

 

[Tim Bolser]

Thank you kindly Mr Goodwin. I've talked to the park who has in turn talked to the electrician co., and they will be out this morning to look at it. As far as damages go,for the items that got fried, the electrician told the woman in the park office that after they come and fix that I may need to call the Electric Company to come out and see if there line is pushing too much through. That it may be there fault. I don't know about that. Sounds an awful lot like B.S. and trying to pass the buck. Any knowledge of this or advice.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Thank you kindly Mr Goodwin. I've talked to the park who has in turn talked to the electrician co., and they will be out this morning to look at it. As far as damages go,for the items that got fried, the electrician told the woman in the park office that after they come and fix that I may need to call the Electric Company to come out and see if there line is pushing too much through. That it may be there fault. I don't know about that. Sounds an awful lot like B.S. and trying to pass the buck. Any knowledge of this or advice.

Yes it's BS, the incompetent electrician has far more likely wired it wrong.

 

[crutschow]

It's BS and has nothing to do with the power company.
The electrician(?) likely cross wired one of the hots with neutral.
That's easy to check at your electrical box.
He (or whoever hired him) should be liable for any damages.

 

[Tim Bolser]

How would you check it from the electrical box

 

[Kart31]

Box has three wires. Two hot, one neutral. Measure in pairs. One pair will give you 240V, the other two pairs will measure 120V.

You said they (he) was never in your box. So they cross occurred on one end of the other where he was working.

 

[Reloadron]

I appreciate your time and consideration in this matter. Any knowledge is helpful for me to get this done without getting bamboozled.

Hey Tim, I don't see any room for you to get bamboozled in this. This is something between the park and whoever they contracted with. Keep in mind you were the only affected residence and in view of that it tells me the line voltage would have been just fine had the contractor correctly replaced your feed line. Hopefully, today, Monday, the issue is resolved and yes, good thing a major appliance like the fridge was not cooked.

A few weeks ago my neighbor called me over complaining some of her lights "flickered". About two years ago her husband and I installed all new 200 amp service including the weatherhead. I went over and checked things and could find nothing wrong but thought it strange since the things "flickering" were on several different branch circuits but when I checked the lines everything was normal. Then a week later she called again and this time she said they flickered and then half the house went out. Checked the mains panel and sure enough 1/2 the mains power was missing. The weatherhead looked fine so time to call the power company. Here is an example of power company and customer responsibility. The link is for DelMarVa Power but in most cases it plays out this way for residential US power. I am not sure how this plays out in a mobile home park. In my neighbors case a line had become loose at the transformer and about 12 other residences were affected. Power company resolved it within about 3 hours of her calling it in.

Regardless this is not your problem. Well other than what has affected you but not your problem to repair or fix. Pretty apparent what happened here. whoever the contractor was screwed things up.

Ron

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

You really shouldn't get too much involved. A 4-wire receptacle for a 240 V appliance would be helpful. Oven, dryer, stove. You could measure there.

But for purposes of illustration, take the photo of a breaker panel here: **broken link removed**

Power is fed at the base of the box in this scenereo.

there are basically 4 wires.

Ground, going to the enclosure. (G)

Then two large wires essentially in breaker space. These are the 120 out of phase lines; Call them L1 and L2. A 240 V breaker takes a feed from each side.

Then you see a black wire taped white which is neutral. (N)

Note that there is a main breaker for the panel.

So in this scenereo, you should have:

240 between L1 & L2
120 between L1 and G and L1 and N
120 between L2 and G and L2 and N

Very little voltage between G and N.

Now some notes. A typical house has a single panel, but may include "sub-panels". Furthermore, these "sub-panels" can be put in a "detached structure" and "attached structure".

"detached structure" would be a stand-alone garage or shed.
"Attached structure" would be a garage as part of the house.

These are wired "dfferently"

"Detached" panels keep the ground and neutral totally separated from each other in the panel.
The main panel doesn't care. Ground and neutral are the same bus,

Your trailer is probably thought of as a "detached structure", so my guess is ground and neutral would be separate and isolated,
There would be a ground rod (Earth) at your panel.

The point is, ground and neutral need to be joined at only one point.

so re-labing stuff as L1, L2, Neutral, Protective ground and Earth things may make more sense.

The "ground rod" or earth is mostly out of the picture.

Panels are classified as "main lug" and "Main breaker". The main lug type of panel does not have a breaker that turns off all of the power.
A "main breaker" type of panel needs an extra set of ground connections and needs the neutral to ground bond connection broken.

So, you can tell what happened by opening the main panel to your trailer because G, N, Earth L1 and L2 are easily identified/

 

[Kart31]

The OP said mobile home, not RV. He is also talking 240V. I'm not sure of any RV using 240V (I have never seen a campground offering 240V service in over 25 years of RVing). 50A 120V service I have seen, and looks an awful lot like 240V. I'm thinking this is a "modular" home with an actual main panel. The ground and neutral should be connected in/via the panel.

You assume the electrician taped the wire. If they had this likely wouldn't be an issue. The OP also mentioned the electrician was never in his box. What ever happened, occurred wiring the feeder. Not sure how, but I'm hoping the OP will tell us.

 

[gary350]

Tell the Trailer Park about the problem, then call city code department and report the problem. Just in case the Trailer Park is slow getting things done or does not want to spend more money on an electrician that should fix it for free because it was his mistake, City Code will make sure the problem is fixed quick. Report the problem to your insurance company too if you own your own trailer. Insurance company will be calling the trailer park to put a fire under their butt to get it fixed. If your trailer burns from electric problem insurance company will make sure Trailer Parks pays for damages including burned out light bulbs & appliances.